Proposals: Concepts

There are 2 kinds of proposals:

An activity proposal is a proposal for a single marketing initiative.
A program proposal is a proposal for a collection of related activity proposals.

When an activity proposal is approved, an activity is created. When a program proposal is approved, a program is created and the approved activity or activities are created.

Why Use Proposals?

Proposals are used for several reasons:

They enable you to gather your ideas and present a complete picture of each marketing initiative you want to implement.
They enable you to collaborate with other members of your marketing organization about the preliminary design of your marketing initiatives.
They provide a formal review of marketing initiatives.

Example:
Your company is aggressively pursuing new business in Europe. Your team is responsible for developing the marketing initiatives to grow brand recognition in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Although you have worked on international initiatives before, your team is new to the challenges of international marketing. For this reason, you want to be personally involved in the planning phase of every international marketing initiative. To ensure you have the right level of data and involvement, you use proposals and business rules.

After you create a proposal, you can do either of these things:

Begin the proposal review process. The result of the review process is a decision to approve or reject the proposal. If a proposal is approved, it becomes either a program or an activity.
Begin the FastTrack approval process. The proposal immediately becomes either a program or an activity.

Types of Proposals

You can create the following types of proposals:

Activity proposals
Program proposals

An activity proposal represents a marketing initiative for which you can allocate and track money. A different person can manage each activity proposal. A program proposal is a collection of related activity proposals.

You can specify this information for activity proposals, but not for program proposals:

Administrator: The person responsible for the activity's implementation.
Calendar Dates: The activity's significant dates and times.
Financials: The activity's forecasts and funding account allocation.
Resources: The estimated costs for several types of expenses.
Measures: A tool that enables you to evaluate activity data at a point in time.

Design Considerations

Before you create a proposal, familiarize yourself with the many factors that affect proposals.

Program Proposals with Activity Proposals

A program proposal enables you to define a relationship between multiple activity proposals that share a common purpose.

Example:
Your company has completed the acquisition of 1 of your competitors. Your marketing organization is responsible for creating a new brand to represent the consolidated product lines. To achieve this, you envision this series of activities:

Creation of a new logo
Creation of new marketing literature
A direct marketing campaign to target your existing customers and to target your newly acquired customers
A series of briefings with industry analysts

Each of these activities has its own budget, deadlines, and deliverables. You want to manage each activity independently. However, the culmination of the successful activities will be the rebranding of your consolidated product lines. Therefore, you create a program proposal to represent the entire rebranding effort. You then create activity proposals for each major marketing initiative. You add the activity proposals to the program proposal and submit the entire package for review.

Program Proposals Without Activity Proposals

You can create and review a program proposal that does not include activity proposals.

Note:
When you review a program proposal with no activity proposals, the program proposal goes through the concept approval phase only, because a program proposal's investment phase information comes from its activity proposals.

Reviewing a program proposal without activity proposals enables you to formally review a large-scale initiative before defining the individual activities in it.

Example:
Every fall, your organization selects which large-scale advertising campaigns to implement in the following year. At this point, your organization reviews each proposed initiative's general concepts and goals, rather than their specific activities and costs.

To implement a formal review process for each prospective campaign, you create a program proposal. After the large-scale advertising campaigns have been approved, your organization begins working on each campaign's specific activities. As you add each activity to Aprimo, you associate it with the corresponding program, regardless of whether the activity goes through a review.

Resources

When you add an activity proposal, you can specify its estimated resource costs. When the activity proposal is approved, this information appears in the new activity record.

As the rise of AI continues to become an integral part of marketing content and messaging, we have introduced a feature that will allow you to estimate and log AI-related expenses for your activity proposal. If the Enable Cost Tracking system parameter is set to yes, this will display the Cost Tracking tab and its objects and will hide the Resources tab.

Note:
After an activity proposal is approved, you cannot change its estimates. However, you can change estimates in the approved activity. Changes to the estimated activity costs can result in a estimated cost review.

If you have the appropriate rights, you can review the original proposal estimates in the Activity Proposal List module.

In a program proposal, the values on the Resources tab or Cost Tracking tab are totals from the values on each associated activity proposal's Resources/Cost Tracking tab. You cannot enter resource data for program proposals. In a program proposal, each resource/cost tracking value is the sum of all corresponding values from the program proposal's activity proposals.

