Before you start using the prospecting tool, you need to import your prospect list into the tool
You can do that by going to Prospecting Analysis and clicking on Import File
Upload your prospect list in csv format. Your file should have headers on the first row and the data directly below
Once your file is uploaded, the prospects table will be populated
You will notice that the Financial and Strategic Fit scores in the last two columns don’t have any values, this is because you have to configure attributes first for the scores to be calculated
Configure Attributes, Strategic and Financial Fit Calculations
There are three tabs under Prospecting Configuration: Split Attributes, Financial Fit and Strategic Fit Calculations
Split Attributes:
Under this tab you will find the list of metrics populated from the table headers of the prospects file that you uploaded in Prospecting Analysis
For each metric, you can select whether it can be used in Strategic Fit Calculations, Financial Fit Calculations, both calculations or neither
Financial Fit Calculations:
The attributes you select in Split Attributes for Financial Fit Calculations will appear here
Enter the weight of each metric so that the sum of all weights is 100
Once you are done, click on ‘Finalize’
Strategic Fit Calculations:
The attributes you select in Split Attributes for Strategic Fit Calculations will appear here
Enter the weight of each metric so that the sum of all weights is 100
Once you are done, click on ‘Finalize’
Prospecting Analysis
Now that you are done with prospecting configuration, you can find the calculated Financial and Strategic Fit scores for each company in the last two columns of the table. The calculations are based on the metrics weights entered in Prospecting Configuration under Financial and Strategic Fit Calculations
Click on ‘Export Data’ to export your list of prospects along with the Financial and Strategic Fit calculations columns. The data will be exported in Excel format
You can manually add additional companies to the list by clicking on ‘Add Company Details’ and entering the company details
To add additional fields to the table, click on ‘Add Field to Table’ and enter field details
You can filter the list on one or more attribute/metric. Select the metric and enter the filtering condition. If you would like to add more than one filter, select either ‘AND’ or ‘OR’ after each filter
Prospecting Graph
To plot your data on the Prospecting graph, click on the company rows you would like to select and they will be plotted on the graph based on their strategic and financial sit scores
To reset the graph, click on ‘Reset Graph’ on the right of the graph and unselect the rows you previously selected and select the new rows
Under ‘Configuration’, Go to ‘User Management’, the ‘Add New User’ form will appear on the right
You have the option to either add users one by one or in bulk
If you want to add multiple users in bulk, you can click on ‘Download template file’ under the Upload button
Enter user ‘Emails’, ‘Names’, ‘Countries’, and ‘Roles’ in the sheet and then upload it and the users will be added to the platform
If you want to add users individually, Enter user details including official ’email ID’
Global Role: It is the overall role of the user in the platform. This determines what permissions the user has on the platform, and thus on deals. You can change the users role for each deal. You can put the user on ‘blocked’ status until you determine what permissions you’d like the new user to have
To check/edit permissions of each role, go to ‘Roles and Permissions’ under ‘Configuration’
If you add any users as Blocked, you will need to check the ‘Show Blocked Users’ checkbox in order to see them in the user list
Edit Existing Users
If you want to edit existing user details, you can click on the user you would like to edit. Their details will appear in the right pane
After completing the edits, click on ‘save’
Search for Users
You can search for users by ‘Name’, ‘Email’, ‘Country’ or ‘Role’
When you go to the Chat screen, you will be able to change your status from ‘Available’ to ‘Away’, ‘Invisible’ or ‘Do Not Disturb’
If your status is set to ‘Do Not Disturb’, other users won’t be able to send you any messages
If your status is set to ‘Invisible’ or ‘Away’, other users will get a message that you are not available to chat but they will still be able to send you messages
Channels and User List:
On the left, you will find the Channels list
Under Channels, you will be able to see ‘All Users’ and a channel for each deal
The ‘All Users’ channel has every user registered on MergerWare
When you click on a deal channel, you will be able to see all the users assigned to this deal
The user list will show the user’s ‘name’, ’email’, ‘role’, and ‘status’
When you click on a user, you will be able to chat with them using the pane on the right
You can also click on ‘User Details’ in the user chat window to see the users info like ’email’, ‘role’, ‘expertise’, ‘location’ and ‘time zone’
New Messages:
When you get a new message, a notification will appear on the chat icon in the top right corner of your screen
When you click on the chat icon, you will see the word New written beside the name of the user who sent you the message in the user list
If you click on the user’s name, you will be able to read and reply to their message
After adding your team members to the MergerWare platform, you can start assigning them to deals
Click on the ‘Assignment’ menu in the deal toolbar and select ‘Assign User’
You can select multiple users at a time to assign them to the deal. You can also select their role in thedeal or simply select ‘Blocked’ if you still haven’t decided which role/permissions you would like to give them
Note that a users role in a deal is different from their global role in the platform
Assigning Users to Working Groups:
Under the ‘Assignment’ menu, select ‘Assign to Working Group’
On the right, you will find a list of the users who have been assigned to this deal. If you can’t see a specific user, go back ‘Assign User’ and make sure you added this user to the deal
You can choose from the list of Working Groups at the top. These are the Working Groups that you’ve created in Working Group Management.
