Unlocking the Power of AI with Deltek Dela in Costpoint

In today's fast-paced environment and the rising competitiveness within the government contracting space, staying ahead of the curve requires leveraging cutting-edge technology.

Deltek has taken purposeful innovation to the next level by introducing Deltek Dela™, your AI-powered business companion, to enhance productivity, accuracy and value across the project lifecycle. By incorporating the power of AI into our industry-leading ERP for government contractors, Costpoint is transforming the way firms work by enabling intelligent exploration, generating and automating Smart Summaries™, and predicting project and organizational success.

Read on to learn more about how Dela in Costpoint can help you streamline operations and deliver projects on time and on budget.

Enable Intelligent Exploration and Streamline Tasks with Ask Dela

In Costpoint’s Spring 2024 quarterly release, we introduced Ask Dela, our AI Digital Assistant in Costpoint. While this wasn’t our first digital assistant or AI capability, Ask Dela revolutionized the way our users interact with Costpoint.

This powerful assistant allows users to ask questions about various applications from within Costpoint, including your contracts and projects, and receive data-driven responses without having to run reports, view dashboards or open specific records. By leveraging generative AI (GenAI), Ask Dela provides accurate and relevant answers based on the data available in your specific system.

What takes Ask Dela even further is that your digital assistant can be accessed both from within your Costpoint application and from within Microsoft Teams using the Costpoint MS Teams App. This means you can ask those same questions without ever leaving Teams —bringing your project data to the places where you're already spending the majority of your workday.

So, let's look at a real-world example: Imagine you’re a project manager and you need to quickly retrieve specific contract details, such as pending sales orders. Instead of having to navigate to find that information and then sort through data within your system, you can simply start a chat with Ask Dela—either from within your Costpoint application or from Teams—and request that your digital assistant pull together that information for you instantly. This not only saves time but also ensures that you have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips so you can follow up on an outstanding task or report back to leadership in a timely manner.

Ask Dela can also help you complete tasks more quickly. Simply request that Ask Dela generate a risk assessment, draft and send a follow-up email, or submit your time for you. By utilizing your digital assistant to streamline daily tasks, you can get back to more value-added work.

Ask Dela's ability to provide real-time, data-driven insights gives Costpoint users valuable time back in their day while enhancing decision-making, speed and accuracy for more efficient project management and improved client satisfaction.

Generate and Automate Contract Smart Summaries

Another exciting feature of Dela is the ability to quickly create a summary of your contract whenever you need to put together a report or provide project status.

By utilizing our Contract Smart Summaries^™ functionality, which leverages AI and machine learning to provide concise and insightful summaries of complex contract data, you can significantly reduce the time it takes to gather and report on relevant information, including contract and customer names, key financial metrics, period of performance, and subcontractor data.

Imagine instantly generating a report for your executive team, pulling the data they need to grasp key points, understand funding, and make better business decisions.

By transforming raw data into valuable insights, Contract Smart Summaries empower Costpoint users to make informed decisions swiftly. This feature sets Costpoint apart by offering a sophisticated yet user-friendly level of data analysis and presentation for anyone who needs to report on a contract. Additional Smart Summaries capabilities will be available in future releases, so stay tuned!

Predicting Project and Organizational Success with AI-powered Dashboards

While optimizing processes and streamlining tasks is a huge benefit of AI, Dela can also help Costpoint users better ensure project success.

With Costpoint’s AI-powered dashboards and analytics, you gain real-time insights and reporting, allowing you to run daily operations more efficiently while making data-backed decisions for tomorrow.

Costpoint’s advanced business intelligence tools incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to analyze and visually represent vast amounts of data, offering users a comprehensive view of their projects and operations.

As a project manager or leader in your government contracting firm, these dashboards can help you monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and identify potential issues before they become critical—giving you time to respond and course-correct.

Utilizing the AI Assistant in Business Intelligence, users can ask a question and receive a data-informed response via a chart or graph. By analyzing historical data and current trends and using data explorations to go a step further to explore relationships between data, you gain smarter insights into project performance, including real-time cost data.  This proactive approach allows managers to take corrective actions early, ensuring projects stay on track and within budget.

Deltek Costpoint's AI-powered dashboards and analytics are essential tools for project-based businesses looking to enhance their operational efficiency and achieve greater success. By leveraging advanced AI and ML technologies, Costpoint provides users with the insights they need to make informed decisions, predict project outcomes, and drive organizational growth.

What If Our Business Isn’t Ready to Use AI?

We know that incorporating AI into your business is a decision that requires consensus and documented policies within your own organization. Because of this, we have given you control over when you adopt AI-fueled capabilities, meaning that all Costpoint customers have the ability to opt-in and enable Dela whenever they choose.

Even without enabling AI, Costpoint remains a powerful ERP that was purpose-built to support your government contracting business. You can continue to use our solution to help you connect your project data and optimize processes while opting out of Dela features. You can also continue to use other innovative features without enabling AI, including the Costpoint MS Teams App, which allows you to receive notifications and do basic commands, like time entry and workflow approval. You can also use our Interactive Email capability to enter, submit, and approve time.

If you have concerns about AI security, Deltek has shared more about how we choose AI partners and our commitment to building Dela capabilities on top of the existing Costpoint framework, which adheres to established practices for data sovereignty and compliance with local data protection regulations. To learn more about our approach to responsible AI development, visit our AI Security blog or on our AI Security & Trust page.

Explore What AI Can Do for Your Government Contracting Firm

Deltek Dela is revolutionizing the way Costpoint users interact with their ERP system. By harnessing the power of AI, Deltek Dela can enhance your productivity, improve collaboration, and provide valuable insights that drive smarter business decisions for today and tomorrow.

Embrace the future of government contracting with Deltek Dela and unlock the full potential of your Costpoint solution.

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