Introduction to Smart Layouts

Have you ever found it challenging to find those “needles in a haystack” when looking for the best experiences to feature in your proposal? And how about the time it takes to feature those experiences or the bios of your experts in a professionally formatted way? If you’re like many proposal writers, these are some of the most time-consuming parts of putting together a quality proposal. Fortunately for you, you have QorusDocs and its Smart Layouts feature to make this a breeze.

Smart Layouts are a way to help you easily filter and select a group of records, such as bios or experiences, and then insert them into your proposal using a pre-formatted layout in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. Smart Layouts can take two different forms:

Smart Layouts Content Source – In this type of library you’ll be able to search and filter for the right records you’d like to feature. Smart Layouts have a unique Advanced Filtering function to help you find the right records. Once you select your records, you’ll have your pick of pre-formatted layout designs that your Admin has set up for that type of content. Select the one you’d like, and magically your records are inserted into your document in a beautifully designed layout.

A neat feature of using this Smart Layouts Content Source is that if you’re working within a Pursuit document, any selections you make in your Grid view will be automatically remembered to your Pursuit. This way, you could Download a CSV of your selections to circulate internally for feedback, then come back to your Pursuit document, and when you’re ready to insert your final selections, all of your previous selections will already be there.

Smart Layout Smart Field – If this type of Smart Field is in your template, when creating a new document from this template, you’ll be prompted to select the records and pre-approved layout template that you’d like to use for those records. Upon creation of your new document, you’ll see a beautifully designed layout featuring the records you selected - Pursuit context: If you’ve already made some Smart Layout selections from the Grid in a different Pursuit document, when you go to create a new document in the same Pursuit, your Smart Layout Smart Field records will be pre-selected as they were from the previous Pursuit document.

Using Advanced Filters for your Smart Layouts

Because finding exactly the right bios or experience to feature can involve a large number of records to choose from, QorusDocs makes it easy to narrow down your selections by using Advanced Filters.

1. To use Advanced Filters, click on the Advanced Filters icon under your Search bar. Start by selecting the Field that you want to filter by. Depending on the field Type, you’ll see a selection of operators for your filter.
2. To add a new filter, click the “Add Condition” button, and a new filter line will appear.
3. At this point, you’ll have the option for that new line to be treated as an “AND” or an “OR”.
   • Selecting AND (default) means that your search will only return records that satisfy both filter conditions
   • Selecting OR means that your search will return all records that meet either of the filter conditions
4. Adding a Group enables you to add a filter condition with multiple parts. For example, let’s say you were looking for experience records whose Practice Area equals Environmental, AND Long Description or Short Description contained the word “permitting”. First, you’d set up a filter for Practice Area Equals Environmental. Then you’d click Create Group, select Long Description Contains Permitting. Click Add Condition within the Group and select Short Description Contains Permitting. Then change the group’s operator from AND to OR.
5. To apply your Advanced Filters, simply click on the Apply button and you’ll see your search results. To modify your Advanced Filters, click the Advanced Filters icon again, make your desired modifications, and click Apply again.

How do I get access to Smart Layouts?

Smart Layouts are set up by your Admin or through the Professional Services team at QorusDocs.

Are you an Admin who would like to make Smart Layouts available to your organization? Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more and get this feature enabled for your Hub. Once we enable the feature for you, we can either set up Smart Layout for you through our Professional Services team, or you can set them up yourself. Steps to set up Smart Layouts include:

• Set up your Smart List. See Introduction to Smart Lists and How to Create Smart Lists and Best Practices
• Set up your Layout Template library. See Smart Layout Template Library Setup
• Create your Smart Layout Content Source. See How to Create your Smart Layout Content Source