January 19th, 2012 by Hazel Lychak
Proposing IT managed services solutions can be a complex undertaking. Customers want to know every detail – in a format that breaks it down for them to easily understand exactly what they’re getting. Without automation, it can be a struggle each and every time you have to customize a managed services proposal for a prospective client. Not to mention the coordination of the back end processes to make the sale and implementation go smoothly and avoid cost overruns.
We’ve listened to our clients, many of whom are already selling IT managed services. We’ve loaded new content and functionality into SalesDoc Architect to automate the complexities of managed services proposals, from providing mixed payment types to incorporating multiple levels of service by location or within each location. You can also incorporate data from network assessments into proposals, scopes of work and any type of documents that you use in your sales and service delivery processes.
All of this new functionality, combined with SalesDoc Architect’s existing integration with CRM software (including advanced integration for those of you who use Tigerpaw) – and the ability to import parts and pricing from configuration tools from vendors like TechData, Jenne, Ingram Micro and Catalyst – come together into one integrated process to save your business a substantial amount of time, reduce errors and produce better proposals, scopes of work and other sales documents.
I invite you to read our news release on managed services and our latest case study to find out how SalesDoc Architect can improve your ability to quote and propose IT Managed Services solutions.
December 20th, 2011 by Hazel Lychak
We’ve recently added functionality to SalesDoc Architect that enables you to import parts and pricing from Anixter, Catalyst, Ingram Micro, Jenne, ScanSource and Tech Data distributor pricing tools so that you can more easily and efficiently generate proposals and other sales documents for all of your complex solutions. This newest import functionality complements CorsPro’s existing import functions for several telephony manufacturers, including Avaya, Mitel, NEC, ShoreTel and Toshiba.
Once a distributor and/or manufacturer quote is imported, SalesDoc Architect can then auto-configure labor, peripheral products and other elements to round out the complete customer solution, after which various sales documents can be generated.
These new import functions can help to streamline your entire sales process, and can also help you to significantly reduce costly errors by eliminating the need to re-key data at any point in the process.
Existing SalesDoc Architect clients received the import functionality when they downloaded and installed the December 2011 monthly software update for SalesDoc Architect. Please contact us to add any of these import functions to your Import menu.
December 16th, 2011 by Hazel Lychak
We’ve added Scope of Work content to SalesDoc Architect so that you can significantly reduce margin erosion and set customer expectations by enabling you to provide a detailed Scope of Work document to prospective customers as part of your sales process.
SalesDoc Architect’s Scope of Work (SOW) content lays out the key responsibilities for both you (the seller) and your prospective client in order to ensure a successful sale and profitable implementation. In addition to outlining each party’s commitments, the SOW establishes a project plan, cut-over dates, financing arrangements and a detailed list of equipment and services to be provided. The SOW content is also easily customizable to your company’s specific business practices and sales/implementation workflows.
Resellers who have been using SalesDoc Architect to create SOWs tell us that prospective clients appreciate the professionalism of the scope of work document and level of detail provided to them, building a positive provider-client relationship from the start and setting a solid foundation for future business.
Existing SalesDoc Architect clients received the SOW content automatically when they downloaded and installed the December 2011 software update for SalesDoc Architect.
September 21st, 2010 by Brian Cors
As mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve added a third integration between SalesDoc Architect and Tigerpaw. In addition to being able to push contact information from Tigerpaw to SDA and quote information from SDA to Tigerpaw (described in another earlier post), you can now import parts/pricing from a Tigerpaw quote into SalesDoc Architect. All three integrations are available at no additional charge to our clients.
Most of the parts that users will need to quote should be resident in the SDA database or can be imported from a vendor configuration tool such as Mitel’s Sales Workbench or ShoreTel’s QMS configuration tool. In some cases, however, those parts might not exist in either source. The new integration enables SalesDoc Architect clients to use Tigerpaw’s database, which maintains the list of all parts ever sold or quoted by the Tigerpaw software, as another source for parts and pricing information. Read the rest of this entry »
September 17th, 2010 by Brian Cors
New this month to SalesDoc Architect is a feature that enables clients to apply rules with regard to the way that they do business. Prior to this new feature, users could create any output (proposals, statements of work, contracts, etc.) even if information was missing or invalid. Now, with the brand-new “OutputStatus” feature, administrators can create rules using Excel formulas to prevent users from being able to generate outputs if information is missing or invalid or certain conditions aren’t met. For example, you can prevent outputs from being generated when…
- A customer name hasn’t been entered
- The job margin is insufficient
- Required inputs have not been selected
- Equipment or services have been misconfigured
The beauty of all this is that you can use Excel formulas to create these rules; you don’t have to be a programmer to implement them. How does it work? Simply create a named range on any tab that is called “OutputStatus”. Next, insert an Excel IF formula into that range that tests for one or more conditions and, if those conditions aren’t met, the error message that you’d like to display to the user when the output is prevented from being generated. When the user tries to generate an output, SalesDoc Architect will sweep through all of the tabs in a quote looking for non-blank OutputStatus named ranges and, when it finds one, will prevent the output from being generated and display the specified error message.