Business Rules

You can run business rules for activity proposals and for program proposals to ensure that the correct people are on the access list and the reviewers list. You can run business rules only for a proposal you can edit. You cannot run business rules for an activity proposal associated with a program proposal.

Example:
Your organization is concerned with the cost of marketing activities. Joe, the Vice President of Marketing, wants to be involved in planning activities that involve a significant cost. You create a business rule that affects only activity proposals with an estimated total cost of $100,000 or greater. For these activity proposals, the business rule automatically adds Joe's name to the following lists:

The financial access list for editing
The list of investment reviewers

Business rules can only add names to the access list and the reviewers list. Business rules do not remove names from these lists.

Manual Business Rules

The Business Rules Enforcement Setting system parameter affects whether business rules must run for your proposal and whether your proposal must be in compliance with the business rules.

You can run business rules manually while the proposal has Draft status. If compliance with business rules is not required, you can accept or reject the changes suggested by the business rules. If you reject the business rule changes, you can still begin the review.

After you run business rules manually, you can continue to edit the proposal.

Note:
If you select reviewers after you run business rules, those reviewers appear at the bottom of the reviewers list. You can change the position of the reviewers. The reviewer's position in the list is important for investment reviewers, where the position determines when they will see the proposal. The reviewers at the bottom of the list see the proposal first.

Automatic Business Rules

Depending on the Business Rules Enforcement Setting, when you begin the proposal review process, the application might automatically check whether you ran the proposal's business rules. If the application checks this, 1 of these actions occurs:

If the proposal does not qualify for business rules, a message informs you of this.
If the proposal does qualify for business rules, a secondary window appears with the results of the business rules. You can take 1 of these actions:
- If business rules must run once, you can accept or reject the changes suggested by the business rules.
  Tip:
  In this case, you can alter the changes made by the business rules. However, you must accept them once to proceed with the review process.
- If compliance with business rules is required, you must accept the business rules that update the reviewers lists and the access lists. If you do not accept the business rules updates, you cannot begin the review.

Depending on the required level of compliance, you may be able to do these things after you run business rules:

Select additional reviewers or access list members.
Rearrange the investment reviewer sequence.
Rearrange the access list members and concept reviewers.
Delete reviewers or access list members added by business rules.

For information on your application's configuration, contact your system administrator.

The Review Process

After you create an activity proposal or program proposal, you are ready to begin the review process. Remember these points:

Associate all appropriate activity proposals with the program proposal before you submit a program proposal.
Specify the reviewers, unless the review is a FastTrack review.
After you submit a proposal, you might be unable to make changes to it.
If your organization enforces business rules, or requires that you run them once, you must run the business rules before submitting the proposal.
Any person on the access list for editing the proposal can begin the proposal's review process.

After you begin the proposal's review cycle, you can track its progress in several ways:

Configure email notifications indicating the proposal's progress. This is based on the Proposal Notification Mode system parameter.
Check the proposal's status in the list of proposals.
See how specific reviewers vote. See Reviewing the Votes of a Proposal. Reviewers' votes appear next to their name.

What Happens to Approved Proposals

When a proposal is approved, these things occur:

The application creates an activity or a program, depending on the proposal type.
The application builds the initial access list for the program or activity.

The application copies most information from the proposal to the resulting program or activity. It does not copy the list of proposal reviewers.

What Happens to Rejected Proposals

If the concept or investment reviewers reject a proposal, its status becomes Rejected. You can see the proposal in the proposal list by filtering for it. If a proposal is rejected, anyone on the access list for editing the proposal can perform these actions:

Delete the proposal.
Edit the proposal and resubmit it.

To resubmit the proposal, change its status to Draft, edit any part of the proposal, and resubmit it. All votes cast for the previous proposal version are reset.

Investment Reviewers

When you begin the review, the application checks the investment reviewers to determine whether each funding account is represented in the review by either its contact or creator. If a funding account is not represented, a page appears indicating the funding account and the funding account contact. You can automatically add the funding account contacts to the reviewers list, or you can return to the proposal without adding reviewers or starting the review.

Tip:
If you want the investment reviewer to be the funding account creator rather than the contact, be sure to cancel and manually add the creator to the investment reviewers list.

