Salesforce Document Generation Apps Comparison and Review

Document Generation Apps Introduction

Document Generation is a powerful tool and offers the Salesforce community a lot of possibilities. With this app, you can customize your documents in many ways. One of the essential advantages of document generation is that it’s compatible with almost every platform or software that allows export to pdf and other formats. Let’s continue analyzing some of the Salesforce Document Generation Apps available on AppExchange.

What is Document Generation?

Document generation permits you to create documents (your own predefined or customized templates) in Salesforce by collecting the data from different standard and custom objects. Document generation apps provide several benefits, such as it saves time, taking less effort, and is easy to use, etc.

These are some examples used in the organization daily, and the documents are

  1. Contract
  2. Shopping Bills or Invoices
  3. Agreements
  4. Any report

Document Generation types of document

Why do we need a document generation app?

Before getting into why this is required, let’s briefly discuss the challenges we may face if you don’t use the document generation app.

  • If you create documents manually, then it takes a lot of time.
  • Suppose you have to create invoices for multiple clients; it will take a lot of effort to develop and manage these invoices.
  • You have to maintain accuracy, such as each client has a different clause to add to the document.

Let’s take an example to understand the importance of this app.

Suppose you are running an organization where you use large amounts of data to create documents daily; then, in this scenario, it will take a lot of assets and time, including human errors. On the other hand, If we use document generation tools, it automatically generates the customized template of the documents in less than a minute with less effort & error. You can also include the e-sign in the templates.

Let’s take another example we use in daily life for better understanding when we buy something from an online site or offline store. In this scenario. Document generation tools are used to generate the bill or invoice. Watch the video for the top five benefits of using Salesforce Document Generation Apps.

How to decide which app to choose?

Many apps are present in AppExchange, but which one to choose? We will select the app keeping these points in mind:

  1. Time management (How long is it taking to create a document?)
  2. Reduce the Expense (How much does it cost to build a record?)
  3. Do these automate the document in customized format with signature, image, or as required for the document?
  4. Is the process of document creation easy and smooth?
  5. We also have to take care of document confidentiality.

Salesforce App 1: Docomotion

docomotion introduction

Docomotion is a cloud-based document generator tool. You can generate attractive and personalized business documents quickly without coding knowledge. By clicking on a single button, you can send the email with the attached document to the customer.

It is compatible with Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Communities, Portals, Mobile, and Lightning.

Salesforce AppExchange Rating

5 out of 5

Features

docomotion features

  • Customizable: You can choose a pre-built template or build your intelligent and complex personalized custom template for document generation. You can also include an image, charts, tables, and more designs.
  • Zero coding skill: Docomotion doesn’t need the coding knowledge for document generation.
  • Fetch Object data: you can get the document’s standard or custom object data based on the requirement.
  • Process Builder and Visual Flow Automation

Key Benefits

  • Easy to use
  • You can make the last-minute changes before sending it to the customer.
  • The Docomotion support team responds quickly and helps you to achieve your goal.
  • Save Customer data into Salesforce: You can directly access the customer-entered data from surveys or feedback in Salesforce.
  • Bulk Document generation: you can generate documents from multiple records with a single click and send them to their respective customer.

Pricing

Docomotion provides all these plans mentioned in the below image. You can choose the program based on your business needs.

docomotion pricing

In Docomotion, there are some add-ons available. You can select if you need any specific features from the image below.

docomotion pricing add ons

It also gives a 30 days trial for all plans.

Conclusion

Docomotion is a top-rated document generation app on Salesforce. A convenient, user-friendly Doc Gen app that required no coding skills whatsoever (not even SOQL). Docomotion includes various features and customization capabilities to meet multiple business needs. With some unique features - Docomotion stands out from the crowd: interactive capabilities, live editor, E-signature, mass generation, and more. It is an all-in-one solution that fits most the use cases.

Why should you use Docomotion instead of other Doc Gen apps?

“Here at Docomotion, we focus on simplifying the DocGen processes on Salesforce. Unlike other apps, our solution requires no coding skills – even for interactive capabilities.

We can support complex business cases and even enable enhancements during the generation process using a live editor with our robust design capabilities. We are most proud of our customer support, most mentioned in our AppExchange 5 stars reviews.”

- Eytan Riahi, the Marketing Director of Docomotion

Salesforce App 2: Nintex Drawloop DocGen®

Nintex Drawloop DocGen®

Nintex DocGen is the document generator app that helps you make a fully customizable document template without knowing the coding knowledge within the salesforce or office 365 environment. Instead of using it, if you generate the document manually, there may be chances of human error, giving you legal problems. But by using this app, you or your company will avoid facing unnecessary legal issues. And You can make regularly accurate documents.

