Microsoft Teams combines video conferencing software with team collaboration tools. The communications platform allows MS Office users to conduct conference calls and share files via SharePoint, and join or initiate a group chat.
$4.80
per month per user
Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation
Score7 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Proposal management and RFP response software
N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Teams
Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation
Editions & Modules
Microsoft Teams Essentials
$4.80
per month per user
Microsoft Teams Enterprise
$5.25
per month (paid yearly) per user
Microsoft Teams Enterprise
$5.25
per month per user
Microsoft 365 Business Basic
$7.20
per month per user
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
$15
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Teams
Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
Discounts are available for non profit organizations.
It's amazing as a daily driver for team communication, and document search/store. Also, if you're doing a lot of LONG meetings and have trouble remembering details, the AI summarization is amazing and convenient. It just works. I'm not saying I always do this, of course, but if I need to 'skim' instead of really digging into every detail from a meeting, the AI-generated summary is generally good enough that I can get away with it.
This software is very well-suited to companies who find themselves expanding their footprint, the number of their Sales representatives, their territories, and/or their products and services and need to maximize their ability to both keep up with those demands whilst streamlining their proposal resources. Further, this is a very powerful tool with a lot of features and functionality including CRM plug-in and reporting. Thus, it may be less appropriate for a very small organization with only one product and that is also blessed with lengthy cradle-to-grave turnaround windows. In addition, to better the odds for success an investment in upfront personnel training and either a dedicated periodic window of time and/or dedicated person(s) for content upkeep are prudent. Finally, working with the vendor is a delight as they make every effort to maintain and deliver a product that both meets your needs and on which you can rely.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Using Qvidian as an RFP tool has made a difference in our RFP process, turn-around time, and content development. It's helped us streamline our RFP process so that we are able to produce the majority of the document before the kick-off meeting, which means we have more time to customize and refine the document before it goes to print.
Additionally, it took several hours before to gather all of the basic data we needed for an RFP, but now we can have the majority of the response ready in under 15 minutes in most cases. We are also able to start projects from our phones (iPhone thru Safari) or on an iPad. This has been extremely helpful while traveling.
Finally, our content is centrally located on a searchable database. Previously we had used several free tools to aid in content storage that would allow us access easily via search. It never seemed to do what we wanted, and when we did find something, we weren't sure if it was the most current or usable. The library functions in Qvidian have been a huge help, and has changes the way we collect data, and retrieve it.
The webinars feature has some missing functionally such as the ability for all users to use the Q&A feature (only those with a Microsoft Teams account can use it now), the ability to upload documents for attendees to easily access and download, and the ability for presenters and organizers to easily chat amongst themselves throughout the webinar.
The "Channels" organization hierarchy could be more clear. If you have several channels set up, it can get clunky and hard to find the specific channel you are looking for.
The MS Planner tool lacks functionality and organization. You cannot assign more than one person to a task and it's confusing when you try to share tasks with people - it would be nice if they were automatically added to someone's calendar.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
One area where Qvidian occasionally struggles is feature regression. For instance, the editing option that puts multiple records into one document had always been present in Qvidian; however, when the multi-edit feature that only allows editing one record at a time was released in version 9.1, the original editing functionality was removed. This caused me a lot of frustration, as it severely slowed down my work flow since I could now only see and edit one record at a time. It wasn't until a year later when version 10 was released that the old editing functionality was added back. However, one bright spot of version 9.1 was an added feature that allowed organizing records by simply dragging and dropping them into different categories. This was much easier than having to right click on a record, select Move, then right click on a folder and select paste. However, with version 10, this feature was removed and I'm now back to having to right click on records instead of dragging and dropping. It seems that with each release, I never know if something I like will be taken away or if something I don't like will be added -- sometimes it's both.
A recent change that was added in version 10.1 that I personally view as a negative is that Qvidian now handles all requests server side instead of on the user's computer. This means that if a user wants to export or edit a large number of records, they have to wait for Qvidian's server to generate a report of those records. Depending on the number of records, this can be very quick (a few seconds) or very long (I've waited up to 20 minutes before) depending on how taxed Qvidian's servers currently are. I understand the reasoning behind the move, in that it takes the load off of a user's computer so that other applications they currently have open aren't affected by added memory usage, but in practice I find that it only slows down my workflow. Any somewhat modern PC shouldn't have any trouble handling a large report request from Qvidian.
