User Reviews Overview
About Qvidian
Upland Qvidian automates away the tedious and frustrating parts of your RFx response and proposal processes. With Qvidian, sales and proposal teams can collaborate effortlessly to quickly deliver polished and compliant proposals,...
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- Industry: Outsourcing/Offshoring
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Good and constantly improving
We bought Qvidian years ago for its database only. It was a lifesaver and timesaver over our practice of searching folders full of previous RFPs for responses. Later, when Qvidian improved the proposal building capabilities, we started using it to build Word RFPs. It is still most useful for filling out questionnaires including the very complex spreadsheets we receive.
Great feature: you can load a spreadsheet into Qvidian and run autosearch on one or multiple cells, an excellent feature.
Unfortunately, autosearch usually requires multiple attempts to find the best response, almost never finds the one best answer. This may relate to our complex products and custom services.
Now our sales team has moved us from Word to mostly PowerPoint proposals, so we don't use Qvidian as much proposal creation.
Pros
The ability to load a spreadsheet in and search on one or multiple cells is great. Qvidian is flexible, adapts to Word and Excel questionnaires, has strong search features, and saves formatted text and images in its content management database. Autosearch is good and quick. Ability to click on the desired response or responses and add them, sequentially, into a response, is fantastic. They have excellent support including weekly support webinars with live Q&A. Ongoing development/improvements program and roadmap are excellent.
Cons
It's robust features like tags, search terms, dividing content into folders, and other flexible features also make it complicated and not very intuitive.
Autosearch tends not to find the best answer and requires further searching.
Maintaining content is time consuming and difficult.
Resolving duplicates/similar responses is a slow process.
- Industry: Human Resources
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
I have used Qvidian for several years as a RFP writer and as a content administrator.
Increased productivity when replying to RFPs. Better responses where we can see the history of the edits. Easier SME reviews.
Pros
I love how they are continually improving their product. The search feature is very intuitive. If you can use google, you can use Qvidian to find anything you need in your database. The software is learning from my search behaviors and my most frequently used content, based on search terms, is the first records that are listed in my results. Once you have set-up your database with your content, we have easily been able to use it for 70%-80% of our RFP responses. It has greatly sped up our RFP process.
Cons
I would like it to be easier to customize users authorities. We have a few on-off users that need access to only certain areas and it hasn't been easy to give them access to only certain folders, and not allow them to see other libraries. I wish there was a true user's guide for quick reference. Sometimes I don't have time or want to try to find an answer in the community forum. I feel like they do not have a user guide because they want to sell their training.
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Review Source
Great tool for managing proposal content
Qvidian is a great tool for managing all of our content for proposals. We don't use it for producing proposals because we do alot of custom work. I like the feature that allows you to send content to a contact for an update. I also like the fact that there are many ways to do the same thing.
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- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Intuitive proposal management and content software.
Pros
The folder structure is very easy to navigate and makes it easy for anyone who is used to this type of organizational style to transition onto the platform. The customer support was fantastic - when I decided to purchase the Qvidian software for my organization, Qvidian assigned an account manager who onboarded my organization and spent hours conducting training sessions with a coworker and myself.
Cons
At times managing styles is extremely time-consuming and is complicated to set up in the first place, and if not done correctly in the first place it can cause a lot of problems downstream when snagging content from the system.
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Review Source
Mostly perfect
Qvidian excels in several areas:
Organization - Qvidian uses a folder tree layout with user-created top-level categories that can then be branched out into more in depth subcategories. Each folder also shows the number of records it contains.
Searching - Qvidian uses a Google-like approach to searching. When a user searches for a term or phrase, if the correct record is found and used, then the search term the user had typed in is added to the meta data of that record. In the future, when that same term or phrase is searched again, the record(s) containing that search term appears closer to the top of the search results.
Editing - Two choices are offered for editing records, both of which utilize integration with Microsoft Word. In the first choice, records are edited one at a time as separate documents. This allows editing of both the record and its corresponding meta data. The second editing choice allows a user to edit multiple records in one document. However, this does not allow editing of records' meta data. This trade off does allow for easier editing of multiple records at once, though, since a user can utilize Word's various comparison tools.
