Features Updates

Phase-Based Rankings (Firm-Side Only)

Overview

During auctions, the app will now display the price rank of each phase-based item in a firm’s proposal. All ranks are automatically produced by the app when comparing the same items across all competing firm proposals. This is helpful to both clients and firms who often want to focus more on the pricing of individual phased-based items rather than total price. Please note, that these ranks will only appear on the firm side and not the client side. There will be a future release where clients will have the option to sort by pricing at the phase level.

An example of firm-side Phase-Based Rankings is as follows:

• • Let’s say the first item on 3 different law firm proposals are priced like this:
    • Firm A Item 1: $1,500
    • Firm B Item 1: $1,200
    • Firm C Item 1: $1,400
  • Those firms will be able to see in their comparison view where they rank in pricing for this phase compared to the other firms. So using the same scenario, the ranks would be shown as:
    • Firm A will see a rank of #3 for this item in their proposal view (most expensive)
    • Firm B will see a rank of #1 for this item in their proposal view (cheapest)
    • Firm C will see a rank of #2 for this item in their proposal view

This new functionality is especially helpful for Rank-Only auctions where the firm can now see where they stand in each pricing phase. Here is an example of the firm-side view during a Rank-Only Auction:

As usual, when the auction-type is Rank and Price or Rank and Lowest Bid, the firm will still be able to see the phase-based pricing of all other firms or just the lowest bid firm, depending on the type of auction, but now they’ll also be able to clearly see where they rank in each phase.

What's very impactful here is that clients might deem certain phases are most important when communicating with their firms. Those firms will now be able to understand very quickly how these relevant sections of their proposal are priced compared to the competition. This will result in clients receiving more competitive and accurate pricing for these phases - and firms with the transparency to put their best foot forward.

FAQ

Does this only display for requests with the reverse auction enabled?

• Yes, for the initial release the phase-based ranking is only available to requests with the reverse auction enabled. If the need is justified to enable this for other request types, we will prioritize optimizing this feature.

Will this be rolled out for client side?

• No, we have an initiative in progress to allow clients to sort phases from within the compare table. The UX of the compare table is already very crowded and adding items will add noise rather than provide value. Hence, the solution to provide phase-based rankings to clients will be delivered in the form of a sorting function.

How does this apply to hourly rates or discount price models?

• Rankings will not apply to hourly rates or discount price models

Will the firm user see the ranking of competing proposals?

• No, the phase ranking is only visible on the individual firms’ phases - not their competitors. 

What happens when multiple items have the same price?

• If a phase has the same price as a competing proposal’s phase, then the ranking will display that there is a tie for that particular section (i.e. "2nd - tied")

Does it affect the overall ranking?

• No, the overall ranking is still calculated on the proposal total price only.

Does ranking apply to groups?

• No, the ranking is on the individual pricing items / phases, irrespective of any grouping that might be in place.