Drawloop Blog

With the latest release of our document services within Salesforce, you can now add any Visualforce pages to your dynamic document package (DDP). A DDP includes one or more documents that will be merged with data from any Salesforce object and packaged into one single document for delivery. As an example, your sales contract is a DDP.

The addition of Visualforce pages is another example of the power and flexbility of the DDP manager within Salesforce. We treat a visualforce page as just another document that you can “drag and drop” when building a DDP. This allows an admin to build business logic around Visualforce pages. This logic can be as simple as making a Visualforce page required or optional in a DDP or advanced by using Salesforce fields to determine whether or not to include the Visualforce page with the DDP.

Please contact us today with any questions or install the latest version of our LOOP Document Services from the AppExchange.

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!

The Summer release of our LOOP Document Services for Salesforce is now available on the AppExchange to allow any of your users to test the latest version of LOOPlus. The Summer release includes exciting and powerful new features like Visualforce pages in DDPs, out-of-the-box Real-Time Quotes integration, and significant performance enhancements.

HIGHLIGHTS

1) Visualforce Pages

Now, you can treat any visualforce page as a document or section in your DDP. This allows your organization to include a cover letter, sales quote or sales contract with your visualforce pages. Because we treat a visualforce page just like any other document, you can leverage all of the business logic and intelligence available to any dynamic document package (DDP).

2) Real-Time Quotes

Real-time quotes provides an easy way for your Salesforce users to generate quotes for customers. Our new DDP integration with Real-Time Quotes allows you to expand this functionality to include additional elements which are often part of a sales quote – things like a cover letter, a product exhibit, terms & conditions. Again, this combines the power of Salesforce with the power of real-time document packaging.

In addition to integrating with the real-time quote PDFs, we also allow you to include Quote and Quote Line Item data in any DDP merge files (Word, Excel or PowerPoint).

3) UI for Advanced DDP Logic

We have created a point-and-click interface to relate multiple object relationships to a DDP. This includes any one-to-many object relationship or look-up to an object. This new UI has a familiar interface to filter and sort on those related objects. This delivers the best of DDPs with Salesforce filtering while keeping the simplicity of document tagging.

4) DDP Routing Options

We have expanded DDP routing options allowing our customers to not only dynamically create the document packages required to sell and service their products, but equally important, deliver their DDPs based on required business rules. DDPs can be routed as follows:

- Email
- 3rd Party SMTP service
- Any external web form (web service)
- Outbound messaging
- Work flows (like approvals)
- Scheduled reports (e.g. every Monday at 8:00am)
- Document storage (Amazon S3)
- Electronic Signature (DocuSign)
- Document Queue (for 3rd party fulfillment)
- LOOP (DDP output with ad hoc files)
- Download
- Attach as attachment, activity history, LOOP Storage

5) Performance Enhancements

Our development team has been working hard to improve the DDP user experience. We are pleased to pass along these improvements with our Summer release. With some changes and enhancements to our document merge and packaging service, our pre-release tests show a 20% to 50% improvement in performance.

Please contact us with any questions or if you need assistance from support to test the pre-release.

Please stop by our booth at Google I/O and learn more about how you can automate document create and deliver mail merge in the cloud with Google Docs. Visit us in the Enterprise Developer Sandbox (# 4 – Enterprise Sandbox). You can meet some of our team, run a DDP and even redeem a Coupon. Learn how to dynamically create documents in the cloud . . . all from within Google Apps.

Developer Sandbox @ Google I/O

The Developer Sandbox, first introduced at I/O 2009, is the demo area at Google I/O where Google features a wide range of developers who have built applications based on technologies and products featured at I/O.

Representing large and small companies, individual developers, and a diverse collection of apps, these developers will be participating in the Sandbox to demo their applications, answer questions, and exchange ideas.

Our team has just added yet another cloud delivery option for our document merge service on Google Apps, send to box.net. 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.

Our latest DDP delivery option provides a simple and easy way for users to work with Drawloop, Box and Google Apps.

Learn more about our latest integration on Google Apps with Box.net at Google I/O – visit us in the Enterprise Developer Sandbox (# 4 – Enterprise Sandbox). You can run a DDP and redeem a Coupon at Box.net (# 1 – Google APIs Sandbox). Learn how to dynamically create documents in the cloud and send the output to Box.net . . . all from within Google Apps.

