Before we begin, ensure that the following tasks have been completed.
- Read and understand how to create customizable PDFs (refer to PDF category for more info)
Materials you will need:
- Name for your proposal
- Image and PDF files uploaded to categories in the system
- Ideas on what to name your sections/chapters
Creating a Sales Proposal Template
- You can get to the Sales Proposal Builder Administration side by navigating to: Administration > Sales Proposal Builder > Sales Proposal Builder Templates.
Create a New Sales Proposal Template
- To search for a Sales Proposal Templates, filter on the categories by clicking the category name or names, click the filter button.
- Click Create Sales Proposal Template button to create a new proposal template for users.
Set up Sales Proposal Template Properties
- Fill out all the information presented to you for setting up the new Sales Proposal. The areas with a “ * “ are necessary. The Print Vender must be selected. Whether you use the Default Printer or set up a Print Vender for this proposal.
- If you are using a Table of Contents for your proposal click on the box to make the Table of Contents active.
- PDF Progress Skin must be set up by the implementation team. When you are ready to do this, please fill out a support ticket and we will schedule a time to assist you.
- Click Save at the bottom.
Manage Sections for Sales Proposal Template
Sections are used to segment content. Each section (or chapter) can contain one to many documents. Each document(PDF) can be one to many pages. Each page may or may not contain customizable fields. Organize your PDF documents in a way that users can quickly include and re-order documents and/or sections.
- To set up the sections for your Sales Proposal, go to the drop down menu on right of the proposal. Select Manage Sections.
Create Sections for a Sales Proposal Template
- Select the Insert a New Section button located at the bottom of the screen. You will be prompted to enter a name for your section.
- When a Section is created you must decide how much freedom your users will have within the section. Decide if the section must be included, if users are allowed to move this section, and if uses can add documents.
- An example would be the Cover Section. This should always be the first section so you would not allow them to move the section and it must always be included by default. If the documents within the section have customizable fields, be sure to set Can users move, change visibility or customize documents to Yes.
- You will also have the option to include or require a section to be shown in the Table of Contents (ToC). If included the name of the section will be displayed in the Table of Contents but can be renamed.
- Can users upload Documents from their private My Assets Tab? You will want to limit the categories that they can choose content from by setting the permissions on the My Assets Tab and setting the category they can use to add a document to the section.
- If this section of the proposal will have Word Docs that your users will be able to download, edit and upload to be a part of the Sales Proposal. Table Templates are set up using html to explain how to download and upload the Word Docs so the system can convert them to a PDF that is used in the Proposal. You can put thumbnail images of the Word Doc as well. You must have a link in this HTML for the Table Templates Tab to display.
Manage Documents in a Section
- After your section is created, select Manage Documents to add your PDF documents to the section.
- REMEMBER: PDF's can be one to many pages and may or may not have customizable fields.
Creating Documents in a Sales Proposal Template
- Once you have entered into the section, you can add documents. Click on Insert a New Document button. This opens a document picker window.
- In this window you can search by document name or by the category that you assigned your document when uploaded. Once you see the document you want to add to this section of your proposal, click on the thumbnail.
Document Properties
- Once the document has been added, choose Edit Properties. Located in the “Action” drop down menu for the document located in the right column
- Click on Delete located in this same drop down menu, to remove unwanted documents from the section.
Edit Properties
- Required Part – Click yes if this document must always be included in this section when users include this section as part of a proposal.
- Included by Default – If you click yes above, this is automatically set to “yes”. If you have selected “no” above, then you have the option to include this document in the section by default. The user will have the option to not include this document.
- Move Document – If you select no, then users will not be able to move this document within the section. Selecting yes will allow users to reorder this document within the section.
- Customize the Content – If the document that has been uploaded with PDFLib Blocks for customizable content, you will have the option to allow users to edit the customizable content or not. If the document does not have PDFLib Blocks for customizable areas, this will automatically be set to No.
- Once you have decided on your configurations, click the Save button.
Setting up Customizable fields in a Sales Proposal
- If your document has PDFlib Blocks, for customizable content, you will need to set the default content. This is done by clicking on the Details link located next to the name of your document followed by clicking on the Set/Edit Customizable Fields link.
- Optionally, you can set the default variable content for the document by going to Administration > Marketing Asset Manager > Search Collateral, finding the document and clicking on Details and then clicking on Set Customize Field Defaults.
- Use the up arrow or the down arrow on a filed to change the display order of how you want your users to see the variable fields. This does not effect the actual PDFlib Blocks embedded inside the PDF.
- To customize the field, click on the drop down menu located at the right of the field you are customizing. Click Edit.
- Depending on what you are editing will determine what options you will see in the Variable Details window located at the right of the screen.
- Variable Display Name – this the name of this field that your users will see. If the original name of the PDFlib block you created on your PDF doesn’t describe the field correctly, you can change the name here for your users.
- Variable Type: Single Line/Multi Line Text –The size of your PDFlib block will help you determine what is the best setting here. If you have a large block to take the place of a paragraph, then MultiLine is the correct setting. If the block is used to take the place of a single line of text or a title then the Single-Line Text would be used.
- Image – This is used if the PDFlib block was set to image.
- Rich Text – This is used when the PDFlib block is set to PDF. This gives you several options when setting the default content.
- Do you want this variable to link with other documents in the proposal of the same Variable Name? If so, click on Link Variable. This will link the variables together so when one is changed all the other similar variables will be changed.
- Default Value: Multi Line/Single Line Text – in this area you will type in your default content that your users can edit or not depending on your settings. You can used “p tags” or just type in the text. Make sure to set your Character Limit.
- Image – For a default image, you will select an image for the image gallery. After this has been selected, decide on what area of your image gallery the users will be able to pick from to change this image.
- Rich Text – rich text using a html editor to create the text look and background color/image. This gives you a lot of flexibility but should be used with some caution.
- Once you have filled in all your default content click on the save button located at the bottom of this box. Notice the green check mark to let you know that variable has been customized.
Setting Permissions for Customizable Fields
- Setting Permissions and Visibility You can set your permissions for each variable so that a user can/can’t edit a particular variable. If you have text or image that they should not change, set the permissions so that no one can edit. If there is a group that is able to change the variable add that group as an exception. As a default all users are able to edit.
- If you have made this variable non-editable and do not want the user to see that they have the option to edit, set the visibility permission to no one can see. By default this is set so that the user can see the variable. Usually when you set the Permission so no one can see the variable you would want to set the Visibility to no one as well. If a specific group is allowed to edit the variable then you can also set the visibility for just that group.
Table of Content Permissions and Default Content
- After all the documents have been added to your section, you can now preset the name for each document in the Table of Contents. Click on Details located at the bottom of the section.
- Click the box next to the document. A small window will pop up under the box were you can now type in the name. This will be used in the Table of Contents. There is also the option on whether to give the user permission to change the Table of Content name for this document. This is changed by clicking on Title Permissions.
- The system defaults to the name of the document. You can change this default here.
Once the Sales Proposal is complete, set the Proposal Template to active for your users to view and use.