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Easy Customization: Reviewers have praised Privia for its easy customization of workflow process design, allowing users to configure …
Starting at $29 per month
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What is Privia?
Privia's bid capture and proposal management tools are designed for companies handling RFPs / RFIs in the public sector. Privia offers both SMB and Enterprise products and pricing starts at $29 / month / user.
Recent Reviews
Pricing
Subscription
$29.00
Cloud
per month
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $29 per month
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Privia?
Privia aims to be the government contractor’s go-to solution for the development of high-quality, stand-out proposals. Privia is designed specifically for the proposal team; to facilitate the process workflow, synchronize the teams assignments and deadlines, and empower team collaboration. The vendor states over 10,000 users from small, mid-size, and enterprise organizations leverage Privia every day to improve productivity, save time and deliver the proposal quality today's evaluator's demand for the win.
Privia Video
People have managed proposals using spreadsheets and email...
Privia Competitors
Privia Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Privia's bid capture and proposal management tools are designed for companies handling RFPs / RFIs in the public sector. Privia offers both SMB and Enterprise products and pricing starts at $29 / month / user.
Privia starts at $29.
KAP Proposal Management, Proposal Management and Production System (PMAPS), and Qvidian RFP & Proposal Automation are common alternatives for Privia.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of Privia are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings
(9)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Easy Customization: Reviewers have praised Privia for its easy customization of workflow process design, allowing users to configure properties and track demanding procedures with real-time reports on their status. Several users have mentioned that this feature enhances their ability to adapt the software to their specific needs.
Powerful Reporting Capability: Many users have highlighted Privia's powerful reporting capability, which enables them to customize their view of data by selecting fields and adding filters to generate selected exportable data. This functionality has been particularly useful in generating insightful reports tailored to different project requirements.
Commenting Feature: The commenting feature in Privia has been consistently described as unique and highly useful by reviewers. It allows frequent reviews with extended project teams to be done concurrently, significantly improving efficiency and enabling more users to fully participate in the review process.
Limiting reporting feature: Some users have expressed frustration with the limited availability of certain fields in the reporting feature, stating that it can be restrictive and limiting for their needs.
Expensive customization process: Several reviewers have mentioned that the customization process for each customer can be expensive. While it does help overcome some limitations in the reporting feature, this cost may deter some potential users.
Confusing check-out and in process: The check-out and in process in Privia's version control system has been found confusing by a number of users, requiring them to seek assistance. Despite its good commenting capability, this aspect of Privia's functionality could use improvement to enhance user experience.
Users highly recommend Privia and offer several key recommendations. They emphasize the importance of understanding business processes and continuous improvement. Additionally, they advise having a demo and trying out Privia on an upcoming opportunity. It is also suggested to talk to a company currently using Privia and include technical personnel in the demo. Moreover, users recommend planning the implementation well in advance and evaluating multiple products before making a decision. Lastly, they mention the need for buy-in from all contributors or authors. These recommendations highlight the value of thorough evaluation, collaboration, and proactive planning when considering Privia as a solution.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-4 of 4)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
July 08, 2015
Privia - from a long time (really long time) user
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Privia as a collaboration tool for approximately 500 users in developing responses to Request for Proposals for Federal, State, and Local Government systems. It allows us to provide centralized access to documents for users working throughout the world. It allows our version control, specific security as needed, and collaborative input and commenting on the documents.
- The commenting feature in Privia is a unique feature that allows us to do frequent reviews with extended project teams to do reviews concurrently and quite successfully. It allowed us to be much more efficient and have more users to more fully participate in the review process.
- The version control feature works quite well for us, allowing us to completely avoid the common issues of over writing documents and loss of content.
- The delegate feature allows us to provide multiple users with control over the workspace. This allows us to be much more efficient with scheduling and control.
- There can be occasional lag time when working on the Web Client.
- If you are copying workspaces off line for archival purposes, Privia will allow non-standard Windows file names. These files will then have to be renamed to copy them off the system.
- If you copy a folder off line, if you do not have at least view access to the file, it will simply not download without any error indicated.
- Significant employee and team efficiency
- Faster review process allowing more team members to participate
- Much improved customer service for our users, who are mostly non-technical writer and managers
Privia works quite well for developing workflows and processes within the Proposal Development process. It allows you to work offline with your documents without Web access. It allows security to be controlled on a very granular level. It allows you to quickly secure your workspaces and documents without having to work on an individual user basis.
