How to Buy 1up

User Guide

Best Practices

Plugins & Connectors

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How to Buy 1up

Procurement

Once you’ve selected 1up as your preferred tool it’s time to choose your 1up plan and inform your finance team. You may also be required to get approval from the security team.

 

Here are some considerations when procuring 1up:

  • Your company might have compliance requirements for deploying AI tools. Our Terms of Service already cover most requirements. Please let us know if you have an additional data agreement you’d like us to review.
  • Your IT team might ask us to complete a security review or to provide a SOC2 report. Here’s a summary of our data policies you can share in advance.
  • Do you need us to complete a security questionnaire? Send it our way. We’ll run it through 1up 🙂
  • On rare occasions, your team might ask us to complete an MNDA. We’re happy to take a look.

Testing 1up Alongside Other Tools

We understand you might be reviewing 1up alongside different methods for questionnaire automation. Here are the key factors you should consider in choosing the right tool:

  • Answer quality ⭐
    This is the #1 most important factor. Your responses should use accurate sources you trust. Answers should always be truthful with strong protections in place for incorrect responses. All responses should be formatted correctly with transparency on how they’re being generated. A slow, accurate response is better than a fast, dishonest hallucination.
  • Data Security 🔐
    Customer data should never be used to train Large Language Models. As for certifications, SOC2 compliance is table stakes, and should not be considered a differentiator. Instead, consider the vendor’s team composition and background – do they have a dedicated infosec function? How have they protected customers from data leakage? For reference, here’s a brief overview of 1up’s approach to data security.
  • Speed ⚡
    Answers should only take a few sections to generate. Long, complex questions might take longer, but should still be much faster than it would take a human to write. A simple benchmark we use is that your questionnaire tool should be able to deliver at least 100 high-quality answers per hour.
  • Ease of use 💤
    Your tool should be easy to use out of the box with minimal setup. Newly added users should be quickly familiarized with the dashboard without the need for setup calls or extensive training. The easier it is to use, the faster you’ll get value out of it.
  • Trusted Knowledge Sources ℹ️
    You should be able to import a variety of file types and data sources, including gated webpages and 3rd party repositories such as Google Drive, Confluence, and more. A powerful knowledge base will automatically refresh itself to ensure your answers are up to date and accurate.
  • Workflow Flexibility 💪
    Users should be able to control their answer generation, sources, and knowledge base structure. A flexible system should allow users to influence answers based on pre-selected sources. Users should also be able to set statuses, monitor usage, and ensure that questionnaires are streamlined from start to finish.
  • Document Compatibility 📄
    You should be able to automate answers to documents in any format. Microsoft Excel, Word, PDF, and even web-based questionnaires should be supported out-of-the-box. When it comes to web-based question sheets, a good approach is to use an RFP questionnaire browser extension.

Finally, assess if the tool is actually saving you time.

 

Does the tool require you to continue living in Excel or Word Documents? If your whole point of looking for an automation tool is to get away from living in spreadsheets, then make sure that’s what you’re getting.

 

You should be able to handoff a document to an AI, step away, and come back to a completed project ready for your review. Anything less and you’re just adding extra steps.

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Questions to Ask Other Vendors

Not sure how to evaluate multiple tools? Here are some effective questions our customers have asked other vendors:

  • Are the answers provided a ‘cut and paste’ of previous responses, or are they tuned to new questions?
  • Does your tool automatically identify questions, or do users need to manually map out rows, columns, and questions?
  • Do users need to continue living in Excel or Word documents?
  • How fast can the system generate 100 answers to a questionnaire?
  • Does the tool connect to living document sources such as like Google Drive and Confluence?
  • Can the tool use gated websites and support portals to generate answers?
  • How does the tool support web-based questionnaires?
  • Can the system handle unstructured free-form RFPs?
  • When they say their tool has AI features, do they mean that new and unique answers are generated for questionnaires? Or does it mean it uses AI to ‘search’ for past answers?
  • How easy is it to maintain a knowledge base? Do users need to maintain a list of hundreds of Q&A pairs?
  • How long of a contract do users need to subscribe to? Is there a free trial period, and what are the limitations?
  • Does the tool actually reduce the amount of time or people it currently takes to complete a questionnaire? If so, by how much?
  • If the answer returned by the system needs tweaking or reworking, what tools does the system provide to help you accomplish this?
  • Can you ask the system one-off questions to get information you need to help with this?
  • Are support costs extra?