FastTrack Approval Process

In the standard review process, a proposal undergoes a concept review and then an investment review. A proposal becomes an activity or program only when the proposal receives approvals for both of these reviews. When you want to skip the standard review process, you can use the FastTrack approval process.

Example:
Consider using the FastTrack approval process in these cases:

You need the approval immediately so work can begin on the activity.
You create a proposal for an activity that you will fund.
You submit a program proposal with no associated activity proposals.
Your company, department, or organization decides to not implement the standard review process.

Proposal Templates

You can save any activity proposal or any program proposal that has Draft or Approved status as a proposal template. When you do this, the proposal template is immediately available for use.

A template is an exact copy of the original proposal, including calendar dates, attachments, and notes. After you apply the template, you can change any information in the proposal.

Note:
Annotations made to attachments in the original proposal are not copied to the proposal template.

Programs and Program Proposals with Activity Proposals

You can add an activity proposal to a program. The activity proposal must have Draft status and be in the same domain as the program. The activity proposal owner can be different from the program owner.

You can add an activity proposal to a program proposal in 2 ways:

Select a program proposal on the activity proposal's Details tab.
Select an activity proposal in the program proposal.

When you associate an activity proposal with a program proposal, your ability to define the activity proposal changes slightly:

You cannot specify an associated activity proposal's reviewers. The program proposal's reviewers will review all associated activity proposals.
You cannot begin the associated activity proposal's review process. Instead, you must begin the program proposal's review process.
Different business rules might apply to the program proposal after you associate it with an activity proposal.

You can remove the association between an activity proposal and a program proposal if the proposal has Draft status.

Which Fields Do I See?

The proposal you are viewing might not have all of the tabs and fields listed here. The tabs and fields available to you as you manage a proposal depends on these factors:

The type of object you are viewing
Some tabs and fields are needed only for activity proposals or only for program proposals.
The application solution sets installed
For example, if the financial solution sets are not installed, the financial data is not available. Or, if the marketing planner solution set is not installed, the full organizational objectives capability and the business rules feature are not available.
Your access to the financial information
If you do not have access to the financial data for a proposal, the financial data sections are disabled. Also, any field that contains financial data appears as asterisks (*).

Details

Field	Description
Activity Type	Select an activity type to determine: Which extended attributes you can track for the activity proposal The proposed activity's initial status System administrators create your activity type options in the System Types module in System Tools. When you select an activity type, the page refreshes to include the extended attributes associated with that activity type.
Program Type	Select a program type to determine: Which extended attributes you can track for the program proposal The proposed program's initial status System administrators create your program type options in the System Types module in System Tools. When you select a program type, the page refreshes to include the extended attributes associated with that program type.
Classification	Define the relationship between objects in the application. The classification is also helpful in reporting.
Currency Code	Select the currency in which to store the object's costs. You can use multiple currencies in Aprimo. For information about your application's available currencies, contact your system administrator. If you change the currency code after you enter estimated costs, the estimated costs do not automatically convert to the new currency code. You must manually change the costs. Financial data is tracked per activity. Therefore, you do not select a currency code for a program proposal. When you view a program proposal's resource costs, the application displays the costs in the base currency.
Program Proposal	Select a program proposal or a program to associate with the activity proposal. First, select whether to associate the activity proposal with a program proposal or a program. Then, the second field populates with the appropriate items.
Status	This field indicates the object's general condition. See Proposal Statuses.
Owner	Select the user who is ultimately responsible for the proposal's implementation. You can select any user to be the owner. Activity proposals have both owners and administrators. The same person, or different people, can fill these roles. When a proposal is approved, the application designates the proposal's owner as the owner of the resulting activity or program. You can change this in the resulting object. The application assigns the proposal's owner to the access list with edit rights. Editing the owner affects the access list. Note: The Activity/Program Owner and Administrator Edit Rules system parameter determines who can edit this field.
Administrator	Select the user who is responsible for the activity proposal's implementation. You can select any user to be the administrator. Activity proposals have both owners and administrators. The same person, or different people, can fill these roles. If the activity proposal is approved, the application designates the proposal's administrator as the administrator of the resulting activity. You can change this in the resulting activity. The application assigns the proposal's administrator to the access list with edit rights. Editing the administrator affects the access list. Note: The Activity/Program Owner and Administrator Edit Rules system parameter determines who can edit this field.
Time Zone	Select the time zone of the location at which the majority of the activity-related work will occur.
Begin Date and End Date	The begin date represents the date when work will begin on the planned activity or program. The end date represents the date when all work will end.
Project Anchor Date	Under certain circumstances, if you use a project template to create a project in an activity, the first task's begin date defaults to the project anchor date. See Workflow Designer.

