Drawloop Blog

We recently had the pleasure of helping a new customer deploy their document merge and automation needs on Google Apps. Our document merge service was the perfect solution to complete an important missing piece for the customer who had moved from the “desktop” to the “cloud” for all of its business needs.

Drawloop DDP – great tool that works very well!!
by Craig Schurter
“The Drawloop DDP service works great. We used mail merge in the past (word 2007), but this method is much more streamlined, quicker, and can be used by our team from any computer. The service and support has also been great. Thanks guys!”

Take a moment to explore what’s possible with Drawloop on Google Apps and with Google Docs!

Our team is excited to announce a new DDP (“Dynamic Document Package”) delivery option for Google Apps – “View/Email”. Our seamless document merge service for Google Docs within Google Apps allows your sales and service reps to create customized documents and mail merge in the cloud.

DDP Delivery Options

You can deliver the DDP output as (i) Download, (ii) Original merged document(s), (iii) Send to Google Docs, and now, (iv) View/Email. We encourage you to install a 30-day free trial to start merging your documents in the cloud!

The “View/Edit” DDP delivery option allows users to email the merged DDP as an attachment through Gmail. We will be announcing additional Google Apps features later this week. Please contact us with any questions.

You can also visit our support site for Google Apps to learn more.

With our document merge and automation service (LOOP Document Services) on the AppExchange, you can merge data from Salesforce Real-Time Quotes into your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. The Winter ‘10 release introduced Real-Time Quotes to Salesforce customers to help reps use Salesforce CRM to create sales quotes.

At Drawloop, we see Real-Time Quotes (which is a visuaforce page) as just another document. This new document type will be introduced soon on our Salesforce document merge service allowing Admin’s to build a dynamic document package using any combination of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files along with any Visualforce Page(s).

Our enterprise customers typically need more than one document in their document packages. A sales quote for example can include a cover letter and other collateral documents about the product or service. With Drawloop, you can quickly package the required documents combining the power of Salesforce Real-Time Quotes with all of your other required documents wrapped up in a simple DDP! Need business intelligence around which document or documents get included in your package? No problem – learn more.

Contact us today to learn more.

Our team continues to work hard expanding our integrations and “mashups” with other cloud technologies. One interesting integration relates to Box.net and how our OpenBox service can easily be deployed and integrated to the Box.net Gmail Gadget.

We continue to aggressively integrate with cloud technologies to help our document automation enterprise customers seamlessly work in the cloud for all of their business needs. These integrations have allowed our document automation services to expand functionality for the benefit of all users who have embraced the cloud. For example, with our Box.net and Google Apps integrations, we can now offer our customers cloud content management, collaboration and communication services while keeping our focus on document creation and automation.

Gmail + Box.net + Drawloop

The Box.net Gmail gadget is located in the left-hand sidebar of your Gmail account, where you can access all your Box files and folders, as well as utilize the Drawloop OpenBox service.

Box.net Gmail Gadget Set-up

Step 1:
Log into Gmail -> Settings -> Labs -> Enable “Add any gadget by URL”

If you don’t have Labs enabled in Gmail / Google Apps, click here.

Step2:
Settings -> Gadget -> past in the URL below

http://www.box.net/google_gadget/gmail/gadget_specs.xml

Now, you are ready to use the integration between Gmail, Box.net and Drawloop. From the Box.net Gmail Gadget, simply select the file or files you want to convert and/or combine to a single PDF and right-click to do so with Drawloop. When complete, you can right-click to send as a link through Gmail.

Requirements:

- Box.net Account (sign-up now)
- Drawloop OpenBox Service (sign-up now)
- Google Apps (sign-up now)

We continue to expand and strengthen our cloud integrations on a daily basis. We will be announcing some exciting new enhancements and features for Google Apps soon!

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.