Another customer recommendation has made it into RFPMonkey.com. This new feature is called List Linking.

A current customer was searching for the phrase "company information" within their repository. The information was present, but it wasn't easily located because that particular search phrase was only attached to a couple of the related entries. There was a response sub-category called "Corp Background" with several relevant entries, but only a couple of those entries were key word coded to be found searching for the phrase "company information".

• Had the user done a sub-category search, they would certainly have found the "Corp Background" entries and been satisfied
  

• Using the What's Missing function, the administrator identified the shortcoming and can now improve key words.
  

• List Linking offers a 3rd solution by introducing a new way to navigate the existing information.

With List Linking you can easily display entries whose category, sub-category, or product are the same as the entry you have already found. A good practice is to start your search with a particular word or phrase, then broaden your search by linking into the category of one of your initial results.

XML API - We're developing a programmatic interface that will allow other applications to securely log into RFPMonkey.com and execute searches. This will allow customers to develop custom applications that make use of their RFP knowledgebase. Of course, this access will be restricted to a customer's own data and current user permissions.

The launch date is not set for the release of the new XML API, but development has begun and good progress is being made. As part of this effort, we're currently restructuring how users are authenticated and how user sessions are stored. This work will enable the creation of the new remote login API.

Meanwhile, the new remote search API is nearly done. It is working as anticipated and returning results via XML.

Word plug-in - We're also drawing specifications for an MS Office plug-in that will allow users to highlight text within an MS Word doc or Excel spreadsheet and execute an RFPMonkey.com search based on it. The results will be listed for the user to select from. Then the response from the selected entry will be inserted into the Word/Excel file that the user is working within.

This plug-in will not be as feature-rich as the normal RFPMonkey.com web interface, but will be allow users to stay within their proposal doc and avoid jumping back and forth between Word and RFPMonkey.com.  

Our current plans are to offer the plug-in for free to customers with paid accounts.