The EMDESK® Proposal Preparation and Management Module

The EMDESK® Proposal Preparation Module is the integrated tool for structured and collaborative proposal writing and project planning. The tool offers a set of features that support the project consortium at the project idea, planning and proposal submission phase.

The first EMDESK Module is designed to provide project consortia with a project planning solution that undertakes all the administrative effort automatically. With EMDESK, you can free up resources for full focus on the draft of the proposal and get additionally greater transparency and flexibility.

And best of all, the Proposal Preparation Module is part of the EMDESK one-tool solution. After you have successfully submitted a proposal, you do not need to set-up a plan base again. You can seamlessly switch over to the EMDESK Negotiation or Project Management Module and benefit from further EMDESK support in the next project stages.

The EMDESK® Proposal Preparation Module is provided free of charge for the whole consortium and is available online after registration.

Collaborate and Work more efficient on your proposal

Get quickly an overview about the proposal preparation status

The Preparation Status Tracker in EMDESK helps the project coordinator to follow the drafting process together with the delivery of required contributions of each project partner and helps to ensure proposal consistency and completion on time. At a glance obtain which part is in progress or finalized and send a note to a partner for review.

Benefit from instant calculation of project budget and contribution

With EMDESK, the calculation and fine-tuning of budget becomes more simple and flexible. On input or change of partner personnel cost or overhead rates, direct costs or planned resources, the budgets and requested EC funding for the project and each partner are estimated instantly – even down to each activity type and cost category - You are now able to scale the project size – duration, partners or work plan at any time - and be always assured that the calculations are in full compliance with Commission funding rules.

Structure your consortium - Configure Financial Information

Easily structure your project partners and invite responsible persons to update the contractor information and indicate resources to be spent on each task. Whether the consortium consists of participants preferring reimbursement of eligible costs or the lump sum method (NoE/ICPCs), EMDESK let you configure the correct form of Grant used for the EC Contribution. Set up several personnel cost categories, specify the personnel cost rates and plan various costs in cost categories you choose yourself in the different activity types. Select the preferred method of calculating indirect cost – Real Indirect, Simplified and flat rate method – and fine-tune the automatically estimated EC Contribution.

Benefit from full FP7 funding scheme support

Whether it is an IP, STREP, NoE, CA or SA - EMDESK automatically sets up the right project structure according to your selection including required activity types and cost categories, reimbursement rates and Part B structure. With EMDESK, you will never miss the call deadline. The system permanently controls the remaining time and notifies you on the EMDESK Dashboard and by mail.

Structure and work together on your work plan

Dynamically set up the work plan – add milestones and deliverables - define time, activity types, task leaders and share effort on the work descriptions. The Gantt Chars helps you to visualize the distribution of work units, deliverables, milestones and reports among the project duration.

Plan and allocate efforts with the dynamic resource matrix

With the resource planning matrix in EMDESK, the coordinator and partners can define together in a consistent way the efforts in person month they contribute to each task and work package in each defined personnel cost category. The matrix responses instantly updates the total numbers for the partner, task or work package on change.

Work together on the descriptive Part B

Collaborate more efficiently with your partners on the descriptive content required in Part B. The entire project team can view, restructure, edit and respond. For the coordinator there are reviews and approvals streamlined, so efficiency increases for all project partners.

Dynamically place and reschedule milestones and deliverables

Dynamically set milestones to work plan and attach deliverables – describe and define type, deadline, leader and effort. The Gantt Chars helps you to visualize the distribution of the deliverables and milestones among the work plan.

Version and Export of the Proposal

At any time a consistent and actual version of the Proposal is available to each project partner – a Proposal according to the FP7 rules that stays consistent and keeps looking good on every change in the project - and is available for download for further streamlining in all major word processing software like Microsoft® Word™. Besides you are able to create a new version of your proposal in order to draft various versions simultaneously.

On click transform project information to the technical annex

Without further input, the EMDESK Negotiation Module converts the Proposal to a Description of Work (DoW) document structure - ready for download or necessary modifications in EMDESK coming from the negotiation process. Additional required information can be entered and the generic project schedule is turned into a calendar based schedule that will provide deadlines in the project management phase for reports and deliverable submission or reviews dates.

Communicate and collaborate

Designed to provide an one-tool solution, throughout all phases, EMDESK facilitates collaboration, feedback and approval among the project partners - communicate, send mailings, store and share documents, schedule events, discuss in the project forum.