Appian Requirements Management Overview

Introduction

The application your organization uses to create and manage requirements packages is essential in successfully managing the requirements processes in your acquisition management lifecycle. Commercial, off-the-shelf solutions can be hard to implement because they require you to tailor your processes to the product so it can address your business needs.

What if you could quickly and efficiently create and execute requirement packages in a simple-to-use application without having to overhaul your entire process?

The right solution can drive better outcomes, save time, and reduce guesswork and errors. Built on the Appian Low-Code platform, the Appian Requirements Management (RM) solution is a flexible and configurable application designed to simplify how organizations manage their acquisition requirements processes. RM allows program teams, functional organizations, and contracting professionals to collaborate, update, and execute their acquisition requirements based on their unique complex processes. In addition, it provides a comprehensive view of the requirement and requirement process, which helps to improve visibility and allows organizations to track the progress of their requirements processes in a single application. Best of all, the solution can be deployed immediately as it is or customized to fit your specific needs and ready for deployment within weeks.

Requirements Management use case

Let's take a look at an example scenario:

Acme Agency, an advertising firm, is purchasing new computer equipment for a department. A team member from the department is responsible for collecting all of the descriptions, line items, important dates, and funding information related to the request. They also need to collect and complete several documents and reviews before sending them to the contracting professionals to execute the requirement.

With Requirements Management, the department team member can manage this entire process in a single application. Once a requirement has been created, they can select a checklist to guide them through all the steps and items needed to complete the requirement package for their new computer equipment.

This requirement checklist determines what items and steps are needed and sends it to the correct group. For example, the legal team may get a checklist item to review certain documents, while the department team member may get a checklist item to create specific documents based on a template. Everyone who has received a checklist item will be able to view, update, and reassign from one cohesive application. A department manager can see the progress of the requirement and the requirement checklist all in a single view.

What does Appian Requirements Management provide?

Procurement AI Copilot

Unlock the potential of AI within Requirements Management using Copilot to interact with requirements and process documents and gain instant insights. Whether seeking answers to specific questions or generating summaries, our AI-driven chat functionality provides the information efficiently. Additionally, access analytics to monitor and analyze these interactions over time to enhance your document management processes.

ProcureSight integration

Leverage the power of ProcureSight directly from the RM solution to search for procurement data from publicly available sources like SAM.gov and USAspending.gov, chat with procurement documents, and save procurements to requirements. The integration also automatically displays recommended and related procurements during the requirements creation process.

Guided data collection

A wizard guides you and your end users through the process of entering the necessary requirement data. This ensures a high level of accuracy in the data being provided.

Intelligent classification codes

Use the solution's intelligent search capabilities for Product Service Codes (PSC) and NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes to quickly find what you need when creating a new requirement. This improves requirement classification and is useful for identifying relevant best-in-class contracts.

Configurable checklists and checklist items

Create checklists (or milestone plans) that automatically assign checklist items to groups and assignees based on data entered. Also, configure the criteria that determine the checklist recommendations your users see when creating a new requirement. Add, edit, rearrange, and reassign your checklist items as needed when you create your requirement package.

Configurable requirement review process

Create requirement review processes that automatically assigns review tasks to user groups that need to review and approve the requirement based on data entered. Add, edit, rearrange, and assign a user for the review as needed when you submit your requirement for review.

Full transparency for a single view of the requirement

Combine disparate data from legacy processes and checklists into a single platform to enable cross-collaboration within the organization. Break down barriers and clarify the status of your requirements through requirement summaries, visibility of checklists, and milestone progress.

Flexible and user-friendly workload and item completion reporting

Manage and report on workload and checklist item completion data with flexible and user-friendly reports.

Integration with Contract Writing

Requirements Management is integrated with Contract Writing (CW) to enable you to create awards or solicitations in Contract Writing directly from requirements with Accepted status or higher in Requirements Management. All relevant data, including line items and documents, are copied during the process.  The requirement includes a link to the associated solicitation or award, and the solicitation or award links back to the requirement, creating a seamless connection between requirements and procurements. 

The integration between RM and CW is set up automatically if both solutions use the same environment.

Integration with Award Management

Requirements Management is integrated with Award Management (AM) to enable you to create awards or solicitations in Award Management directly from requirements with Accepted status or higher in Requirements Management. All relevant data, including line items and documents, are copied during the process.  The requirement includes a link to the associated solicitation or award, and the solicitation or award links back to the requirement, creating a seamless connection between requirements and procurements. 

The integration between RM and AM is set up automatically if both solutions use the same environment.

Intelligent document management and creation

Create, upload, manage, and collaborate on your requirement documents and templates directly in the application with the built-in Office 365 integration.

Secure, fast, and integrated processes

De-risk your deployment with the security, scalability, and reliability your customers demand. Rapidly respond with a flexible configuration that adapts to your requirement processes.

Get started now

Ready to get started using RM? See the following documentation for more information on installing and using Appian RM:

• Installing RM
• Using RM

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