- Vendor implemented
Yes
Our Privia database is extremely large and with a very diverse user community, we have occasionally found a bug. It has always been very high priority for the support team and has always been resolved quickly and completely. We have never had any trouble getting resolution or getting to the right people to get it fixed.
We were on a very tight deadline to submit a multi-million dollar bid for a large state government organization. One of our project managers inadvertently deleted a workspace from the system. We contacted our Privia support team late on a Friday night and they were able to have the workspace restored within hours. We have since taken delete access away from everyone except the Administrators :)
- The commenting feature with it's links to the document is the most elegant functionality of this type I have ever used or even seen. My users think it's a miracle.
- The version control allows collaboration without those nagging file-over write problems
- The flexible security options allow Administrators excellent flexibility
- Archiving entire workspaces from the system can be a bit cumbersome
- Since view access on files can be limited, even for Administrators, it can result in files within folders not downloading without an error message
- Privia allows non-Windows compatible characters to be used in file names, which can cause an issue when files are archived offline
February 25, 2015
Privia in the Federal Contracting World
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The previous company I worked for uses Privia as the primary tool to support all Federal Government Bids & Proposals worth $300K or more. Privia is specifically used by the Corporate Strategic Proposal Support Team to track the proposal from start to finish. Specific users included, but were not limited to, the following: Proposal Managers, Proposal Coordinators, Proposal Writers (Technical, Management, Resumes, etc.), Capture Team (VPs & Contracted SMEs), Proposal Editors, Financial Team, Subcontractors, etc. All users associated with the specific bid / proposal were added to the Privia Workspace with various permissions, trained, and set loose on the proposal. The Proposal Manager maintained control over the entire workspace throughout the life of the proposal, added various review team members when necessary, and removed permissions as applicable. During review teams, each review team member was able to actively comment and suggest edits to the document in live mode, and the document lead locked the document for editing upon closure of the review team to ensure no overwrites were made. Overall, Privia proved to be a highly successful tool in storing all Bid / Proposal documents while maintaining control over the ever-evolving Proposal itself. I highly recommend Privia to any company looking to standardize their proposal process.
- Document Repository with standardized Folder Structures: Privia has the ability to create customized & standardized Privia workspaces with set training documents and folder structures as a foundation for each project. This helps assure that the process remains intact without jeopardizing quality throughout the lifecycle of each project / proposal.
- Customized Workspace Permissions: Privia allows the Workspace owner to maintain control over who is able to view, edit, add / remove documents, add / remove additional users, etc. This is particularly helpful when dealing with classified information such as financial data, as well as ensuring that corporate strategies are protected when it comes to subcontractors. There are many instances where subcontractors would like to share certain information with the prime, but would like to keep their data separate from other subcontractors also working on the same project / proposal.
- Commenting / Editing and Lock Feature Tools: Privia has the ability to allow multiple users to comment and edit upon the same document simultaneously. This is highly useful when it comes to proposal review teams. At the end of each review team, the comments are consolidated and the document lead can lock the document for editing so that no changes may be made while the comments are taken into consideration, accepted, or rejected.
- Limited Licenses: Privia sells licenses by the bundle. However, the licenses can get extremely pricey. To help mitigate this issue, the company administrators do a sweep of the user licenses every 3 weeks to ensure that all licenses are being maximized. This process is very time-consuming, considering that we have hundreds of proposals going on at the same time. There have been many instances where various users have had to be deactivated because their license had not been used within the last 2 months, and then reactivated a few days later because they are working on a new proposal. Our administrators are also part of the Corporate Strategic Proposal Support Team, so this can be inconvenient if all administrators are working on multiple proposals. Time management and cross-training is key to balancing the number of active licenses.
- Privia has been highly successful for maintaining control over our larger efforts ($300K+). A standardized process and complimentary process tool is highly effective when coordinating between 50+ people. All users have the ability to see the schedule at a glance, which pieces of the proposal they are a part of, etc. With additional permissions set, there is little room for confusion when users do not have access to information that is not relevant or pertinent to their role.
