We all knew that 2021 was going to be a major upgrade to 2020. There was nowhere to go but up. But, wow, it ended up being a huge leap forward for Responsive (formerly RFPIO) and our customers. Here are the 2021 Responsive new product feature highlights that will make 2022 a banner year for all Responsive users.
Responsive® LookUp activated knowledge management
Answer Libraries everywhere came alive when Responsive® LookUp released in early 2021. The ability to search your Content Library without leaving any of these applications…
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Outlook
- Chromium Edge
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
- Google Hangouts
…put curated, response-ready knowledge at the fingertips of every Responsive user with the integration.
“We were able to retire a Business Applications chatbot we built for the field. Responsive® LookUp is available right from Microsoft Teams and surfaces content from all of our content collections without the maintenance overhead.” -Vicki Griesinger, Director of Business Strategy, Worldwide Public Sector at Microsoft
Accelerated response and increased control with eSignature
Our new standalone eSignature module, easily accessed from your Responsive interface. With eSignature, any Responsive user can upload and sign documents themselves or prepare and send documents for signature to colleagues or external Responsive user contacts.
The Responsive dashboard allows you to keep track of document status at a glance and maintain a record of signed documents. For example, contract teams and legal teams could acquire signatures on NDAs and other agreements with eSignature.
I highly recommend you give eSignature a spin in 2022 if you didn’t get a chance to try it in 2021!
New Projects experience improved usability
We snuck this one in just under the wire in December 2021. The New Projects experience provides major upgrades to usability, including:
- A Recent Projects bar that shows what you’ve been working on most recently.
- New functionality to sort and filter the projects list.
- Freedom to customize the columns displayed on the projects list.
- The ability to customize the number of items on the page and click the left and right arrows to move through the list.
- The new My Work option allows subject matter experts to only see questions assigned to them and move through questionnaires more quickly.
- Customization options allow for a Projects table view that makes the most sense for you.
New Projects makes experienced users more productive and helps new users get up to speed faster.
Responsive University launched, providing expansive online user training
With every product upgrade comes new best practices on how to get the most out of it without compromising your current experience. Responsive University is our new platform for communicating those best practices so experienced users can easily stay up to date and new users can target what they need to learn first.
Responsive University offers Content Management and Project Management learning paths where users can build knowledge incrementally through short online video sessions. It also includes microlearning videos for quick tips on features such as answering questions or assigning authors. The training platform is free to all Responsive users.
RFP360 acquisition brought RFP management full circle
Responsive closed the loop on the response management lifecycle with its acquisition of RFP360. The move strengthened the company’s position as the leading provider of response management software, while expanding our offering to include a strategic sourcing solution, bringing to market the most efficient and proactive request for proposal (RFP) solution.
For companies that both issue and respond to RFPs, unifying purchasing and response functionality through a single provider offers many efficiencies.
Most popular customer request? Spelling & grammar check!
The most popular product update request from customers was for the ability to check spelling and grammar within Responsive. I’m happy to say that through the basic and full rich text editor you can now scan for spelling and grammatical errors. Proofreading just got a whole lot easier!
More product update highlights from 2021
Many other updates resulted from your feedback, via the “SUBMIT IDEAS” button in the bottom left of your Responsive UI. In fact, more than 900 updates came from you! Thank you! This process really emphasizes the value we place on community, and Responsive wouldn’t be the G2 leader three-years running without our customer support.
To learn more about the following 2021 updates, check out my webinar. Some are now application defaults, some can be turned on or off, and some are available for an additional fee. Reach out to your account manager if you have any questions.
- Guest Response Portal: Simplified user experience for external SMEs who need to respond to a question but don’t have an Responsive account.
- Microsoft Word Import/Export Formatting: Table style and list formatting now imports. Checkboxes import and export, too.
- Content Library Custom Field: Mark as mandatory or optional to quickly categorize and organize content.
- Content Library Merge Tags: Enhanced to display the value name instead of the name of the tag. For example: [ClientName] would now display the client’s actual name.
- Rich Text Styles Toolbar: Find and apply styles easier and quicker.
- Teams as Content Owners and Moderators: Teams can be assigned to content in the Content Library and Content Library with content owner and moderator privileges. There’s an option to indicate if content needs to be reviewed by any team member or all team members.
- Highspot Integration Update: As an expansion to the Highspot integration, users can now export response packages from Responsive into Highspot.
- Export Response Package to Cloud Storage: Responses from a project can now be saved to cloud storage services, allowing you to store the content in folders on Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive.
- Whistic Integration: If you respond to a lot of security questionnaires…from their Whistic interface an Responsive user can select the Responsive Create Project button to create a mirror questionnaire in Responsive. Then, users can complete the questionnaire in Responsive (where they can access all the curated content in their Content Library) and when done, sync the completed questionnaire back to Whistic with the click of a button.
To learn more about all of these updates, please visit the Help Center or contact your account manager. Be sure to stop by Responsive University for on-demand video sessions on implementing best practices around these features, including for importing, exporting, Merge Tags, and much more!
