Proposals User Guide

Introduction

You can use the Proposal object in the Pre-award application to effectively pursue Proposals submitted to the government or private firms and track high-level information about the proposed cost, the approach to fulfill the government's specific requirements for the Contract, and TINA Exemptions, if any.

This document provides a detailed walkthrough of the Pre-award feature for pursuing Proposals.

Audience

• Pre-award Users

Prerequisites

• TechnoMile's Analytics package must be installed and configured. The version of this package must be 2024.3 or higher.

• To use Pre-award within Growth or Contracts, ensure that TechnoMile's Growth or Contracts Suite is installed and configured. The version of this package must be 2024.3 or higher.

Working on the Proposal

Proposal collaboration primarily occurs in SharePoint. You can access the SharePoint folder structure by navigating to the SharePoint tab of the Proposal record. The Proposal document is stored in SharePoint, where all edits and revisions take place.

Updating the Proposal

Before shredding the Proposal (breaking down the RFP into manageable bits of information), you must update important fields in the Proposal record.

1. Navigate to the Proposal record under consideration. For more information on creation of Solicitation records and auto-generation of Proposals, see the Solicitation for a Government Contract section of the Solicitations .

2. In the Details tab, edit the following fields and click Save.
    

Creating a Proposal Team

1. Navigate to the Proposal record auto-generated in the Solicitation for a Government Contract section of the Solicitations User Guide.

2. Go to the Proposal Team Members section below the Related tab.
    

3. Click New. 

4. Specify inputs for User, Team Role, and Approval Role (if required), and click Save & New.

5. Repeat step 4 to create more team members as shown below: 

   NOTE

   • When the Contract Manager joins a Proposal team, they automatically become the Proposal owner, replacing any previously assigned Contract Manager.

   • You can assign more than one Team Role to any particular member (User) of the Team by creating multiple team member records for the same person, each with a differing role.

TINA Exemptions

By default, TINA Exemption is set to NONE, indicating that the Proposal is not TINA exempt and TINA certifications are autogenerated when the Proposal is approved.

NOTE

You can choose the reason for exempting the generation of TINA certifications during submission of the Proposal in the TINA Exemption field.

You can also provide more information on CAS by editing the fields highlighted below:

For in-depth information on TINA Certification, see the {{ glossary.Negotiation}}-act-tina-certification-user-guide" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TINA Certification User Guide.

Clauses

Clauses included in the Proposal record become part of the Contract if the contractor wins the bid.

1. Go to the Clauses tab of the Proposal record.

2. Select a Clause Type and click Search.

3. Select the clauses to add to the Proposal and click Quick Save. 
   The Clauses are added to the Proposal. 

4. Go to the Key Clauses tab and add the required Clauses as shown below: The status of the Key Clauses is displayed: 

5. Go to the Proposal Specific Clauses tab and click New. 

6. Specify the Number, Title, Text, Revision Date, and Clause Type and click Save. 

Proposal Record - Important Fields

Details of important fields in the Proposal record are listed in the table below:

Proposal Site

You can track customer locations for the Proposal on the Proposal Site tab. Sites must already be setup on the customer account before they can be associated with the Proposal record.

Updating the Proposal and Submitting for Review

1. Navigate to the Related tab of the Proposal record.

2. Go to the External POCs section and click New. 

3. Specify the Contact and Role and click Save. 

4. Go to the Pricing & Cost Data section and update one or more cost fields based on information available to you at this point in the Proposal workflow: The value of Total Orig Proposed Cost is auto-calculated based on the values entered in the other cost fields. 

   NOTE

   • If the Total Orig Proposed Cost field is blank, the system automatically calculates its value using other pricing fields. However, if you provide a value, the system will use your input instead of calculating it.

   • The Orig. Proposed Fee/Profit value is not included in the automatic calculation of the Total Orig Proposed Cost. This fee represents an extra incentive and is considered separately.

5. Update the Validity Date.
    

6. Go to the Proposal Team Members section of the Related tab. 

7. Click Edit against a team member record and select Reviewer for Approval Role.
    
    The assigned team member receives an email confirming their reviewer role once Save & New is clicked in the next step.

8. Click Save & New and add a new User for the role of Approver as shown below. Click Save. The assigned team member receives an email confirming their approver role.

9. Click View All. You can modify the Sequence value for each member. 

   NOTE

   The Sequence value determines the approval order for team members. If all Sequence values are 0, approvals can occur simultaneously.

10. Click Send for Review on the Proposal record page. 

11. Upload the proposal file, click Done, and then click Submit. The status of the proposal changes to Submitted for Review. 

Reviewing the Proposal

NOTE

The following steps must be performed by the member assigned as the Reviewer in step 7 of Updating the Proposal and Submitting for Review.

1. Go to the proposal record by clicking the link in the email notification.

2. In the Adjudications tab of the Proposal record page, specify the review comments and click Save. as Draft. Click Submit if you have completed the review. 

