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How to generate a 'heat map' in MS Excel from concept (or discovery) data

There is a flow that I regularly show in demos. I take a concept list and apply it either to multiple solicitation docs or multiple response snippits.

A common rationale for this flow is to score documents for 'fit'. This helps qualify solicitations for capture. It helps flag suitability to pursue the bid, pass or 'team' with partners.

I also use this flow for a different reason. If you take a concept list with a set of technical differantiators and apply it to a collection of response snippits, it can help identify gaps both at doc or section level.

So here's the steps to create a heatmap across multiple docs for a concept list (equally applies to discovery):

  1. select the folder containing your documents
  2. now, click the 'concept tracking' tab. Now, if you need to change the current concept scan, just click the new 'Run different scan' button. This is newly introduced in version 2.8
  3. Now click 'Export >> Export to CSV'. You now have a comma seperated export of the data
  4. By default the export will open in Excel if you click 'open' when prompted
  5. Now once Excel is open, position your cursor at cell D2. Then drag the cursor to the bottom and right side, so you have highlighted all the data
  6. In Excel, under the 'home' tab, in the 'styles' group, click 'Conditional formatting >> Color Scales'.
  7. Then chose whichever color code you prefer. I like to use the 'red - yellow - green' scale as it flags high frequency data with red and low with green

So, what you end up with is the following graphic. Ideal for communicating the data in a very visual way. Hope it's helpful.

heat-map-sample.jpg 

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