Mustwin Now Outline Editor

Before you can start working on the content plan for your proposal, you need an outline. If you are responding to an RFP, your outline should be based on the instructions in the RFP. If this applies to you, you should import the RFP first, before you create your proposal outline. However, the outline editor in MustWin Now does not force you to do this, and it can even be used to create a proposal outline when there is no RFP.

Here is what the outline editor in MustWin Now looks like. From here you can see the RFP requirements if you have imported them. And you can see the headings in your outline as you build it.

When you have imported the RFP requirements, you have a few options for creating your proposal outline. One easy way to do it is to directly convert RFP requirements into proposal headings. To create a proposal section from the RFP requirements on the left, scroll your cursor over it and click the arrow the says "Turn this into a proposal section".

Fill out the tiny form to create a new proposal section for your outline. The title should already be filled out based on the RFP requirement that you chose. You decide how you want to number the headings in your proposal. You can copy the RFP paragraph number and use it. Or you can use your own numbering system. We strongly recommend that you use as much of the RFP numbers as possible so that the customer can easily find where you've responded to their requirements. But when you cross-reference different sections of the RFP, you'll have lots of different RFP numbers to incorporate and you'll have you use your judgment regarding how you number your proposal sections.

When finished, click "save", or "save and add another" if you need to add more. The "Parent Section" field is optional. You can use it to edit the hierarchy of the headings. If you enter the text of an existing heading, this one will be made subordinate to it. But there are other ways to do the same thing that you might find easier. 

The heading you just saved has now been added to your outline and you can see it in the image below. If you need to make changes to your outline, there is a full set of tools for doing so.

To change the order it appears in, you can simply drag and drop it using the handle bars to the left and place it where you want it to appear.

You can change the heading number by clicking in the box and typing what you want to change it to. In the example above, the heading numbers are a bit random. You could replace them with proper sections numbers in sequence. If you have to do major edits to your outline, with a lot of resequencing, changes in hierarchy, etc., you can quick renumber them all.

You can also use the toolbar to the right of each section to change the hierarchy, edit the heading text, or delete a section from your outline.

If you have a lot of headings to enter, you can also do them in bulk, instead of one at a time. At the bottom of the outline is an entry field where you can enter a bunch of headings, one per line. When you click save, they will be added to the outline.

The new headings will appear on the bottom, where you can enter in the heading numbers, drag/drop them where they belong, and indent/outdent them as needed.