   NOTE

   Alternately, click Save and Submit to directly save and submit the changes.

Submitting the Proposal for Approval

NOTE

On successful completion of the review process, an email notification is sent to the Contract Manager and the status of the Proposal changes to Review Completed.

1. Go to the proposal record by clicking the link in the email notification.

2. Click Submit for Approval. 

3. Verify that the document is already attached. Specify comments, if any and click Submit for Approval. The document is submitted for Approval and the status of the Proposal changes to Submitted for Approval. 

Approval

NOTE

The following steps must be performed by the member assigned as the Approver in step 8 of Updating the Proposal and Submitting for Review.

1. Click REVIEW PROPOSAL from the review assignment email notification.

2. In the Adjudications tab of the Proposal record page, click Approve or Reject based on your decision. The Contract Manager gets an email notification on Proposal approval or rejection. 

Handling Approval or Rejection

If the Proposal is rejected, you can reinitiate the proposal workflow from scratch by setting the Proposal Status back to Draft. However, the Proposal can also remain in the Rejected status with a valid Closed Reason.

If the Proposal is approved, a TINA record is automatically generated.

NOTE

• To bolster confidence in the Proposal's pricing, it is recommended that you initiate the TINA certification process after Proposal approval, unless you qualify for an exemption.

• Typically, TINA certification occurs after negotiations and pricing finalization. However, if negotiations are bypassed or pricing changes are negligible, certification can begin with the initial proposal data following Proposal approval.

• Once the Proposal is approved, the Capture Manager must update the bid status in the Solicitation record.

Negotiations

Once you have submitted the bid, you may receive negotiations and red lines on your proposal from the client. To track this process, check the Negotiations User Guide.

Handling a Proposal Win

Once the status of the Solicitation is changed to Closed Won, the owner of the Proposal receives an email notification of the win.

Once the Proposal is won, the TINA Status changes to Closed - Awarded.
As the owner of the Proposal, you can update the closed reason in the Proposal record and generate the Contract.

NOTE

More than one Proposal can be attached to a Solicitation record and each Proposal can have a different outcome in the bid process. So, it is important to manually update the Closed Reason for each particular Proposal record based on the bid status.

Creating the Contract

1. Navigate to the approved Proposal record with the linked Solicitation either in Negotiate or Closed Won state.

2. Click Create Contract.

3. Select the Record Type for the Contract and click Next.

4. Click Finish. 

The Contract is created. The generated Contract includes the following information:

• Clauses: All Clauses copied from the Proposal, including values for Key Clauses.  

Fields: Applicable fields / values are copied from the Solicitation and Proposal records:

• Files: Attached files from the Solicitation and Proposal records - the original Solicitation request and the final Proposal document.

• Proposal Team Members: Roles in the Solicitation and Proposal teams, and the internal POC (Point of Contact) lists - Contract Administrator, Contract Manager, and Program Manager - are copied to the created Contract.

• Contract Sites: Contract Site information from the Solicitation and Proposal records are copied to the Contract record.

• Execution Date: The field value is copied from the TINA Certificate record.

• Contract document: The Proposal document is copied into the Contract. 

Reports and Dashboards

The Pre-award feature includes 15 different components (reports) as part of the dashboard in the Proposal Management Home page and 14 Pre-award reports available on the Reports list page.

Proposal Management Home dashboard

The following reports are available as part of the Proposal Management Home dashboard:

Reports List Page

1. Navigate to Reports > All folders > Pre-award Reports. The following reports are available:

   Report Name	Report Description
   Negotiation Response SLAs	Displays all submitted negotiation records and their response rate in days
   Approved Proposals missing TINA	Displays all proposals that have been approved which do not yet have a submitted TINA and are not exempt from TINA.
   Negotiations Pending Approval	Displays negotiation records which are currently awaiting approval.
   New Proposals Last 7 Days	Displays all new proposals created in the last 7 days by solicitation status
   Negotiations awaiting submission	Displays negotiation records which are still in an Approved status and must be submitted.
   Open Negotiations	Displays negotiation records which are currently open. Pre-Award Reports
   Proposals Pending Review	Displays all proposals pending review by due date
   Proposals Pending Approval	Displays all proposals pending approval by due date
   Open TINA records	Displays TINA certification records which are still in a Not Started or In Progress status by TINA status and Document status.
   Open Proposals	Displays all open proposals by solicitation status
   TINA awaiting submission	Displays TINA certification records which are still in a Sweep Completed status.
   Proposals with Upcoming Due Dates	Displays all proposals with response due dates in the next 14 days by proposal status
   My Proposals Pending Review and Approval report	Displays all proposal records pending the review or approval of the user viewing the report
   New Solicitations	Displays all new and open solicitation records organized by return by date and solicitation type.

Report on Contract Home Page

The My Proposals Pending Review and Approval report is available on the Contracts home page. This is a Dynamic dashboard report and displays all relevant information for the logged-in user.

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