Drawloop Blog

Our team has been working hard since Drawloop launched on the new Google Apps Marketplace at Tuesday’s Campfire One event. We have already seen the global reach with Google Apps as one of our first customers is based in Italy.

Today, we officially released our support site on Google Sites to better enable Google Apps customers to automate the creation of their documents. Learn how you can stop manually customizing your documents . . . take the next step and improve productivity within Google Apps!

How a DDP Admin Creates a Dynamic Document Package

Step 1: Prepare Your Docs
Step 2: Build a DDP
Step 3: Run a DDP

Now you are ready to authorize DDPs for Google Apps users (merge, customize and create documents from a web form).

We encourage you to visit our support site to learn more. We’ve got some exciting enhancements coming up and are looking forward to growing with the Google Apps Marketplace!

Box.net recently announced a new integrated file view feature. This new feature is an excellent display option to use in concert with our Combine to PDF service on Box. With Combine to PDF, you can quickly page order and combine multiple docs into a single document within your Box.net account to display with the new integrated file viewer.

Take a look at Combine to PDF on Box.net to see how quickly you can combine multiple files and pages to display with the new Integrated File View. This is the perfect solution when you need to display a document, spreadsheet, image and presentation as one combined document.

About Integrated File View: (from Box.net Blog)
“You can now view files instantly, without ever leaving your browser. Box’s integrated file view feature lets you view the most popular file formats, including documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, images, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files, audio and video. It lets you flow through all your content in one place, without downloading or worrying about whether you have the right application to view a file. To activate this feature, just go to Settings, Display, and set Content Preview to All Files.”

We have recently shared an integrated project on the K2 Underground site. K2 users can now add our document automation service to K2[blackpearl]. The ability to add our dynamic document creation service tied to other work flows and services is a powerful addition to the K2[blackpearl] software.

K2[blackpearl] is comprehensive software designed to build process-driven applications.

If you use or work with K2, we encourage you to take a look at our “Document Merge SmartObject Service” as well as contact us to gain access to our API.

We have made some additional enhancements and added a new business service, DocuSign Express, to our free PDF converter add-on for Firefox – LOOP to PDF (2.0.1).

DocuSign Express allows anyone to upload any combination of documents within Firefox and send through DocuSign for electronic signature. There is no registration or account required, it’s free!

Mozilla also announced this week a new initiative for users of the Firefox browser, called Collections. You can learn more by visiting Introducing Add-on Collections.

Collections are a way for you to categorize, mix, match and mingle add-ons. You can subscribe to collections created by other users or create your own. For example, our LOOP to PDF service was recently added as part of a Collection of Add-ons created by Ruby Liu.

Recently, we added the ability to send your documents from LOOP for e-signature through DocuSign Express. We have now extended the flexibility by exposing the service through an interface small enough to easily embed on any personal website or blog. Once you’ve embedded the widget, your users can upload documents, convert them to PDF, and send them to anyone for execution through DocuSign Express. It’s free, easy and you don’t need to register for anything!

Easy as 1-2-3:

1) Upload your file (you can upload several docs and combine them into a single PDF)

2) Click “ESIGN” to send all your files as a single PDF or click “free esign” on an individual file to only send that one through DocuSign Express

3) Fill out a brief web form and then click “submit”

. . . that’s it! Your recipient will be notified via email of the document awaiting their signature, and you’ll receive a confirmation email when they have completed the signing.

LOOP with DocuSign Express Embed Code:

<iframe src="http://api.drawloop.com/google/upload.aspx" style="border: 1px solid #CCCCCC; width: 350px; height: 330px;"></iframe>

Salesforce offers its customers a simple and excellent way to capture leads directly from your website. We have found that many Salesforce customers are unaware of the standard web-to-lead functionality that is available to every Salesforce account. As a result, we are spreading the word and educating our customers about this functionality as well as our new DDP delivery option for completing the sales cycle. We have recently added the ability for our customers to have DDPs delivered as part of a web-to-lead (or web-to-anything) business workflow.

So where does document automation fit into capturing leads from your website?

By allowing a dynamic document package (DDP) to be created by an event that starts from a customers website, we can allow companies to completely automate everything from emailing customized marketing materials based on the prospect’s interests, to creating a sales contract, to obtaining a new sales quote. Anything is possible.

Here’s where the DDP fits into the puzzle: You have your web-to-lead form up on your website and you are capturing data for a new lead. This data is automatically populated into your Salesforce Lead object. This is often where things stop. By adding custom document creation to the puzzle, you can now have lead data trigger a workflow that generates the appropriate customized document package and then automatically deliver the document package by email to the new lead via outbound messaging.

For a quick and simple Drawloop example, click here.

Visit Two-Minute Tip on Web to Lead on Salesforce’s blog to learn more about getting started with website lead capture.