- MS SharePoint,Power BI For Office 365
MS SharePoint is a great tool to use for smaller efforts - such as Task Orders. However, it is not capable of handling high volume efforts. Additionally, SharePoint does not allow for comments to be made without locking down the document, which is simply not ideal for review teams when multiple users are reviewing a single document. MS SharePoint additionally has a history of security issues from the back-end, and any user / subcontractor could find their way into classified information that should be better protected. As for Office 365, it is more beneficial from a senior management position. It allows for graphical representations and manipulations of certain data so that senior management and project / program managers may see the project / proposal in snapshot form. However, it may be a bit too involved from a proposal standpoint. In the end, I believe that Privia is definitely a better, more organized option when coordinating between various users and companies that not only protects the proposal, but also the company.
5
No
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
We were already using Privia Platform 4, so the transition to Privia Platform 5 was an easy decision. All gliches / bugs that occurred in the previous version had been fixed, and additional features that benefited the user were added. The most beneficial feature was the Delegate Feature, which allowed the Workspace Owner to assign their Proposal Coordinator as their Delegate. This freed up the Proposal Managers' time because their right-hand man/woman was able to make the same changes to the workspace such as adding / removing users, etc. that the PM did not have to do.
This question isn't truly applicable to my experience, as we were simply upgrading our platform. However, during the various meetings held with the Privia staff and our company's Senior Management, the issue of total number of licenses were not addressed. This became an apparent problem several weeks after the upgrade and never got resolved before my departure from the company. I would probably say that if we had to do the upgrade all over again, I would not have liked to proceed with the process without determining the additional number of licenses needed.
Yes
Absolutely. All accounts folks are well-trained from a customer service and technical standpoint and will escalate the issue as necessary depending on their expertise - though, that is rarely a necessity. Should they be unavailable, you will be notified prior to their leave / departure and assigned a secondary contact in the meantime. Overall, I was beyond impressed with Privia's customer support services. See answer to previous question for further details.
When our company upgraded from Privia Platform 4 to Privia Platform 5, the transition was more than smooth. The external Privia support team handled the upgrade to our servers entirely on their own and then sent our company's administrators specific instructions to test the new system prior to going live. Each of us scheduled a time to do the tests together, and then sent any bugs / gliches that we found to the support team. The Privia team was quickly responsive, and were able to complete the entire upgrade and go live in less than 48 hours with minimal effort on our part. With the company being a $4 Billion company, I found the entire process to be quite impressive.
February 28, 2014
Positively Privia for Proposal Preparation
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Privia is used across the organization for collaboration and proposal preparation. Privia solved version control problems, provided the opportunity for remote collaboration, and enabled multiple reviewers to comment on documents at the same time.
- Use as a review tool (Privia's 'comment' feature). Privia allows multiple users to make comments on a single document at the same time. Unlike Word's track changes, the Privia comment tool allows users to make in-line or general comments on a document. No merging of comments required!
- Permissions at the user, file, folder, and workspace levels. With the click of a mouse, it's easy to restrict users' ability to edit, or even view, specific files and file folders. Workspace-level permissions allow administrators to restrict user access to only those projects they are working on.
- Compatibility and pipeline management. Privia's web interface provides pipeline management capabilities, and interfaces with sites like GovWin, allowing users to import opportunity data with the click of a mouse button. That same opportunity data can then be used to launch an opportunity-specific workspace for document management and proposal development.
- Privia's 'behind the scenes' process designer capabilities allow administrators to build workflows complete with decision points, rollback points, and the ability to assign users to tasks.
- When using the pure web version of Privia (that is, without installing the thick client on a PC), the comment feature is null and void. This is because without the thick client installed, the pure web platform cannot interact with MS Office products. This creates hassles during reviews when users show up with a laptop and don't have permissions to install software.
- Increased employee efficiency is #1. For example, without having to manage cumbersome piles of separate, track changes comments and revisions, Privia saves time and money in the review process.
- Improved reporting. Privia's web interface and pipeline management capabilities allow for generation of customizable reports to garner greater visibility and insight into business development activities.
- Overall the product is a bit expensive and robust for some smaller businesses, though the functionality is definitely worth the cost.
