Great efficiency-increasing tool
Rating: 9 out of 10
IncentivizedUse Cases and Deployment Scope
PMAPS is used primarily by me and the other main proposal writer. We purchased it in order to better manage and find our boilerplate proposal material, and it works fabulously for that purpose. Our salespeople also use it in order to generate proposals. PMAPS allows them to generate more customized proposals than they were able to do before. (For example, they can select which references they want to include, what products they are selling, and any other options I want to give them.)
Pros
- Searching for boilerplate material--PMAPS allows you to search by keywords, as well as filter by categories (e.g., implementation, training, company information, etc.) I set up all the categories, subcategories, audience types, etc. We used to spend a significant amount of time searching for previously written information, but now we can find it within seconds. I only use it to search for information stored within PMAPS, but you can also set it up to point at other places to search for information as well.
- Manage proposals--PMAPS has a dashboard that lists all of the proposals I'm working on as well as key information that I want to have available for each of them. You can decide what information you want to show on your dashboard (I use mine to show due date, production date, review date, salesperson for proposal, etc.) It is very convenient to have all of that information available at a glance. PMAPS also has a built-in calendar that will show you key dates for all of your proposals.
- Generate custom documents--PMAPS allows you to set up templates that you can use to generate documents. You can set up forms that allow yourself or other users to specify what information should be included in that document, and then PMAPS will generate the document based on how users respond to the questions (e.g., what references to include, what products to list, etc.).
- Word Replacement--PMAPS allows you to set up codes that will automatically be replaced with the correct term when you generate the proposal. For example, in our boilerplate information, any place where I would want the final proposal to say the prospect's name, I use the code <>. Those codes are automatically replaced with the prospect's name for that proposal when either I generate a document or when I simply select the icon that searches for and replaces codes.
- Easily edit boilerplate documents--PMAPS allows you to easily edit boilerplate information. You can select a document one at a time, or you can select a whole bunch of documents at once (simply by doing a search and/or filter to limit the results to the documents you want to edit) and download them onto your computer, edit, and then re-upload.
- Store material--PMAPS allows you to store Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF documents.
Cons
- Storing and managing proposal assignments--PMAPS will store your actual proposal document and allow you to send off assignments to other writers/contributors. However, we've had some issues with it crashing a lot in the past and no longer really use that feature, instead just storing the proposal document on our own computers and sending out assignments via email. I *think* they may have fixed that in this current version . . . I've only tested it out a little bit and had good luck so far, but nothing extensive.
- Downloading multiple documents--As mentioned in my earlier comments, you can easily download lots of documents at once. However, instead of having to search and filter my results to get the exact right combination I want to download, I would prefer to be able to do a slightly more broad search and then use a checkbox to select the ones I actually wanted to download, if not all. But that's a pretty minor thing.
Likelihood to Recommend
Really well suited for places where you are frequently needing to find material that you've already written before.