We wanted to highlight a new DDP delivery option, “Download”, in our latest Salesforce.com release. With the Download delivery option, you can now create custom Download delivery options that include:

1) Deliver DDP as a one combined PDF for download

2) Deliver each separate merged file as a PDF for download

3) Deliver original merged files for download (.doc, .xls, and/or .ppt)

4) Deliver originals and PDFs (#2 and #3 above)

Watch a quick 30 second video on how to add this new delivery option to your DDPs in Salesforce.com – watch now.

Microsoft recently released Internet Explorer 8.  This version of their popular web browser comes with numerous new features and enhancements over its older brethren.  One of the big enhancements the IE team at Microsoft has made is increased performance across the board, allowing pages to render faster and scripts on the page to run faster and more accurately.  More information about the new browser’s features can be found in its wikipedia article.

One of the most exciting changes from my point of view as a developer is the much closer adherence to web standards.  This allows more rapid development and less work dealing with differences between browsers.  This benefit is passed on to the end user through nicer interfaces with less code clutter, which means faster downloading of web pages and faster response time while on the page.

We strongly recommend upgrading to a browser that closely follows web standards.

If you’re already using the latest version of Firefox, Safari, Opera or Chrome, that’s great!  You’re all set.

If you’re using a browser from the Internet Explorer family, we suggest heading over to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web page and upgrading to IE8.

LOOP to PDF for Firefox has been updated to be compatible with Version 3.1b2 (works with Firefox: 1.5 – 3.1b2). In addition, we have exposed base functionality to all users with no need to register for LOOP. We encourage you to install now to convert and combine your files to PDF.

About LOOP for Firefox:

Upload, convert and combine your files to PDF from a tidy toolbar, without the conversion getting in the way of your Web browsing. LOOP for Firefox allows you to convert and combine files to PDF with the click of a button. LOOP for Firefox also provides a revolutionary way to document web pages while browsing the Internet. You can seamlessly document URLs with the click of a button and then download or combine the web pages with other files to a single PDF.

It has long been discussed that one of the critical elements of CRM success is adoption. This reality is nothing new or even original, but a recent article published by CIO Magazine titled “Why Do 70% of CRM Projects Fail?” addressed many reasons which still boil down to adoption. We believe automating document creation can insure adoption and help companies avoid many of the pitfalls that plague the failed 70%.

The technical or sales reasons may describe other factors for failure, but at the heart is lack of adoption. CRM solutions with proven best practices have been around for many years, but why do so many companies still fail on adoption?

Let’s start by assuming a company is committed to all the basic elements required for CRM success. So then, what technology component has been missing to help CRM acceptance? The answer is document automation.

Document Automation
Automating document creation impacts every aspect of a business team – from sales reps to support reps to managers to executives. A commitment to automating document creation will identify missing fields, missing business processes, missing work flows and other critical elements required to achieve enterprise-wide CRM adoption.

Quality of Data
Ironically, sales people tend to be risk takers and are often open to try new things. However, they can also be the guilty party when it comes to the quality of data within a CRM. Bad data can kill any CRM solution. Think about the impact on the quality of CRM data if all document creation (sales proposals, quotes and contracts) had to be generated directly from your CRM? Any errors in data or missing information would be captured and fixed at the time of document creation, and therefore, improve the quality and accuracy of your data. No more “after the fact” data entry by sales reps, or worse, the “I forgot” to enter all of the required information mistake.

Usability
CRM usability requires ease of use. We believe ease of use must also translate into saved time for sales and service reps. By automating document creation, you have created an incentive to enter the correct information on a Lead, Contact or Opportunity within the CRM because the user understands that all he or she needs to do at the end of the process is click a button to create the document or set of documents required to complete the proposal, quote, or sales contract.

Integrate Document Creation into Your Sales Methodology
We are amazed at how many companies have spent countless hours on solutions, activities and work flows around what drives closing and renewing business, but virtually no time evaluating how document creation should be incorporated. Combining document creation with other sales methods is extremely powerful. For example, a company could capture critical prospective customer data on a web form and then have the submission of the form trigger a work flow to create an outbound email message with a customized document package automatically attached.

Training
By incorporating document creation into your CRM Solution, you can more easily train users on processes and work flows. Again, if a user must update required fields in your CRM to close the sale or renew a service, you have insured CRM adoption.

Business Intelligence
Marrying your CRM solution with document creation will improve your business intelligence for managers and executives. Automating document creation now allows you to incorporate other work flows, integration with other services like e-signatures, and delivery of key data back into your CRM. For example, you may be using calculations in Excel to capture profit margins or other internal metrics that you want to store back in your CRM for every sales proposal generated. This becomes possible through complete document automation.

Our Recommendation
Take the time to add document creation to your CRM solution and allow Drawloop to help you gain 100% adoption.

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