Proposal Statuses

A proposal's status indicates the level of review and the level of approval that the proposal has received. The same statuses are used with program proposals and activity proposals. As a proposal goes through the review cycle, the application automatically updates its status. This table describes the available statuses.

Status	Definition
Draft	The proposal is still being created. The review cycle has not begun.
Submitted	The proposal has been distributed to the concept reviewers. However, the concept review outcome is not finalized.
Pending	The proposal has received concept approval. The investment review has begun. However, the investment review outcome is not finalized.
Approved	The proposal has received investment approval. The application has created a program or activity from the proposal.
Rejected	The proposal did not receive concept approval or investment approval.

You can manually change from Rejected to Draft status to edit and resubmit a proposal for review.

Additional Fields, Sections, and Tabs

Your system administrator can create additional fields for some objects and make them available for certain system types. Additional fields appear on the Details tab in the Additional Details section or in other sections or on other tabs that the system administrator creates.

An additional field can appear in multiple sections or on multiple tabs in an activity proposal. When you edit a field that appears in multiple locations, the value you type or select appears in each instance of the field.

For more information about an additional field, section, or tab, contact your system administrator. For more information about additional fields in general, see Additional Fields.

Calendar Dates

Use this tab to create and edit calendar dates, which represent notable activity-related events.

Example:
Your activity proposal is for a television commercial. You add a separate calendar date for each time the television commercial will be shown.

Field	Description
Time Zone	The time zone defaults to the activity proposal's time zone. You can change this to a time zone appropriate for the calendar date. On the calendar, the calendar date's start time and end time appear exactly as they appear on the Calendar Dates tab. Each calendar date's time zone is also displayed. Example: Your marketing organization is based in Maryland. The time zone in Maryland is Eastern Standard Time. You are planning a trade show that will occur in Las Vegas. You create a calendar date called Trade Show Begins. Because the trade show occurs in Las Vegas, you specify Pacific Standard Time as the time zone.

Field

Description

Time Zone

The time zone defaults to the activity proposal's time zone. You can change this to a time zone appropriate for the calendar date.

On the calendar, the calendar date's start time and end time appear exactly as they appear on the Calendar Dates tab. Each calendar date's time zone is also displayed.

Example:
Your marketing organization is based in Maryland. The time zone in Maryland is Eastern Standard Time. You are planning a trade show that will occur in Las Vegas. You create a calendar date called Trade Show Begins. Because the trade show occurs in Las Vegas, you specify Pacific Standard Time as the time zone.

Calendar Dates Additional Fields

The application has standard fields for capturing calendar date information. Your organization can create additional fields to capture calendar date information.

Your system administrator manages additional fields in the Extended Attributes module. For more information about a specific field, contact your system administrator.

Forecasts

Use this tab to determine estimated forecasts for activity proposals or program proposals.

Note:
You might see additional fields if your organization chooses to show expense item extended attributes.

Field	Description
Supplier Type	If your organization chooses to show the supplier type, select the type of suppliers to limit choices to a certain category of suppliers, such as catering suppliers. System administrators maintain supplier types in the System Types module.
Fiscal Year	Select the fiscal year to which this forecast applies. When a fiscal year is closed, you cannot change data for that fiscal year.
Period	Select the fiscal period to which this forecast applies. When a fiscal period is closed, you cannot change data for that period.
Expense Category	The list contains a hierarchy of expense categories available for the selected fiscal year, financial group, and activity. Expense categories are a way to organize your organization's expenses.
Total	This field displays the expense's total cost by multiplying the quantity times the rate. Example: If the expense is envelopes and you record a quantity of 100 envelopes at a rate of 10 cents each, the total is $10.00.

Financials

Activities can be funded by multiple funding accounts. In the Funding Account Allocation section on the Financials tab, you can add the funding accounts for the proposed activity and define the account details. For a program proposal, the Funding Accounts section displays rolled up funding amounts for the funding accounts configured for each activity proposal in the program proposal.