You can select multiple users to be assigned at the same time to a working group
Note that the users you assign to the deal are assigned to all the gates of this deal, but working group assignment is per gate. Meaning that every time you create a new gate, you have to reassign users to the working groups of this gate
Assigning Users and Working Groups to Levels Under Deal:
You can assign users or working groups to stream groups, streams, task groups and tasks
You can do that using ‘Assign Users/Working Group’ in the right pane
Note that when you make an assignment on a higher level, it is automatically cascaded to all lower levels. So if you want to give users access to specific tasks, you should make the assignment on the task-level, not the task group level
The permissions that users will get are based on their deal role and the permissions you give to each role in Roles and Permissions
If you want a specific user to be responsible for a stream group, stream, task group or task, you can do that in the ‘Assign User’ and ‘Working Group’ window by clicking on Responsible
This will make the set of tasks that this user is responsible for appear in their Dashboard under ‘My Tasks’
You can use Roles and Permissions to edit access controls at a very granular level, as well as create new roles.
You can get to Roles and Permissions from:
Dashboard
Main Menu>Configuration>Roles and Permissions
Edit Access Controls:
You can set up permissions for each role for the following levels:
Global:
This is for setting permissions for the overall platform, and not for a specific deal
You can use this to give users access to do things like creating new deals, viewing/uploading/removing/downloading files in platform-level VDR, changing their own roles, localization, backup and restore, editing role permissions, etc.
It is highly advisable not to give users other than ‘Admins’ and ‘Integration Managers’ any edit permissions on this level. You can just give them view permissions on certain things instead
Deal:
This is for setting deal-level permissions
You can give users the permission to edit deals, view/upload/remove/download files in deal-level VDR, user and working group assignments, creating/editing/deleting stream groups, streams, task groups, and tasks, etc..
Reports:
This is for setting permissions for ‘Finance’, ‘Synergies’, and ‘Executive Reports’
You can give users permission to view and execute reports, edit baseline, and actual numbers, etc..
Add Role:
At the top of this page, you will find an Add Role button
You can add a new role by entering ‘role name’ and ‘description’ and clicking on Add
The new role will appear at the very end of the roles and permissions table
You can then start giving permissions to the new role
Reset:
If you want to delete any new roles you created, you can click on the ‘Reset’ button at the top of the page
Reset also restores the original permissions assigned to each role and removes any edits made to permissions
When creating a new deal, you can choose to use our in-house M&A template or your own M&A playbook (in this case, select ‘Empty’ when creating your deal).
If you decide to go with the MergerWare M&A Template, here are a few things you need to know:
While our M&A template isn’t industry-specific, it has an exhaustive list of tasks for every function
You can customize the playbook by adding/removing/editing whatever you see necessary
You can add new items by clicking on the plus sign beside the higher level of the item you would like to add
For example: if you would like to add a new task group, click on the plus sign beside the stream
A window will appear for you to enter ‘title’, ‘description’, ‘start’ and ‘end dates’
Note that the start and end dates can’t go beyond the top level
You can delete items using the trashcan icon beside each item. Deleting higher level items will delete everything in the lower levels
Only users with add/edit/delete permissions, usually admins and integration managers, can perform these actions
For each gate/M&A stage, you will find a list of tasks for both global and business functions
Whenever you start a gate and it appears in your Deal page, you will be able to see the tasks related to this gate
The playbook contains tasks for functions like ‘Employee Management’, ‘Sales’, ‘Legal’, ‘Finance’, ‘Tax’ and many more