Salesforce AppExchange Rating

4.3 out of 5

Features

Nintex Features

  • No Coding: You can create a document template without coding knowledge. In simple words, No coding is required for template creation.
  • Document Automation: You can quickly generate the document with a few button clicks and send it automatically.
  • Process/Workflow Automation: this feature automatically triggers the workflow if it changes.
  • Automated document delivery and digital signature: You can take the created document or store it on a cloud storage repository such as one drive and many more. And also, you can add digital signatures such as Adobe sign and so on in the generated document.

Key Benefits

Nintex Key Benefits

  • Nintex provides excellent customer support if you or your teams face any issue or need help with template understanding or any other use.
  • This is a 100% native app, so you’ll never leave the data outside the Salesforce.
  • Take less time to generate the document
  • Capabilities of Excel feature: You can do the complicated calculations lookups to improve the dynamic nature of the document.

Pricing

Nintex pricing starts at 20$ per user/ month. If your organization has unlimited users, you have to request a quote based on the consumption you have paid for the service.

Nintex Pricing

It also gives a 30 days trial for all services.

Conclusion

Nintex is one of the best lightweight apps and ideal for mid to large-cap enterprises. You can quickly populate customized templates by following some simple steps with salesforce data & also send it or add signatures automatically.

Salesforce App 3: Formstack

formstack introduction

Formstack is a document generation app that provides several features to automate document creation within the Salesforce platform. It is a great solution to remove the manual processing or paper-based work & also reduce the human errors occurred during manual data entry. Using this app, you can easily create professional documents (like client agreements, budget proposals, loan applications) in several formats, such as word, excel, etc., without leaving the Salesforce platform.

Formstack doesn’t matter the size of your company, as companies of all sizes can use it, be it a startup or large enterprises

Salesforce AppExchange Rating

4.5 out of 5

Features

formstack features

  • Customizable: you can use pre-built templates to create documents or personalize them based on your requirements.
  • Drag and drop functionality: You can create and manage forms easily with accurate data using the drag and drop feature.
  • Security: It provides robust security support that includes the google reCaptcha, HIPAA compliant, and data encryption.
  • Flexible rule: you can directly apply practices in your form. But here, the question may arise in your mind: why should we use the rule in the state or templates?

Form rule is used to add conditional logic to your form. You can hide or show the fields or populate fields information using the rule.

  • Store anywhere: yon can directly save the created document to your preferred apps such as dropbox, google drive, shareFile, etc.
  • Deliver anywhere: One of the most critical challenges is to send the documents to the right customer. you can send the created copy via mail.

Key Benefits

  • It was easy to use, and it saves time with automated document generation and stores within Salesforce.
  • You can customize the templates using style to change the template design.
  • It helps you integrate with 3rd party apps to gather information into the document.
  • You can automatically send the document to the client.
  • If you don’t know anything about coding, it uses a drag and drop feature.
  • Security Feature: You can create sensitive data and store documents using 256-bit encryption.
  • Digital e-sign: you can collect the e-sign and use it in the document.

Pricing

Formstack provides these subscription-based plans mentioned in the below image. You can subscribe to the plan according to your needs.

formstack pricing

It also gives the trial, which is of 14 days. But after the trial ends, you have to subscribe to the plan to use it.

Conclusion

Formstack is the simplest way to generate documents. With its simple drag-and-drop interface, you can also create mobile-friendly and responsive forms without any coding knowledge. It protects the document with Data encryption HIPAA compliance. If you want to download the document, it gives you a secure password to download the document.

Salesforce App 4: S-doc

sdocs

S-Doc is the document generation tool developed for the Salesforce platform. It allows you to generate, create or manage error-free documents within the Salesforce platform. You can design the custom template, including image & e-sign, and use 3rd parties e-sign options such as DocuSign, Adobe Sign, & many more.

S-doc stored the created documents in the Salesforce, but you can upload the document in 3rd party document storage apps like Google Drive, Amazon S3, etc.

Salesforce AppExchange Rating

4.7 out of 5

Features

sdocs features

Compatibility: You can generate the document without 3rd party data access. It supports the Lightning experience, classic, and Mobile (you can develop or manage the document with mobile).

Mass merge: If you have to generate many documents, this feature comes into the picture. This feature allows you to develop a large number of documents with a few clicks. Creating documents for each record instead of using the Mass merge feature will take time and effort.

Batch Processing: Using this feature, When a particular field value from a standard or custom object is changed, it automatically creates a document and sends an email.

SOQL supported: This feature uses If you want to add the related list of the same object field value in the document or merge all the related list records. It also supports aggregate functions like COUNT and SUM in SOQL.

Key Benefits

sdocs key benefits

  • Fast: S-doc is a native app; we don’t need to send the data outside or make API calls for document creation. We can create documents by clicking a few buttons. So it is faster than other non-native apps.

It doesn’t depend on the external servers, so it’s swift compared to non-native apps.