Developer Sandbox @ Google I/O

The Developer Sandbox, first introduced at I/O 2009, is the demo area at Google I/O where Google features a wide range of developers who have built applications based on technologies and products featured at I/O.

Representing large and small companies, individual developers, and a diverse collection of apps, these developers will be participating in the Sandbox to demo their applications, answer questions, and exchange ideas.

This week, Salesforce.com announced Aloha Apps. Aloha Apps* don’t count against your system limits for apps, tabs, and objects—no matter which salesforce.com edition** you’re using. If you are familiar with system limits on Salesforce, the decision to add an application to your Salesforce org was often impacted due to number of objects, apps and/or tabs used in the org.

Drawloop is pleased to be an Aloha App on Salesforce. Again, this means you can install and deploy our powerful document services without any impact on your Salesforce org. We encourage you to learn how our document merge and automation service can be deployed for your entire organization. Thinking about deploying a Force.com application? Add our powerful document features within your Force App.

Contact us today for more information.

Salesforce users rely on Drawloop to help them automate the creation of proposals, sales quotes, presentations and many other document packages critical to selling or servicing their products. Our on-demand services will allow you to deliver a one-click process for the creation of Dynamic Document Packages (DDPs).

We’re proud to have launched the most recent version of our document merge, automation and packaging service within Salesforce. We’re launching the latest version (v4.5) of LOOP Document Services today. The following is a summary of the new features available with LOOP Document Services:

Dynamic Ordering of Attachments
A powerful new feature is your ability to add and order any static or dynamic (doc contains merge fields) documents that have been uploaded to Notes & Attachments on an Object.

Dynamic ordering of attachments allows “ad hoc” or “custom” docs to be added to a DDP at run time.

Parameter Based Sections
All DDP Admins will love this new feature — parameter based DDP sections. In addition to making sections (pages) of a DDP optional to the user at run time, you can now quickly and easily have sections (pages) included or excluded based on field values.

Example: You want to include the Quote section of the DDP only when Account Level field value = Enterprise

Product Addendums
If you use Products and Product Line Items, you will appreciate the ability to dynamically add Product Addendums to DDPs. This new feature simplifies administration of DDPs while you are utilizing product line items in Word or Excel files.

Example: Sales rep has just added Product A, F and M to his new Opportunity. He clicks a button on the Opportunity to run his customized Sales Proposal. The DDP delivers to him a merged and customized Sales Proposal as a single PDF that also includes the addendums for the products he selected (A, F and M).

Mass DDPs
This new feature is extremely valuable a business use case where you need to send a DDP to hundreds of customers at the same time. DDPs can now be emailed, attached, downloaded, printed, and e-signed en masse with Mass DDPs.

Example: Tim needs to email a DDP to hundreds of Salesforce Contacts in a list view. He selects the contacts to be emailed, clicks Mass LOOPlus, selects the DDP he wants to send, and clicks Run. When the emails have finished being sent, Tim receives the Mass DDP results via email.

DDPs with DocuSign Embed Signing
This new feature was added to take advantage of business use cases where DDPs are created and delivered directly to DocuSign’s embedded signing process within a Force.com application or a Customer Portal.

We recently had the pleasure of completing an exciting new deployment for Expedia that combines the power of Salesforce, Drawloop and DocuSign. The integrated solution allows Salesforce users to create and package multiple documents for execution merging over 500 Salesforce fields . . . all with the click of a button!

Drawloop’s document integration technology is suberb!
by Gene Harden, Expedia
“I needed a solution to combine Salesforce field data into multiple documents to send to our hotel suppliers. The suppliers could then update and add additional information and sign the document using Docusign. After all that was finished, I needed all the data and documents back into Salesforce. To complicate the issue, one of the documents has close to 500 fields. Drawloop pulled all of this together! If you need to manage your documents and their contents, then contact Drawloop. Beyond having a great application their support and tech staff is just outstanding.”

Thanks Gene!

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.

LOOP Document Services on Salesforce.com was recently recertified for AppExchange. Applications on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange that have earned a “certified” designation have met a higher set of standards. The AppExchange certification process includes extensive testing by Salesforce.com, as well as a security assessment of company policies, application and network infrastructure.

We continue to work with Salesforce.com customers in helping them automate works flow and other business processes around the creation and automation of what we call Dynamic Document Packages or DDPs.

Take a moment to learn why companies like KONE, ASCAP, LinkedIn Corporation and IntraLinks have leveraged our document automation service within their Salesforce platform.