What are Document Types?
Document Types, put simply, are types of documents that GovDash recognizes. This categorization gives GovDash the flexibility to tailor processing for each document individually based on where it is best suited.
What are They Used For?
Document Types are primarily used to determine the way a document is categorized, which dictates when it is used within GovDash. For example, GovDash will not attempt to search for Task Area (Work) Requirement text from a Staffing Roster or Win Themes document. By categorizing (or classifying) sentences within a document, we can provide a standard way to use the important and relevant parts of a document throughout GovDash.
When Are Documents Categorized?
In most cases, right when you upload a document into GovDash! In most document workflows, the very first thing GovDash does is run documents through our AI Document Classification system. This performs a combination of checks as well as AI evaluation of the contents of a document to try to determine a document’s type.
In the Data Library, this happens as soon as documents are uploaded and processed. In Proposal Cloud and Contract Cloud, we don’t classify document types until you initiate their respective workflow process (i.e. starting a proposal draft, or uploading a contract).
GovDash Cloud-Specific Use Cases
As each area (or Cloud) of GovDash serves a different purpose and role within an opportunity’s lifecycle, naturally documents would be used differently depending on the context of each Cloud. Below we will outline some Cloud-specific use cases for document types.
Capture Cloud
Within the Capture Cloud, document types are primarily used to discern which documents we use to populate Capability Matrices, as well as populating the Shred View tab (line-by-line shreds of documents). These classification runs are preserved and un-changed when you bring an opportunity from the Pipeline to the Proposal Cloud, which saves you time to generate your outline.
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Proposal Cloud
Document types are a foundational part of Proposal Cloud. When building an outline, GovDash tries to cut out as much noise as possible from the documents and focus squarely on text that fall into these main categories: Proposal Preparation Instructions, Task Area Requirements, and Evaluation Criteria.
Document types are the sole determinant for which documents get these categorization processes run on them. There is often too much text and noise to sift through in a typical solicitation package of documents to try to get a usable or worthwhile outline from it, so we rely on document types to discern what matters for creating outlines, generating compliance matrices, and generating content.
If you want to be certain that the contents of a document are being used in Proposal Cloud, you must double-check that the types on the solicitation package documents are being set appropriately or otherwise its contents will be not visible to our AI systems responsible for extracting these key details.
When you changing the document types in your solicitation package in Proposal Cloud, we enforce a process called Re-Processing for your outline.
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Changing a document’s type means a different context will be used when GovDash potentially uses the document to create your outline, which can influence which documents will appear in areas like Shred Views, and which documents can be cited from in the Citation Editor for compliance. This ultimately means the resulting content generated after changing document types can greatly diverge from the initial version.
Contract Cloud
Document types serve a critical role when creating contract awards in the Contract Cloud. They determine which documents are eligible to be considered the main document types on an award, which is composed of a Contract Award Summary and the PWS/SOW.
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Similar to Proposal Cloud, Contract Cloud relies on the same document text categorization, and therefore document types, to build your capabilities “database”. Since capabilities are made up of Task Area / Work Requirements, GovDash relies heavily on these document types to ensure it’s getting accurate data from the correct documents.
List of Document Type-to-Categorization Mappings
Below is a list of examples of where GovDash will utilize specific document types for specific tasks.
Document types we consider to contain Task Area / Work Requirements. These are used primarily in capability matrices, document shreds, and compliance matrices.
PWS
SOW
RFP
RFI
RFQ
TO (Task Order)
Sources Sought
Document types we consider to contain Proposal Preparation Instructions & Evaluation Criteria. These are used primarily in document shreds and compliance matrices.
ITO
RFP
RFI
RFQ
TO (Task Order)
Sources Sought
Questionnaire