Example:
You have an activity that should be funded by the Shipping account, the Printing account, and the Corporate Marketing account. You configure the funding accounts as follows:

Funding Account	Funding Mode	Funding Amount
Shipping	By Expense Category	Selected expense categories
Printing	Fixed Amount	$3,000
Corporate Marketing	Controlling Account	Remainder

The Funding Account Allocation section displays the activity's allocation for any open fiscal years.

Note:
When you close funding accounts at a fiscal year-end, the application removes the closed accounts from the Funding Account Allocation section because you cannot enter data for closed fiscal years.

Field	Description
Funding Account	Select the funding account to fund the proposed activity's defined costs. You can use a funding account more than once in an activity proposal.
Funding Mode	Select the manner in which expenses are applied to the funding account. You can have only 1 controlling account per fiscal year. You can have multiple controlling accounts if an activity spans multiple years.
Funding Amount	Select the amount that can be charged to the funding account. The controlling funding account's funding amount is always Remainder.

Field

Description

Funding Account

Select the funding account to fund the proposed activity's defined costs.

You can use a funding account more than once in an activity proposal.

Funding Mode

Select the manner in which expenses are applied to the funding account.

You can have only 1 controlling account per fiscal year. You can have multiple controlling accounts if an activity spans multiple years.

Funding Amount

Select the amount that can be charged to the funding account.

The controlling funding account's funding amount is always Remainder.

Note:
If you attempt to access a funding account for which you do not have the appropriate rights, a page displays the funding account administrator and funding account contact person. Contact these individuals to set up your rights to access the funding account.

Funding Account

To access the funding account, on the proposal's Financials tab, click the funding account name. The Funding Account Details page appears.

Cost Tracking

You use the cost tracking tab to manage costs related to artificial intelligence.

Field	Description
Estimated Generative AI Cost	Displays the activity's estimated total costs related to generative AI, such as expenses incurred to purchase AI solutions. Click the field total to navigate to a page where you can log your AI-related costs per AI token (or vendor). Click Add to add an expense. AI Token - Select the AI token associated with the cost incurred¹. Description - Provide detailed context for the cost incurred. Units - Indicate the quantity of the AI cost needed for the activity. Cost Per Unit - Indicate the cost per unit. This field will be automatically populated when the AI Token is selected, based on the AI Token's default cost per unit. You can still override the default value if necessary. Total - The application will calculate the total based on the value in the Units field and the Cost Per Unit. ¹AI Tokens are managed by your administrator in the System Types module. See System Types Reference: A to B
Actual Generative AI Cost	Displays the activity's actual total costs related to generative AI.

Field

Description

Estimated Generative AI Cost

Displays the activity's estimated total costs related to generative AI, such as expenses incurred to purchase AI solutions.

Click the field total to navigate to a page where you can log your AI-related costs per AI token (or vendor). Click Add to add an expense.

AI Token - Select the AI token associated with the cost incurred¹.
Description - Provide detailed context for the cost incurred.
Units - Indicate the quantity of the AI cost needed for the activity.
Cost Per Unit - Indicate the cost per unit. This field will be automatically populated when the AI Token is selected, based on the AI Token's default cost per unit. You can still override the default value if necessary.
Total - The application will calculate the total based on the value in the Units field and the Cost Per Unit.

¹AI Tokens are managed by your administrator in the System Types module. See System Types Reference: A to B

Actual Generative AI Cost

Displays the activity's actual total costs related to generative AI.

Resources

When you enter financial data, do not type commas or other whole number separators. To view the monetary values with comma separators, position your cursor over the field. The ScreenTip displays the amount with commas included.

