In this tutorial we will cover the creation process of proposal templates. There are two types of proposals that can be designed in Releventful. These options are the proposal template and a line-item proposal.

Proposal templates allow your clients to browse your package and add on offerings and make selections on their own. The proposal template creates a very customizable involvement from your client and a unique shopping cart experience as they browse through your available offerings. When they make selections in the proposal template, automations can be configured in Releventful to move the client directly to the contract, final invoice, and payment schedule for their selections. This process can be highly automated or allow room for additional touchpoints from you if you prefer to be more hands on with your client’s selection process.

To create a proposal template, you will first need to have package and add-on’s populated in the system to work with. If you have not created packages and add on offerings, please refer to our tutorial on this before beginning your proposal template design.

From the left-hand navigation bar, select the templates icon. From the submenu that appears, select proposal templates. Your account most likely has a sample proposal template to view and work from. You can select this or any other existing proposal templates from the list that appears or create a new one from scratch with the “add proposal template” option at the top of the page.

When creating a new proposal template, you will see a list of layouts to start working from that are tailored to different industries. Pick one that you like, or if you prefer, you can build a template from scratch with the blank template option.

In the proposal template builder, you can start to build your layout for the proposal template. This will be what your clients see if you offer this option to them to shop your package and add on offerings. If you are working from an existing template, you can repurpose or remove any of the items you see in the layout.

For example, change out the existing logo in the header for your own logo. Hover over the header and select the “edit” option on the right-hand side.

Select the existing image and choose the “replace” prompt that appears. At this time, you can swap out the example logo for one of your own.

Using the plus icon at the top of the page, you will see a menu of layout and design options for your proposal template. It is best to know ahead of time how many packages and add on offerings you have and want to display on this template to your clients. To build out your package offerings, select the “Package Display & Selection” option from the top of the list. When selected, the option will be added to the bottom of the proposal template.

On the newly added field, select the edit option in the upper right-hand corner. At the top of the edit window, you can select how many packages you want to display in this section. You can select anywhere from 1 to 3. If you have 6 different packages, you could select a three-column layout and then add an additional three column display underneath this section for the additional packages. Or, if you have 2 packages, the two-column option will be perfect for you.

In the sample I am sharing today, the packages listed here are in a two-column layout option. If I hover over this, I can select the edit pencil. For each of the columns, I have a package selected to be displayed. You can see that each package has its own tab at the top of this edit window. Package 1 is the Williamsburg package, and package 2 is the Monticello package.

Once your packages are added here, you can scroll further down this edit window to configure the settings for these offerings on the proposal template. This is important as it will determine how your clients interact with the proposal template offerings.

Each package can have a button displayed for the client to select if they want to opt into this package. Set the text that is displayed on the button for this package before and after the client decides to select it. This is a free text field, so you can enter any text that works for you.

You can decide if you want the description for the package to be displayed in the proposal template. This description will be pulled over directly from what you have entered in the package description field for this offering.

You also have the option to show the price of the package or not.

Next you will be brought to the image of the package. You can upload a custom image here or you can pull in the image directly from the package details. If you attached an image to the package when you created it, that image can be pulled into the proposal template. There is also the option to not include a picture at all.

We suggest using a picture for your package and add-on’s as it makes the proposal template very user friendly and professional. There are specific image parameters that need to be followed to have your picture appear properly. These parameters are different if you select the one, two or three column options. For a breakdown of those image parameter recommendations, please refer to our article at help.releventful.com.

If you have images loaded to the image gallery for this package, you can enable the image gallery to be displayed.

If you have identified add-ons to pair with this package, you can set this setting to “yes” to showcase those add-ons to a client that selects this package. The client can select any add-ons identified with this package when displayed.

The “selection settings” will determine if your clients can select the buttons to choose these packages. We suggest putting this setting to “yes” if you would like your clients to actively make selections and have the shopping cart experience when viewing your proposal template. If you do not want them to make selections, but just review your offerings, you can set this setting to “no.”

If selection is enabled, you can then determine the minimum and maximum quantity settings for their package selection process. This is important because you will need to determine if a client can select one package or all of them when reviewing your offerings.

The last setting here will determine if your client is able to choose more than one of this package. If you would like your client to select this package more than once, you can set this to “yes”.

Toggle to the other package tabs to set the same settings for each package.

Back on the proposal template display, select the plus symbol to see add-on display options. The settings for the add on display are similar to that of the package display. You can select anywhere from 1-3 add-ons per section, and also set the configuration settings for each of the add on offerings.

A nice way to create a user-friendly proposal template is to add section titles and text boxes in the template builder.

The section titles inform the client of the section they are reviewing, and any additional text here can provide them with guidance on making their selections. The sections and text fields will break up the package and add-ons in the proposal and ensure that the client knows how to use the template properly.

You can drag and drop any fields on the proposal template. Feel free to move items around with the drag and drop option to ensure the layout design looks how you intend it to.

You can change the colors and font of the proposal template by selecting the settings gear at the top of the page. You will see font and display preferences here in this settings window.

You can add questions to the proposal template if you would like to gather more information from your client about their event. You have the option to use the available question type fields nested underneath the “form options” header.

The data fields listed under the “Event Detail Options” header will map back to the backend details for the event if you choose to add these to the proposal template.

For example, if you add the venue name field to the proposal template, when the client populates this field, the data entered will be reflected in the correlating venue name field on the event details tab of their event.

When clients receive the proposal template from you, they will make their selections and hit the “submit” button at the bottom of the page when they are ready to proceed. If you want to provide additional directions to your client about this process and what steps to follow after they submit, we suggest placing a text section at the bottom of the proposal template with instructions on what is expected of them next. This provides clear directions to them on what is expected following this step.

The other proposal option is the line-item proposal. The line-item proposal does not allow for this type of interaction and browsing ability for the client. The line-item proposal is great if you need to create highly customized or detailed proposals for your clients.

The proposal template is great to create an interactive experience for your customers and give them more control over the buying process and often results in a higher sale amount.

If you are interested in learning more about the line-item proposal option, please watch our line-item proposal tutorial at help.releventful.com.