SharePoint is Privia's #1 competitor. SharePoint is customizable, and provides much of the same version control that Privia provides. What SharePoint cannot do is allow multiple reviewers to comment on the same file at the same time with all comments collocated for author revisions. SharePoint's ability to be customized is also a downfall of the product - there is rarely a standard look and feel from one company to another. With Privia, the simple layout and folder structures are easy to navigate, and varies little from company to company. Another downfall of using SharePoint is the cumbersome number of 'pop up' windows one has to navigate in order to open a single file. As a document repository or shared drive ensuring version control, SharePoint is better. For proposal management and collaboration activities, Privia takes the cake
20
Proposal development, proposal coordination, business development, C-level executives
1
Proposal manager serves as Privia administrator, assigning user licenses and managing permissions. This is an easy software to manage - no special skills are required,
- Proposal Management
- Business Development
- Pipeline Management
- Document Repository
- More robust process workflows to ensure accountability
No
One of our team members was having trouble accessing Privia. I ran through the basic troubleshooting steps I knew of, and ended up reaching out to Privia support for help. They went above and beyond the call of duty and reached out directly to the user, called him on the phone, and even went as far as to remote in to his machine and walk the user step-by-step through the login process. They could have just send a generic email or troubleshooting steps and made the user figure it out on their own, but they didn't. The Privia support techs genuinely care about your productivity and satisfaction with the product.
February 28, 2014
Never underestimate the power of CRM
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Privia across the organization for the entire opportunity management process from business development leads through post-proposal submission. The main problem it addresses is configuration management of the myriad aspects of opportunity processes and procedures from the time a business development executive sees a lead twinkling in the eye of a customer to the herding of a large partnership team members involved in the many-hued review stage of the Shipley proposal process (or any other process you care to design in Privia's customizable workflow tool). Along the way, like the customizable workflow process, Privia gives the manager enormous flexibility in role assignments, role level security, internal and external user accessibility, automation and standardization of repeatable procedures, customization of data fields, and metadata search potential. I must add that it is not all things to all people and there are limits to this customization, but if you get that far you will be an appreciative user.
- Easy to customize workflow process design with accountable and acceptor assignments, among other configurable properties, that can track the most demanding procedures and provide real-time reports on their status.
- Built-in browser toolbar that automates the capture of volumes of information on government (and private sector) opportunity postings on FBO, GovWinIQ, and others.
- Although there are some limitations, it has a powerful reporting capability that allows you to customize your view of the data by selecting fields and adding filtering to generate selected exportable data.
- As mentioned in strengths, there are limitations to reporting in that some fields are not available or only available in one of the four report "types" when you'd like that field in another report type. Some fields are not selectable at all it would seem. My understanding is the Privia can accommodate further customization for each customer at a price, so even this limitation can be overcome.
- Privia has a great version control and commenting capability that includes commenting on graphics files, but the check-out and in process are not always intuitive to many of our users and require some hand-holding. In addition, the commenting capability, which supports concurrent users, produces an export to Word with comment fields but doesn't mark up the document itself - whether that is a blessing or a curse is really up to your team and editing style.
- Improved efficiency in capturing opportunity data and keeping timely information available across the organization
- Improved senior management reporting capability for pipeline meetings
Its been too long since we did our due diligence, I don't even remember the names of the competitive products. Privia stood out at the time and meeting users at their annual conference was a strong reference for the product.
5
Business Development, Proposal Management
1
Basic software administration knowledge
- Managing the business development pipeline
- Managing the proposal response process
- Reporting opportunity management to executive leadership
- customizing the workflow for better monitoring
- expanding the license base to include more users directly
No
- Product Features
- Product Reputation
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Presentation of the product features and invitation to the annual conference influenced our decision
The only factor might be an extended trial utilization prior to decision but who has time to learn a system completely just for evaluation?
- Vendor implemented
Yes
Contributor training followed by executive training
Change management was a major issue with the implementation
Strong senior leadership commitment and enforcement is a must. If the targeted participants resist learning and using the system and get away with it, the implementation will not be successful. You need to ensure that all players in the workflow are committed to following the accountability and acceptance process and that they use the information capture tools, supplemented by their personal knowledge, to capture all known data into an opportunity.
- Lack of participation in training
The Privia stuff worked past normal working hours for us to make sure we were prepared and successfully implemented the most recent version upgrade.
- Process Designer
- Administration and user account management
- Importing from outside opportunity sources
- Metadata
- Customizing the Opportunity Info view of fields