There are a couple of areas where Qvidian could use some improvement.
Feature regression - 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.
Server side requests ' In the latest version, Qvidian handles all user requests on its own servers instead of on the user's PC. 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.
- Industry: Consumer Services
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great for RFPs
Pros
Qvidian is a great tool to utilize for RFPs. The database content is easily updated and searchable. It also has a plugin for Microsoft word, which allows you to easily transfer the response to your RFP document. You can build an entire RFP in the actual tool itself.
Qvidian also lets you assign and track RFPs, giving your team access to each other's RFPs should the need arise where someone has to finish out one.
Cons
The first con I have is a minor one, as the search function is highly customizable, but the buttons are grey/green. For color blind people, this can cause some confusion.
The second con is that although keeping track of responses and uploading them are easy, you will need licenses for your SMEs if you would like for them to update thier portions. Business-wise, I do not blame them for this move, but most companies are not buying licenses just for SMEs.
- Industry: Leisure, Travel & Tourism
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Long Time RFP Writer Highly Recommends
It has cut down on the amount of time it takes for me to complete searching for RFP responses which used to be very time consuming and streamlines the process for sending questions to SMEs and import responses.
Pros
Working within Qvidian and using their auto-fill technology has really sped up the proposal process in terms of searching and applying content.
Cons
As it's a very robust tool, it's a bit complicated or difficult to stay up to date with all of their functionality. I was primarily using it as a database but am beginning to learn and use more of the features although I still have much to learn
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Review Source
Excellent product. Requires a commitment.
Qvidian Proposal Automation (QPA) is an excellent content repository. It's browser-based cloud library is excellent for organizations who have workforces who occasionally work remotely without direct access to a network drive.
The user-interface is intuitive and it allows for excellent customization in order to be tuned to your specific needs. The organization itself also has an incredible commitment to continuous improvement and their consistent attempts to develop and improve their technology is noticeable and appreciated. The system continues to improve and evolve over time with improvements that are obviously created in direct response to customer feedback.
Lastly, QPA is very good at highlighting for you (almost without even trying) where your processes lack the necessary organization to function...
Objectively, there are two things that every company considering Qvidian should know:
1) Take the implementation slowly. I don't think Qvidian has nailed this process yet. The implementation process ran over a few months when honestly, it probably should have been various components phased in over the course of a year. That's not to say it's overly complicated, it's not. But it will result in a number of process changes for your staff and asking them to adjust to all of those changes simultaneously is something I wouldn't recommend.
2) It's time consuming. This is a bit of a double-edged sword. The honest truth is that managing QPA is a very time-consuming endeavor and if you don't have a dedicated resource, you're likely to struggle with the maintenance of your content. That sounds bad, but really, this fact is true whether you are using QPA or not. Having this system in place helps clarify for you exactly what you are and are not doing, which is actually more of a positive than a negative...but...
With those warnings issued, I must say that I absolutely recommend using Qvidian and QPA. It's a wonderful product that will push your organization forward if you make the commitment to leveraging it's capabilities.
- Industry: Financial Services
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Great Product!
Pros
It is easy to use and organize all of your data. I use it as a question/answer database for multiple different lines of business and have no issues with making different folders to organize.
Cons
Sometimes it's annoying how I have to think of "synonyms" of words to try and find the answers I am looking for. But.. I don't think that's the software's fault.
- Industry: Insurance
- Company size: 10,000+ Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Content Database for RFPs
Pros
The search function in the library is amazing. Qvidian advanced search makes searching for specific content for specific products for our RFPs very easy and efficient.
Cons
It took a little bit of time to get used to where everything was. There are a lot of functions, but all useful.
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Review Source
Great Proposal Automation Tool & Keeps Improving
Our company has been utilizing the Proposal Automation for over 5 years and have seen dramatic improvements that have positioned Qvidian as a leader, unrivaled.