  • Secure: There is no need to worry about sensitive data loss as the data stays within Salesforce unless you downloaded or uploaded it.
  • Easy to use: It provides a drag and drop interface. It feels like a standard salesforce extension.
  • Native App: It is a 100% native app for the Force.com platform.
  • Bulk document generation: It supports bulk document creation.

Pricing

S-Doc provides all these plans mentioned in the below image. You can select the plan according to your requirement.

sdocs pricing

The free version of the s-doc is also available, but you can create only two templates in this.

Conclusion

S-Doc is one of the best native tools of Salesforce. You can’t avoid the s-doc, If you need a tool for document generation within Salesforce. It is a simple, fast, secure app to generate documents without transferring data outside the Salesforce platform. It helps you to automate and e-sign documents more easily & securely.

Salesforce App 5: Conga Composer

Conga composer

Conga Composer is a well-established 3rd party document generator app based on the cloud. It is a cloud-based document management solution that helps you to customize templates & also no need to worry about the attachment size. It allows you to automatically generate pixel-perfect rich documents (like Contract, Proposal, Quotes, etc.) in many different formats like doc, excel, pdf, PowerPoint, etc. You can use this tool by creating a button in Salesforce. Clicking on that button will redirect you to the conga composer tool, where we can manage or produce the documents with Salesforce standard or custom objects data.

Salesforce AppExchange Rating

4.9 out of 5, Rank - 1st

Features

Conga composer features

  • Merge data: With a single button click, you can pull all the document-related data outside the Salesforce, whether standard or custom objects.
  • Automated Processing: You can generate documents using a simple button click or run a batch for document creation.

Suppose you have to create the document when the opportunity status changes; then, the trigger is the best choice to make the document in this scenario.

  • Integrate Sign: Conga composer helps you to include the e-sign with its integrated e-sign feature, DocuSign, AbodeSign.

Key Benefits

  • You can use the trigger, batch, and workflow process based on the use cases.
  • You can use the SQL query in the template to eliminate the unnecessary load from the system.
  • It sends the large Attachment (size up to 40 MB) via email.
  • Tracking: If you send the document to a client and the client views it, you get a notification that they considered it.
  • Deliver large files via email: If you want to deliver the document via email, but your attached files are too large, you cannot send large files in other tools. Still, in Conga composer, it sends as a link instead of an attachment, and by clicking on the link, you can check the document.

Pricing

It starts from $ 20 per user/ per month. It also gives the trial, which is of 14 days. But after the trial ends, you have to buy it.

Conclusion

Conga Component is one of the most popular apps of salesforce appexchange and is ideal for small to mid-cap enterprises. You can generate the document effectively and quickly using pre-built templates in less than a minute. It is compatible with sales cloud, service cloud, lightning, communities, etc.

Summary

Companies can’t afford manual documentation in this modern era as it takes lots of money, energy, and, most importantly, power. But the biggest problem with this is that it can lead to company legal issues. So to avoid the issues and prevent time wastage, you can use the salesforce document generation apps. And You can use these document generator apps anywhere, whether you’re dealing with departments like Fiance, Legal, Health, etc.

Docomotion is a top-rated document generation app on Salesforce. A convenient, user-friendly Doc Gen app that required no coding skills whatsoever (not even SOQL). Docomotion includes various features and customization capabilities to meet multiple business needs. With some unique features - Docomotion stands out from the crowd: interactive capabilities, live editor, E-signature, mass generation, and more. It is an all-in-one solution that fits most the use cases.

Nintex DocGen is a user-friendly app. It fits into various use cases, and it is the best tool to operate in the salesforce environment. Nintex is only compatible with Lightning Experience. And the error handling is a bit tricky. SOQL is not supported, so the process is slow.

If you are a beginner and have no coding knowledge, FormStack is the right choice as it guides you through each generation step. You can quickly identify the error and solve it if you get any errors. Formstack is a bit costly, but it gives you 24/7 customer support.

If you want a 100% fully native document generation app. S-Docs provides you with more security and faster apps than other apps. But s-doc does not offer that much flexibility and features for table designing.

Conga Composer gives you the ability to generate the business documents (like the quote proposal). You can also insert the document’s Salesforce object data with a button click. You know that coding skill is not required, but you should have basic knowledge of SOQL. It provides some valuable add-ons such as Batch, which increases your productivity. But if you encounter any error in this app, it’s tough to identify and solve it.

App Name Docomotion Nintex DocGen FormStack S-Doc Conga Composer
Output Format DocX, PDF, HTML and Email Body PDF, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint CSV, Excel, Word, PDF PDF, HTML, DOC, DOCX, and XLS PDF, Word, Excel
Company Size All Sizes Medium to Large Enterprises Small Businesses Small Businesses Medium to Large Enterprises
AppExchange Rating 5/5 stars 4.1/5 stars 4.8/5 stars 4.9/5 stars 5/5 stars
Pricing $10 per user/month $20 per user/month $92 per month $20 per user/month $20 per user/month

Shweta Kumari
Salesforce Developer