Field	Description
Estimated Labor Cost	This field displays the total of the estimated labor costs entered for the activity proposal. The application associates the labor costs with the roles for resource allocation purposes. A program proposal's estimated labor costs are the total of all activity proposals in the program proposal. Internal chargebacks for time for hourly employees is an example of labor costs. Note: Roles on the Estimated Labor Costs Worksheet apply only to the labor costs. They have no relation to the roles on the activity's Roles tab.
Estimated Material Cost	This field displays the total of the estimated material costs entered for the activity proposal. Materials are tangible objects available for use with many activities. A program proposal's estimated material cost is the total of all activity proposals in the program proposal. In general, materials share these characteristics: You keep an inventory of materials in stock. You reuse materials for many activities. Your organization can buy or produce its materials. Be careful to differentiate between invoiced items and materials. You can use either of these to track the cost of items you use for an activity. Your organization should decide which types of costs are material costs and which types of costs are invoice costs.
Estimated T/E Cost	This field displays the total estimated travel and entertainment costs entered for the activity proposal. A program proposal's estimated T/E cost is the total of all activity proposals in the program proposal. Travel and entertainment costs include these costs: The costs you incur to get participants to an activity. The costs of providing food and lodging to participants for the activity's duration. Do not include the travel and entertainment costs for suppliers. For more information about participants, and the difference between participants and suppliers, see Master Participants List.
Estimated Total Cost	This field displays the calculated sum of the estimated costs.

For more information, see Resources for Proposals.

Estimated Labor Costs Worksheet

To access the Estimated Labor Costs Worksheet, click its hyperlinked value on the activity proposal's Resources tab.

Field	Description
Role	Select the role to use. System administrators maintain roles and their corresponding labor rates in the Roles module in System Tools. You can use a role more than once.
Begin Date	Select the estimated date on which work for the role will begin.
End Date	Select the estimated date on which work for the role will end.
Hours	Select the number of hours estimated for the role.
Rate	This field displays the role's standard labor rate. You can specify a different rate.

Estimated Material Costs Worksheet

To access the Estimated Material Costs Worksheet, click its hyperlinked value on the activity proposal's Resources tab.

Field	Description
Material	When you estimate the material costs, you select the materials to used for the activity. You can filter the materials list to find any material in the current domain. When the activity is implemented, you can add actual materials to the activity. System administrators maintain materials in the master materials list.
Cost Per Unit	The application populates this field when you select the material. The value is from the master material record. You can specify a different value. The application calculates the total for the material from the value in the Units field and the cost per unit.

Field

Description

Material

When you estimate the material costs, you select the materials to used for the activity. You can filter the materials list to find any material in the current domain.

When the activity is implemented, you can add actual materials to the activity.

System administrators maintain materials in the master materials list.

Cost Per Unit

The application populates this field when you select the material. The value is from the master material record. You can specify a different value.

The application calculates the total for the material from the value in the Units field and the cost per unit.

Estimated T/E Costs Worksheet

To access the Estimated T/E Costs Worksheet, click its hyperlinked value on the activity proposal's Resources tab.

Field	Description
Expense Type	When you estimate travel and entertainment costs, you choose the types of travel and entertainment that could occur for the activity. When the activity is implemented, you log actual travel and entertainment costs for it. System administrators maintain expense types in the System Types module.

Field

Description

Expense Type

When you estimate travel and entertainment costs, you choose the types of travel and entertainment that could occur for the activity. When the activity is implemented, you log actual travel and entertainment costs for it.

System administrators maintain expense types in the System Types module.

Resource Allocation

From the Resources tab, you can access the Resource Allocation report. The report helps you determine how much time is needed for each role for the proposed activity by week. It also helps you determine whether the resources are available to complete the proposed activity. The first week indicated is the earliest week represented on the Estimated Labor Costs Worksheet, and the last week is the latest week represented on the Estimated Labor Costs Worksheet.

All roles represented in the activity proposal are also represented on the Resource Allocation report. The report is divided by role. For Resource Allocation report information, see Resource Allocation Overview.

Example:
If your roles consist of Project Manager, Software Engineer, and Technical Writer, the Resource Allocation report displays each role's calculations separately.

Therefore, you see a heading for the Project Manager role with each week's calculations underneath it. The same is true for the Software Engineer and Technical Writer roles.

Field	Description
Total Available	This field displays the total number of users who have this role.
Begin Date and End Date	This field displays the first date and the last date of the week for which the data is calculated.
This Proposal	This field displays a calculation of the role's full-time equivalent for this proposal. Example: If this proposal requires 80 hours from the projectmanager, the Project Manager section's This Proposal calculation is 2.00.
Activities	This field displays a calculation of the role's full-time equivalent for activities with open status.
Activity Variance	This field displays the variance between the total number of users available for this role and the full-time equivalent for this proposal and activities. Example: Ten users are available for the Project Manager role. The full-time equivalent for this proposal is 2.00 and for activities is 3.00. The Activity Variance then equals 5.00.
Other Proposals	This field displays a calculation of the role's full-time equivalent for other proposals with Draft, Submitted, or Pending statuses.
Total Variance	This field displays the role's total variance. Example: For the Project Manager role, the Activity Variance is 5.00. The Other Proposals calculation is 1.50. Therefore, the Total Variance is 3.50.