Pros:
Qvidians Content Library - easy to manage content and make your content easily accessible to the organization
Architecting New Document Types - creating new documents is easy to do, making sales enablement and aligning content to your organizations sales cycle extremely easy
Significant Updates - over the past several years, our organization has been thrilled with the consistent updates that have made major impacts to those who utilize the tool as well as those who are administrators
Roles - we have been able to create custom experiences for our users so that they aren't needlessly distracted by content or document types that are not relevant to them
Customization - able to customize roles, search experiences and links for users, as well as branding
Customer Service - Qvidian has been out to visit us to get feedback on their products, and we have seen the fruits of that feedback consistently over the past couple years with updates
Cons:
Branding: This is minor to our organization, but I do wish more branding options existed
Reporting: Customizing reporting can be challenging, though Qvidian has been accommodating, it'd be nice to be able to customize without knowing coding. (I do think that major updates are coming for reporting). One of the recent enhancements this past year with event auditing, really expanded what the system captures, so that was a major improvement
Qvidian's Proposal Automation has made our organization more efficient. Understanding the system and how to make it work for your organization is key. Attending their conferences is important, but even if you can't do that, they provide a knowledge bank on their website and have excellent trainers who can support optimizing QPA for your group. Each year we review other technologies, and each year we come back to QPA.
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Qvidian Helps to Streamline RFPs
Streamlines the RFP process.
Pros
I love the search functionality! I just highlight keywords in the RFP, hit the Qvidian search button and it brings up matching responses.
Cons
It's not compatible with Excel yet although I believe that upgrade is coming. I need to save the questions to Word and convert the finished Excel document to Word to upload into the database.
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Qvidian allows for the organization and reuse of RFP answers.
Pros
The metadata fields are flexible and easy to use. The folder structure can be modified at any time. The editing function works. The customer service is helpful and concerned about answering needs.
Cons
You must use a Word add-in to edit. The self-training materials leave out important definitions and/or steps.
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
We have used Qvidian for the past two years and have been quite pleased with our usage.
Pros
What I like the most about Qvidian is that you can set up your own templates for Word or Excel. I also like the intuitive search functionality.
Cons
There isn't much I don't really like. I wish SMEs didn't have to have a license to be able to use some of the features.
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
I utilize QVidian as a RFP response repository.
Pros
QVidian's ability to interact with Microsoft products like Word and Excel saves me a lot of copying and pasting. With QVidian, I can insert standard responses with a click. It also allows you to save a format, so you don't have to worry about style formatting.
Cons
Minor complaint, some of the search options are colored coded. For color blind people, it will be hard for them to distinguish which filters are on.
- Industry: Computer Software
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Review Source
Qvidian Playbooks help increase rep productivity
Pros
The software allows us to serve up content in context to where the seller's opportunity is within the sales process. The sellers do not need to waste time searching sites to find the right content, it is served up to them dynamically and when it is meaningful.
Qvidian as a company is fantastic to work with. We have engaged with all areas from Professional Services, Development, Marketing and the like and everyone is on board to make their customer's successful!
Cons
It took us a while to master the rules but nothing that would prevent me from purchasing again.
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Qvidian delivers on all my requirements
New and prospective users should consider joining the Qvidian User Community and review the discussions, knowledge base, training, etc. Also, visit the Learning Resources videos, which demonstrate the product at a more practical than typical demos.
Qvidian is very responsive to customer ideas in adding requested features when possible, including some I suggested. The biggest change I'd like at this stage of my association with the product is the provision of simple, license-free (within the enterprise) access to the content database. The current seat license model does not enable casual users' introduction to and exploration of the product.
Our initial business problem was replacement of the Pragmatech RFP Machine content library. We've successfully used Qvidian as a global resource for about three years.
Within the past year, our sales force asked if we also had the capability to support "point-and-click" proposals such as available at other companies. Qvidian enabled us to provide that capability with Proposal Automation.
We're now piloting workflow management capabilities with initial good results.
Please note that this is a review, not an endorsement by myself or my organization.
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Good Tool
Pros
Good tool for storing and responding to RFPs. Great collaboration and keyword searching capabilities.
Cons
Lot of human intervention is needed in order to fully utilize all features and functionalities of this tool.
