When you open the proposal application you will see a list of proposals. Learn more about changing columns and filtering the data to search for your own proposals. Learn more about proposal list columns here.

Click on or pause your mouse over the NEW toolbar button to create a new proposal or project estimate, either by:

1. Clicking on the NEW button directly creates a generic proposal or project estimate. Select the appropriate type on the SETUP tab, or
2. Select what type or kind of proposal you want to create from the "Create from Type" menu. The type influences workflow steps, screen layouts (tabs, fields etc. you can access) and many other aspects of the proposal estimating process
3. Create your proposal from a template using the Create from Template (when visible). Template project/proposals estimates are cleaned-up, best-practice projects you plan on re-using again and again (with modifications) in the future to speed things up.

Administration users can create or edit existing templates from either Templates main navigation or "Edit Templates" NEW button menu.

To create a new proposal, or to edit key info for an existing proposal, open the SET-UP tab. The following fields are required/most important:

1. Enter or edit the proposal title or description
2. Different types of proposal can be selected from the drop-down. Select the best-fit type for this specific proposal
3. Select the contract type for priced proposals. The contract type in turn can default or limit the pricing strategy (fixed, T&M, cost-plus etc.)
4. Enter the from/to dates for the anticipated period of performance
   • Period of performance are dates when you estimate you will start and finish delivery against this proposal. Proposal response due dates are in the DUE BY tab
   • All other dates in this project (phases, WBS, deliverables and resources) should fall within the period of performance start-end
   • You can modify these dates later and reschedule the proposal's estimates accordingly
5. Select whether your proposal has a single or multiple delivery phases or sets (e.g. development, support, or optional sets or delivery years etc.). You can only maintain phase attributes if you check Yes
6. Select your primary business segment or company delivering the project, as well as optionally the site or department leading the delivery of this bid and a list of any other departments involved
   • Company currency for this proposal will be set to either the primary business segment or company or site/department currency
   • Local currency for each delivery organization (including the default or primary) is set from the department's currency (if maintained). Different estimates in the same proposal can have different local currencies (e.g. an offshore delivery center)
   • Exchange rates for the selected customer, company, department or any other departments involved will be defaulted automatically into the proposal exchange rates popup
7. Upload the RFP and any other documents provided by the customer. If you manage these files in another file management system such as Teams, Drive or Drop-box then click the button to add links to each document in the files popup
8. You can either create a new proposal, copy from a template, or copy from an existing active proposal or project
   • Depending  on your selection will be asked to search for the template or proposal to copy. There is also an advanced search option
   • You can choose what to copy in the screen panel shown below
   • If your a template is automatically appearing then your implementation consultant assigned one to the proposal type. Leave it unless you know you want to use a different template as a basis
9. Enter the proposal description, objectives and other remarks. You can format your text and paste from Word into this field
10. If desired, select your target confidence level i.e. how confident are you in the accuracy of these proposal's costs. Confidence is calculated on a bottom-up basis so this is more of a top-down comparison.

When copying from a previous proposal or curated template from your proposal template library, iPE scans the source document to see what can be copied, and presents you with the options below including a count of any source document elements which can be copied to your new proposal. In this panel you can:

1. Copy phases or set options, or not. If you current project has a phase with the same description as a copied phase, it won't be duplicated
2. Copy the source work breakdown structure (cost structure) or not. Normally you should copy the WBS, which is appended after any existing WBS in your new proposal (and renumbered accordingly), because cost estimates invariably refer to this WBS
3. Copy tasks, or not. Tasks are below WBS elements, so WBS elements must be copied with tasks
4. Select whether to copy requirements
5. Assign a complexity factor to the copied estimates. This factor if specified is applied to the labor hours, and quantities for material, copied
6. Specify whether the original source proposal's dates should be left as-is (because you plan on rescheduling the new proposal anyway) or  automatically rescheduled to fit the new proposal's start and end dates
7. Copy the priced client deliverables or proposal line items from your source proposal, or not. They will be included after any existing line items in your new proposal. This may or not also include billing or payment milestones
8. In the unlikely event that your source proposal contains proposal or bid-specific T&M labor rates, you have the option to copy these. Copying the proposal-specific rates to your new proposal ensure that the total T&M revenue will be the same (subject to rescheduling/rate changes over time)
9. Copy any formula input parameters, sizing inputs or proposal-specific rates which impact cost estimating relationships, or not. You can edit proposal-specific parameters after they have been copied without impacting the source proposal formula
10. Maintain a reference to the original proposal, accessible from the MORE toolbar button OPEN menu. Check this if you are copying data from a master contract or proposal into a call-off or sub-proposal
11. Specify whether you want to copy risks and opportunities to the new proposal
12. In the unlikely event that you have RFP requests (sourcing events) and even purchase history which is specifically for the copied proposal, you can check this box to make copies of both in your current project
13. Specify whether tags and any values assigned to the source proposal should be copied. Tags are custom defined fields which can be used across your company or in one specific proposal. When you check this box tags from the source proposal or template are merged with tags in your current proposal which means:
    • Tags which are the same in both source and new proposal are merged
    • Tags which are unique to the source proposal are appended onto any existing tags in the new proposal, so the source tags will appear after the new proposals tags in the SETUP tab
    • Tags in the new proposal are never overwritten or deleted
14. Copy funding sources (such as the customer's Purchase Order), or not
15. When copying a template proposal, any resources which are not assigned to a company, site or department are transferred to the segment or company and site or department of your new proposal. This may in turn lead to new resource codes and cost or bill rates being determined. When copying a real proposal or project you can check this box to force the site or department for resources in the copied proposal to be transferred to the department listed
16. Specify whether detailed cost estimates such as labor, material, travel or other direct costs, should be copied. Check the box to copy each type of resource if you want to copy, including their hours/quantity and cost or revenue (with new rate look-ups based on site transfers or date reschedules). Note that:
    • Manually created material estimates are copied (select the Proposal bill of material box below Labor to copied BOM-generated material estimates)
    • Copying these estimates takes place in the background and the copied estimates must still be released from the new proposal's WBS tab
17. Specify whether the proposal bills of material should be copied or not. If the bill of material is standard then it is better to reimport the latest, however if it is proposal-specific (engineer-to-order) then you should elect to copy the source proposal-specific bill of material, together with any consolidated material cost estimates generated from this bill of material

Don't forget to click the COPY button after making your selections. If you decide against copying anything then clear the source proposal in the "search for" field above.