Objectives

Field	Description
Objective	All proposals can have objectives that are unique to them. If existing organizational objectives are not specific enough for your proposal, you can specify the exact objective you need. For example, your trade show proposal's objective is to generate 1,750 new leads.
Objectives	Your marketing organization can maintain broad objectives that can apply to multiple marketing initiatives. The objectives are categorized in the classification hierarchy, which defines relationships between Aprimo objects. You specify the classification on the Details tab.
Strategies	You can associate an objective with multiple strategies. A strategy identifies the general tactics or approaches you can use to achieve the objective. The strategies you can select depend on the objectives you selected.

Field

Description

Objective

All proposals can have objectives that are unique to them. If existing organizational objectives are not specific enough for your proposal, you can specify the exact objective you need.

For example, your trade show proposal's objective is to generate 1,750 new leads.

Objectives

Your marketing organization can maintain broad objectives that can apply to multiple marketing initiatives. The objectives are categorized in the classification hierarchy, which defines relationships between Aprimo objects. You specify the classification on the Details tab.

Strategies

You can associate an objective with multiple strategies. A strategy identifies the general tactics or approaches you can use to achieve the objective.

The strategies you can select depend on the objectives you selected.

Reviewers

These options are on the Reviewers tab:

To send the proposal through the standard review process, you must select the proposal's reviewers. Both program proposals and activity proposals have these types of reviewers:
- Concept reviewers
- Investment reviewers
To approve the proposal immediately, you must select Yes for FastTrack. Then, when you begin the review process, the proposal immediately becomes an activity or a program.

Field	Description
FastTrack	Select Yes in this field to allow a proposal to bypass the standard review process. See The FastTrack Approval Process. After you complete a FastTrack proposal, click the Begin FastTrack Review button. You can change your selection in the FastTrack field until the standard review process or the FastTrack occurs.
Concept Reviewers	Select the users who will review the proposal to determine whether its concept is valid. If the concept reviewers approve the proposal, the application sends it to the investment reviewers. These factors can determine the concept reviewers: Anyone on the access list for editing the proposal can select the concept reviewers. If your organization uses business rules, the business rules can automatically select the concept reviewers. See Running Business Rules for Proposals. You can delegate a user to review the proposal for another reviewer. You can add any number of concept reviewers for a proposal. Any user can be a concept reviewer. A user can be both a concept reviewer and an investment reviewer.
Investment Reviewers	Select the users to review the proposal's investments. These factors can determine the investment reviewers: Anyone on the access list for editing the proposal can select the investment reviewers. If your organization uses business rules, the business rules can automatically select the investment reviewers and the sequence in which they should appear. See Running Business Rules for Proposals. You can add investment reviewers when you click to begin the review. If a funding account's contact or creator is not among the investment reviewers, a page displays the account and contact, which you can choose to add. You can delegate a user to review the proposal for another reviewer. You can add any number of investment reviewers for a proposal. Any user can be an investment reviewer. Each funding account must be represented in the investment review by its contact or creator. The list of investment reviewers must reflect the review sequence: The last reviewer must appear at the top of the list. The first reviewer must appear at the bottom of the list.
Action	When you point to the action icon, you can click Remove Reviewer and Delegate Reviewer. You can remove a reviewer from the review list if the reviewer is not the current reviewer and has not already voted. You can also delegate another reviewer in place of a reviewer. The reviewer you to which you delegate cannot already be on the reviewer list.
Opened	This field indicates whether a reviewer has opened the proposal, meaning the review has started.
Vote	This field indicates the reviewer's proposal vote.
Reminder Interval and Reminder Begin Date	You can configure the proposal to send reviewers emails if they do not review in a timely manner. Only reviewers who have not yet voted receive emails. Example: Your proposal is for an activity that must begin in the next 2 weeks. Therefore, for the concept reviewers, you configure reminders to occur every day, beginning 2 days from now. For investment reviewers, you configure reminders to occur twice daily, beginning 1 day after the proposal receives concept approval.