September 13th, 2010 by Brian Cors
We’re excited about the upcoming Tigerpaw User Conference that’s taking place October 6-8 in Dallas. We’ll be exhibiting at the show, and I hope that readers who attend will take a few minutes to drop by the booth to say hello.
For those who don’t know, Tigerpaw makes CRM/ERP software that helps technology resellers to increase sales, provide better service, produce bids, order and track materials, manage projects, and bill faster. Our software, SalesDoc Architect, enables companies to auto-configure complex solutions and generate descriptive proposals, scopes of work and other sales documents. Both solutions complement each other well.
Last week, we distributed a news release talking about our relationship. We share numerous mutual clients, and both companies specialize in working with resellers of complex technology solutions.
Our products are also integrated with each other. For the past year or so, users have been able to push contact information from Tigerpaw into SalesDoc Architect and, once the customer has signed off on a proposal, push quote information back into Tigerpaw. In this month’s SDA release, users will be able to export part/pricing information from quotes they’ve done in Tigerpaw and import that information into SDA. Read the rest of this entry »
November 16th, 2009 by Brian Cors
Last month, with the renaming of our document automation software from PriceQuote to SalesDoc Architect (SDA), one of the great features that we added was the ability to create an unlimited number of document types (or “DocTypes”) that you can use to categorize document sections in the document library. When document outputs are generated, SDA uses the DocType you’ve selected for the particular output to filter the document sections that are included in the final output Word document.
Let’s say you want to generate a proposal. By choosing to output only doc sections with DocType = “Proposal”, SDA will filter the output to include only those doc sections in the final output document. This makes it very easy to create new types of outputs simply by creating a new DocType, then tagging the doc sections you want to include in the new output with the new DocType.
Unlimited DocTypes become even more helpful when they are used in combination with other means of configuring the document sections that will appear on the outputs. For example, let’s assume that you have associated part numbers with doc sections in the SalesDoc Architect database as follows… Read the rest of this entry »
September 5th, 2009 by Brian Cors
SalesDoc Architect has always been a great tool for handling configuration, pricing and document generation for service and support solutions. Whether you base service and support pricing on the new solution equipment that you sell, or you create separate “support part numbers” for the items you support – which works especially great for sites with existing equipment – SalesDoc Architect handles it well.
For those who base service and support pricing on the list or sell price of the new equipment that you sell, SalesDoc Architect now offers the ability to automatically create a schedule of supported parts that shows your customer or prospect the precise list of parts that are covered under your support plan.
Read the rest of this entry »
July 2nd, 2009 by Brian Cors
SalesDoc Architect’s new options functionality enables users to easily handle the pricing and presentation of one or more options to prospects and customers. SalesDoc Architect handles at least three types of options:
- Options “packages” that can be added on to a core solution.
- A la carte options that are presented as a series of line-item pricing (such as a price list)
- A series of core solutions from which the prospect or customer can select, such as when you might propose solutions from multiple vendors and the prospect can select only one of the core solutions.
SalesDoc Architect’s new Options button handles the first two types of optioning (the third type of optioning is best handled by creating a new quote for each core solution, then using SalesDoc Architect’s multi-quote consolidation feature to present the options in a combined proposal). With just a few clicks, SalesDoc Architect users can associate items with up to five options “packages.” When schedules of equipment and services are generated, the options will appear after the core solution as separately priced options packages.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 19th, 2009 by Brian Cors
Several months ago, we added the ability to import contact (and other) data into SalesDoc Architect from any CRM or contact management application that can generate a mail-merged Word document. This capability eliminates the need to re-key data, saving time and reducing re-keying errors.
Together with Tigerpaw Software, we are pleased to announce the joint development of functionality that enables you to push configuration data (part numbers, quantities, pricing, etc.) from SalesDoc Architect into Tigerpaw’s CRM+ business management software application. Now you can use the combination of CorsPro’s SalesDoc Architect and Tigerpaw’s CRM+ solutions to…
- Manage customer relationships with CRM+
- Configure turnkey solutions with SalesDoc Architect Generate customized proposals, statements of work and other documents with SalesDoc Architect.
- Generate sales orders, initiate billing, manage inventory, schedule service orders (and more!) with CRM+
…all without having to re-key any data back and forth between the two applications.
Read the rest of this entry »