Although Qvidian is certified for use in several different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome for Windows), it doesn't offer the same functionality in each one. For instance, in Explorer, when a record is selected for editing or export, it will automatically open in Word. In Firefox, a pop-up dialog appears and a user has to click Open in order for the record to appear in Word. And in Chrome, the file is added to the download bar and a user must click on the file there for it to open, unless they add an exception to .docx file types to automatically open in Word (which I had to do, since I prefer using Chrome). Other simple features such as right clicking on a folder or record to bring up Qvidian's context menu are hit or miss depending on the browser. In Explorer, everything is generally smooth, though the browser itself is slower than the other choice. In Firefox, right clicking generally works but sometimes has some hiccups, and in Chrome, more often than not right clicking brings up Chrome's context menu instead of Qvidian's, which often leads to having to first select a folder and then click the dedicated Actions button in Qvidian to perform the desired action. No matter which browser you use, there will be some sort of functionality that doesn't quite work as expected.
Microsoft Teams is included with our Office 365 subscription and we have no intention of migrating off of Office 365 and Microsoft products. Since Microsoft Teams is included for free with our Office 365 subscription, and since we enjoy all the features, benefits, and functionality, there is no question that our team will continue to use the product
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The tool provides us with the functionality we need to perform more efficiently and we have not identified another product that offers enough "nice to haves" in addition to the "must haves" to warrant a compelling reason for changing tools.
If you have the full Microsoft Office suite, it works really well because it's integrated well within its ecosystem, but if not, it can be annoying because it tries to open a shared file in the web versions of the file equivalents. The web version is also a bit slow, and the login is very difficult to handle if you have multiple Microsoft or Outlook accounts.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The shift they made in architecting documents from content to outline, is now reversed allowing outline creation first, then content which is more natural. But, due to the fact that we went through a migration of content to get to the new version, it feels less optimized than if we would have re-implemented.
End users having to configure settings more often than desired
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The overall support provided by Microsoft for Microsoft Teams has been quite good but there is still some room for improvements. Microsoft needs to proactively work on fixing the open bugs in order to provide a seamless experience to the users. But over the service and experience provided by the Microsoft team have been quite satisfactory.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
They are very much in support of great customer service. They respond quickly with emails and in some cases phone calls to resolve any issues and often times user questions in the past when I could not figure something out.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Live instructor training is expensive, though we have had instructors come to our offices for a ‘refresher’ before. The refresher was more of a “let us fix that for you” than a training on how to do it ourselves.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Microsoft Teams offers a much more integrated experience between their chat and video call function compared to Google Chat and Slack. Both other tools are much better for internal communications are they have simpler UI without other features. Whereas Microsoft Teams can be used for more critical conversations, particularly between external companies, and has been very useful in sales conversations which is what we chose it for when speaking to companies that work exclusively through Microsoft.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
We have been using Qvidian for years, when Compass was introduced in our company. Having spent over a year using Compass, I would not recommend it for writing proposals. In all fairness, that is not Compass' strength. Compass is ok for general document sharing for informational purposes. It does have a Presentation Builder function for creating PowerPoint presentations, but it is cumbersome and not very flexible. Specifically, the linkage is awkward and files may have to be re-linked when they are updated. In addition, the architecture only allows you to create a couple of levels of content. The search function is very limited. Compass is a newer project and has not fully matured.
Honestly, this tool is worth every penny. Yes, it's not free and you pay for the quality of services and the license. But the ROI and the benefits are all there. Also, the renewal, negotiation, and contract terms are all very well explained by our Microsoft account manager, and she's a charm.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I used Skype for Business to take calls, hold conferences, and provide remote assistance to users. Microsoft Teams, on the other hand, is superior to Skype for Business in my opinion. My job entails a lot of screen sharing.
Personally, I would say that by using Microsoft Teams, it upped my collaboration with my colleagues by around 50% or around more than half of what I usually did prior to using it.
I had 100% show rate and attendance on all of my meetings in the past 6 months.
If I may add, I also have been chattier & collaborative towards my colleagues in past 3 months particularly the month of December when we had huge traffic at work. I would estimate this behavior to have been increased by around 60% than what I usually incur during normal operating days.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The positive impact has been to know we have a system that can house legally-approved responses to questionnaires. The good about this is that if we have a simple RFI that does not require a lot of response customization, we can draw upon previously-approved responses and create output MUCH quicker, without the need of laborious and time-consuming legal reviews of RFIs or DDQs we produce for prospective clients. Quicker, easier output with less internal review = efficient RFI process and quicker turnaround time to respond to our client/prospective client base.
The negative impact has only been the time it takes to orient oneself with the program, and REMAIN oriented. As we do not do RFIs on a daily basis, it is easy for us to become rusty, or to take short-cuts because we do not have time to re-train on the program. Those shortcuts and workarounds tend to cause us not to use the program to its full potential and lead to counter-productivity in some cases.