Targets

Targets represent the proposed activity's scope of influence. System administrators create targets in the System Types module in System Tools.

Note:
A program proposal and its associated activity proposals can have different targets. However, if you select the program proposal's targets and then add an activity proposal to it directly from the program proposal, the application automatically adds the program proposal's targets to the associated activity proposal. You can edit the activity proposal's targets without affecting the program proposal's targets.

Field	Description
Regions	Select a geographic area to target.
Audiences	Select a general group of people who share common characteristics. Audiences are different from audience members. An audience is a general category of people. An audience member is a specific person.
Offerings	Select a product, sale, or promotion. Offerings are different from offers. An offer is a benefit, such as a product, service, or discount, that your organization makes available to a target audience.

Field

Description

Regions

Select a geographic area to target.

Audiences

Select a general group of people who share common characteristics.

Audiences are different from audience members. An audience is a general category of people. An audience member is a specific person.

Offerings

Select a product, sale, or promotion.

Offerings are different from offers. An offer is a benefit, such as a product, service, or discount, that your organization makes available to a target audience.

Access List

The proposal access list limits who can view and edit a proposal. An access list contains names of users and groups, and the level of access they have. At least 1 user must always be able to edit a proposal.

Chat Access

Any user who is put onto the Additional Chat User list either manually or through detection mechanisms present when a chat message is posted, will be granted access to the chat board relevant to the Proposal. It will not give them any additional elevated rights to interact with the proposal itself, though these can be granted at a later time if so desired.

Associated Activity Proposals

This tab lists all activity proposals that make up a program proposal.

See Creating Program Proposals With Activity Proposals.

Begin Review

Field	Description
Objective	If you specified an objective specific to this proposal, it appears here. If this is a program proposal that has activity proposals, only the program proposal objective appears here.
Investment Amount	For activity proposals, this is the total funding amount you are requesting for the activity proposal. For program proposals, this is the total funding amount you are requesting for all activity proposals in this program proposal. The forecast amount is the sum of the estimated forecast costs. To change the forecast amount before beginning the review process, edit the associated activity proposals' estimated forecast worksheets.
Notifications	This field displays the user IDs of all people who will receive a notification about this proposal.
Comments	Use this field to include additional proposal information. Your comments appear in the notification. If you want your comments to be part of the actual proposal, use the Add Comments as Proposal Note field.
Add Comments as Proposal Note	This field displays comments as a proposal note. A new note appears in the proposal's Notes module to ensure your comments stay with the proposal.

Approve Program Proposal - FastTrack Page

Field	Description
Objective	Select objectives specific to this program proposal. If this is a program proposal with activity proposals, only the program proposal's objective appears here.
Forecast Amount	This field displays the total funding amount you are requesting for all activity proposals in this program proposal. The forecast amount is the sum of the estimated forecast costs. To change the forecast amount before completing the FastTrack approval process, edit the associated activity proposals' forecast worksheets.
Approve	Select the associated activity proposals to approve.
Funding Account Allocation	To approve an associated activity proposal, you must select the funding accounts to fund it. You can select any active funding account.
Notifications	This field displays the user IDs of all people who will receive a notification about this proposal.
Comments	Use this field to include any additional proposal information. Your comments appear in the notification. If you want your comments to be part of the actual proposal, use the Add Comments as Proposal Note field.
Add Comments as Proposal Note	This field displays comments as a proposal note. A new note appears in the proposal's Notes module to ensure your comments stay with the proposal.

Approve Activity Proposal - FastTrack Page

Field	Description
Objective	Select objectives specific to this activity proposal.
Funding Account Allocation	To approve an activity proposal, you must select the funding accounts to fund it. You can select any active funding account.
Forecast Amount	This field displays the total funding amount you are requesting for the activity proposal. The forecast amount is the sum of the estimated invoice costs. To change the forecast amount before completing the FastTrack approval process, edit the activity proposal's resource worksheets.
Notifications	This field displays the user IDs of all people who will receive a notification about this proposal.
Comments	Use this field to include any additional information about the proposal. Your comments are included in the notification. If you want your comments to be part of the actual proposal, use the Add Comments as Proposal Note field.
Add Comments as Proposal Note	This field displays comments as a proposal note. A new note appears in the proposal's Notes module to ensure your comments stay with the proposal.