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Proposals Are Poorly Formatted - Help :-)!
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David Haddad
I’ll preface by saying I’m very impressed by most of what I see in D-Tools Cloud. That said, I believe D-Tools should be burning the midnight oil to fast track two features above all else. The ability to present multiple alternatives without screwing up the proposal totals (roadmapped), and a massive improvement of the fit and finish of proposals. Please stop adding other features and first make the core functionality outstanding. I realize there is a highly voted request for proposal customization, but I'm starting a new request here because my focus is on improving what's out of the box first.
I literally had the managing director for our largest Client refuse to present a D-Tools proposal to him the other day because it was so confusing and poorly laid out compared to our manually done proposals.
His complaints were spot on and rather than attempt to explain them I’m attaching examples in attached screenshots. Our job as integrators is supposed to be to make technology easy to operate for our client. If they can’t even follow a proposal, that does not bode well for what we're telling them we're going to do.
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Chad Weuve
Cover Page Formatting
The ability to adjust the position of, and show / hide the following; company logo, company contact information, customer name, customer contact information, document title, document number, and date.
The ability to make the cover image full width and place the company logo and contact information on the image instead of in the sliver of white space to the right of the image (which looks like an afterthought).
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David Haddad
I'm so disappointed that 3 months later this is all we get.
Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM
@David Haddad: Hi David, we have plans to revisit our proposal in Q4 while we work on Project Management features through Q3. The latest changes were some quick updates from our end, but know we will get to this. Thanks for your patience and your feedback below :)
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David Haddad
@Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM: Thanks Nick. But can't you find the time to work in the ability to insert images into system descriptions? It already exists in the project description, and it's as if someone just turned it off, or didn't insert that line of code into system descriptions, which are otherwise identical to project descriptions. I'm not a software developer, but it seems like it would be a ridiculously simply thing to do.
Thanks,
David
Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM
@David Haddad: So this request doesn't get lost in the more general proposal improvements item, I added you as a voter onto this specific case
This is a valid case. Unfortunately not as easy as it has implications of how it looks on the quote. It is definitely solvable, and one we will keep in mind as we review our proposals in Q4
Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM
We added a few small improvements last week to the proposal. We are aware they are minor but hopefully will have an impact on readability for your clients. Leaving this open as we will continue to iterate on the proposal but wanted to let you know we added the following improvements:
- Increased the space between each location to visual separate them from one another
- Always show the left navigation as expanded
- Showing a hover state when mousing over a product to show its clickable
Mosey Levy
@Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM: awesome very helpful already
Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM
We are planning some improvements to this proposal that will help differentiate locations/systems in your products view. I think we can look to better design these sections though that will take more work and something that will have to be revisited again in our roadmap. I will leave this open as we add this to our roadmap, just know some improvements coming.
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Lanza AV
All great points. Formatting the proposal is key to understanding and acceptance by customer.
Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM
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Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM
Thank you everyone for the detailed information! We actually have on our roadmap for Q2 to revisit our proposal template and I don't see why we can't include and or address some of these items to make proposals more easily to read and digest.
I would love to get on a call with whoever wants and discuss the pains of our current proposal, and how we can improve the software to account for these pain-points. Clearly proposals are a very important part of our software and a priority for us! I am pretty busy this week, but would be love to talk in the next couple weeks. I'll be in touch.
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Mosey Levy
@Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM: 💪🏼
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David Haddad
@Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM: Thanks for replying Nick! Just let us know.
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Dean Valencic
@Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM: add me to the list for the phone call
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Harris Epaminondas
This is much needed, strongly agree
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Mosey Levy
100% agree that things can be more clearly laid out. Better separation between rooms/systems. More bold text. More space between rooms.
In grid view, qty should be bold. You have to really look for it.
If anyone wants to get on the phone I’d love to go over the layout and really pick out what needs to be improved.
Additionally i think the side navigation on the left should always be visible (without having to hover). I understand in mobile mode that doesn’t make sense but in desktop viewing it really needs it.
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David Haddad
@Mosey Levy: "If anyone wants to get on the phone I’d love to go over the layout and really pick out what needs to be improved." As would I, better yet perhaps we could do a Zoom type session together with D-Tools.
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Mosey Levy
@David Haddad: excellent idea @Nick - D-Tools Cloud PM lets set up a zoom with david!
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Cory Burgess
I agree completely. No matter what you do, the Room sub-total or System sub-total isn't clearly stated as such and can easily be confused as a another line item.
I just did one where we do room, then system with each itemized (product+labor pricing though) and its still confusing IMO. Just some basic verbiage to show "Room Total" or "System Total for this room" or something.
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David Haddad
@Cory Burgess: If you look at my first screenshot you'll see I tried a jury rig and added the text "system subtotal, breakdown below" to each System name, to help the Client realize it's not another line item. Unfortunately that screws up the summary section at the end of the proposal, because there the words "breakdown below" make no sense. So for now I've compromised on adding "system subtotal" after every system name.
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