- Industry: Marketing & Advertising
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Qvidian - Great Content Management Tool
It has been excellent so far. Coming into my area of work, we did not have a method of consolidating our content while managing proposals/RFPs, everybody sort "had" the content in their own personal laptops which made getting up to date content from experts extremely difficult. Qvidian has taken away all those challenges
Pros
- excellent content management system
- great customer service
- ease of use
Cons
none that i can think of so far
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Review Source
Qvidian is an excellent tool for proposal management and organization
I really like that we, the writers of proposals day in and day out can easily organize, add and edit content in a folder structure that makes sense to our business. In addition to the vast knowledge base that Qvidian supports, it also helps us manage our proposals. Responders can be assigned to their questions easily and effortlessly. At any time, anyone involved in the proposal can see what questions remain unanswered, those pending acceptance and those acceptance. You can also filter the questions to those assigned to use. This allows me to work efficiently and at my pace. Others can work on their responses independently and we don't have to worry about sharing documents back and forth. Editing is done with the Qvidian addins for Microsoft Word.
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Review Source
Class of it's own - Qvidian is the premier content management system and proposal automation...
Pros - Qvidian has made significant improvements over the past 5 years based on feedback from clients like myself. This has been hugely satisfying to be one of their clients. They have a customer community that promotes knowledge sharing and helps shorten the learning curve for new users.
Qvidian initially was our proposal automation tool and because of the enhancements from a content library perspective, we have been able to broaden our use to include content management. You have flexibility to create custom meta data, allowing you to customize what you want to track on each content item. It makes classifying your content easy.
Cons - Enhancements are coming that address these items, but I would say automating the tracking process for approvals is a huge thing for our organization, but as I said in my previous comments, Qvidian is already working on addressing this.
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Review Source
Qvidian offers best-in-class proposal support
The tool is well suited for situations where qualitative content needs to be centralized and updated regularly. There could even be opportunities for centralizing quantitative content. When researching similar tools, one should inquire about typical database logic and organization, which Qvidian does well. Technical compatibility and support is also an important consideration.
Qvidian Proposal Automation (QPA) is our RFP Team's primary source for standard proposal language. We have one administrator of the tool who interacts with internal Subject Matter Experts to update standard content on a regular basis. We use QPA as a content warehouse, but it does have more advanced functionality that can respond to RFPs in an automated fashion. However, the warehouse functionality has expanded to include our qualitative content for consultant databases.
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Review Source
Qvidian Makes Great Strides
Qvidian Proposal Automation has made itself known to me as an excellent tool time and time again. Following the 10.0 now 10.1 upgrade, I was astonished how much it could improve. The tool is a wonderful house for all Q&A used when writing proposals. The library setup makes it easy to find anything I'm looking for.
I am currently undertaking a database refresh and being able to send Q&A to subject matter experts (SMEs) and track their progress makes my life 10x easier. I can easily stay on top of this task and know what to expect from each SME.
Prior to the 10.1 upgrade, I would receive an unnecessary dialogue box when searching using Chrome. I expressed my concern and was immediately helped.
Qvidian couldn't have better customer service, in my opinion. A great resource and a great company.
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Review Source
Complex Architecting Successful through Effective Project Management
Our corporate visual identity standards and proposal templates created complex Word style requirements and Qvidian artchitecting challenges. Alongside our Qvidian project manager, we successfully converted our PowerPoint templates to a Word format consistent with our needs and desired level of quality. Without the support, guidance, and flexibility of our project manager this wouldn't have been possible. We were impressed that Qvidian committed to supporting our needs, listened to our concerns, and guided us to the right solution. Additionally, they were available to answer our questions throughout the development process.
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Helpful Proposal and Presentation Source
I like Qvidian, although there could be improvements on the Ease of Use. Some of the steps aren't always easy to recognize. But the learning curve does seem to get better with each upgrade. I'm usually pretty good with software and figuring out how it works, and sometimes it takes me a while to figure out some of the steps with this. I do think it's a great way to store information, and I love that you can download individual responses or an entire group of responses, depending on how you upload your information.
