MergerWare’s Core Functionalities

With MergerWare, you get to enjoy many functionalities all in one platform.

Prospecting

You can get to Prospecting from: Main Menu>Prospecting

How to use the Prospecting tool:

Importing Prospects List

  • 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

User Management

You can use User Management to start inviting your team to the MergerWare platform.

You can get to User Management from:

  • Dashboard
  • Main Menu>Configuration

You can use User Management to:

Add New Users

  • 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’

Risk and Issue Tracking

You can create Risks and Issues and track your team’s progress in addressing them.

Risks and Issues can be created on Deal, Stream Group, Stream, Task Group, and Task Levels.

Deal-level Risks and Issues:

  • You can create risks and issues on a deal-level
  • Click on the ‘Risk’ icon in the deal toolbar
  • On the right pane, enter risk/issue details:
    • ‘Summary’ and ‘Description’ of the risk/issue
    • Assign risk/issue to any of the users assigned to the deal
    • Enter target date of addressing this risk/issue
    • Type: select whether this is a risk or issue
    • You can also select the criticality of the risk/issue and status, whether it’s ‘done’ or ‘in progress’. This can be changed at anytime
    • Select whether this is an inter-deal risk/issue or not
    • Enter your ‘mitigation plan’ (if any)
  • Once you click on submit, the new risk/issue is going to appear in the list on the left
  • If you click on any of the risks/issues in the list on the left, its details will appear on the right and you can edit them

Stream group, Stream, Task Group and Task-level Risks and Issues:

  • You can create risks and issues for any of the lower levels in the deal i.e stream group, task group and task
  • All you have to do is click on the Add Risks/Issues icon shaped like a triangle beside the task or task group you would like to create it for
  • The ‘Add Risks/Issues’ icon is in the actions column
  • Once a Risk/Issue is added the icon gets highlighted

You can view and edit all the Risks and Issues created for a deal on your Dashboard.

You can also Create and Export Executive Reports for Risks and Issues.

Backup and Restore

You can use the Backup and Restore feature to create backups of your deals, data and restore previous backups.

You can get to Backup and Restore from:

  • Dashboard
  • Main Menu>Configuration>Backup and Restore

Create Backup:

  • A backup of your deals and data is automatically performed on a daily basis
  • If you would like to create your own backup, enter ‘Backup Name’ and ‘Description’ and click on Create
  • You will get a notification that your backup has been created

Restoration:

  • If you would like to restore a previous backup version, you can do that by clicking on the Restore button
  • This request is sent to MergerWare admin who will be doing the restoration for you
  • Your data will be restored to the latest backup version
  • If you have any specific requests or comments, please enter them in the ‘Any Comments’ section before clicking on Restore

Chat

You can use Chat to talk to your team.

You can get to Chat from:

  • Dashboard
  • Chat icon in the top right corner of the screen

Setting your status:

  • 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

Assigning Responsibilities

After you are done creating your deal and selecting/uploading the M&A playbook, you can start assigning responsibilities to your team members.

Be Sure to Read These Articles First:

Assigning Users to Deal:

  • 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’

Roles and Permissions

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

Localization

You can use Localization to customize roles, stages and upload your logo.

You can get to Localization from:

  • Dashboard
  • Main Menu>Configuration>Localization

Rename Roles:

  • The System Role names will appear on the left
  • You can edit role names in the table on the right
  • When you are done, click on Save
  • If you would like to Reset role names to System default names, you can click on Reset

Rename Stages:

  • The System Stage names will appear on the left
  • You can edit stage names in the table on the right
  • When you are done, click on Save
  • If you’d like to Reset stage names to System default names, you can click on Reset

Update Logo:

  • You can upload your logo, which will appear in the top left corner of the platform
  • Click on ‘Choose File’ and select your logo to upload
  • It has to be an image file

Working Group Management

You can use Working Group Management to add/edit working groups.

You can get to Working Group Management from:

  • Dashboard
  • Main Menu>Configuration>Working Group Management

Adding a new Working Group:

  • When you go to Working Group Management, you will find the ‘add new working group’ pane on the right
  • Enter ‘Working Group Name’ and ‘Description’ and click on Submit

Editing an existing Working Group:

  • To edit an existing working group, click on the working group you would like to edit
  • The working group details will appear in the right pane
  • Edit the data and click on Submit

Searching for a Working Group:

  • You can search for working groups by ‘name’ or ‘description’

MergerWare M&A Template

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