Drawloop Blog

Now is a great time to implement tangible solutions to increase profitability for 2009. In the current economic environment, everyone is looking to do more with less. Document creation can be one of the more expensive and labor intensive business tasks. Sales reps and other critical team members often spend hours each day customizing the documents required to respond to customers.

Let Drawloop help you reduce costs and do more with less! We encourage you to take a look at our document automation services and add document automation as one of your priorities for 2009. Take a look at what our customers have to say.

Through December 31st, we are offering all Salesforce.com customers LOOP Merge at $0.00 per user / month in 2009. Yes, that means it’s FREE for a year! Simply have your Salesforce Administrator install now from AppExchange to take advantage of the LOOP Merge offer.

Click here to learn more about LOOP Merge.

So what are you waiting for? Install LOOP Merge today!

With all the discussion about cloud computing and the recent Microsoft announcement of a cloud computing platform called Azure, we thought we would take a moment to discuss the cloud and how our customers have been automating document creation in our cloud for years. All of the talk and discussion is simply validation for what we have seen for years . . . moving document creation to our cloud drives efficiencies, lowers costs and delivers scale to any business, large or small.

The past couple of weeks have been flooded with new announcements and discussions of cloud computing coming from Salesforce.com, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and posts like Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing.

So What Exactly is the Cloud?

The cloud is just a metaphor for the Internet and its underlying infrastructure. Many companies, like us, have been delivering services on-demand, now often referred to as cloud-based applications, for years. So what’s new? It can get even more confusing as many people use the term cloud in different ways. For example, some define the cloud simply at the infrastructure level (like Amazon S3). Others define the cloud as web applications running in the cloud (like Salesforce.com). Regardless of the definition, buzz word or latest acronym, the value of the cloud to a business is significant and real.

Drawloop’s Cloud: Automate Your Document Creation

We offer cloud-based end-user applications to quickly automate all of your document creation. With a web browser and the same Microsoft Office documents your company has used for years, you can instantly run all of your documents in our cloud. Our document automation service allows you to move document creation from a desktop function to a web application or what we call a Dynamic Document Package (DDP). A DDP can be deployed anywhere on the web and integrated with any web service, like Salesforce.com. Our document service provides your administrators with the added benefit of working with the documents in their normal desktop environment. In other words, your legal team will still be able to update and edit your contract terms and conditions in the same Microsoft Word application they have used for years. Our approach is a unique balance between the past and the future which is critical to effectively manage all of the documents required to help sell and service your business.

What is the Business Value?

Automating document creation in our cloud will drive significant business value . . . increased productivity, increased revenue, faster sales cycle, and a significant reduction in the expenses associated with traditional document creation (man hours, software, versions, updates, networks, training and the list goes on and on). Our customers realize an immediate return on investment while reducing costs associated with document creation.

“Drawloop allowed us to dynamically package our documents to meet the needs of our unique and specific outgoing document requirements.”
AVP of Licensing Business Analysis
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

“My reps love this solution, and I love the fact that it frees-up more of their time to spend with customers rather than filling out paper work.”
Sales Manager
Dun & Bradstreet, Canada

With Drawloop, your documents become the application. Contact us today and let us help you move document creation to our cloud.

We wanted to share some quick thoughts on why our customers have utilized our on-demand services to automate document creation. On LOOP Exchange, you can automate document creation for your entire organization. You can quickly web-enable the same Microsoft Office files you have been using in your business for years.

Web-Enable Your Documents
You can quickly convert all of the Microsoft Office files your organization has been using for years and deliver them on-demand. Instead of having your sales and service reps download and customize documents, you can web-enable the documents allowing a sales rep to complete inputs on a web form and get back a secure and customized file . . . combining any combination of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF files.

Control
Are your files exposed to sales reps within your organization? With the Exchange, you can deliver a web service for users to generate documents rather than losing control and exposing your core documents.

Compliance
On the Exchange, your organization can deliver a compliant process for delivering mass customization and control over all of your document creation through various sales and product channels.

Efficiency
Is your sales team wasting time customizing the documents required to close and service business? If you are like our customers, the answer was yes before Drawloop. Automating document creation allows your sales team to focus on managing leads and following up on opportunities rather than wasting sales time customizing documents.

Integration
By automating document creation, you can then incorporate our web-service with other work flows and internal systems. With LOOP API, you can deploy our document creation services with virtually any other web service or on-demand platform, like e-signatures from EchoSign.

Register today and start automating document creation on LOOP Exchange.

Our LOOPlus users have already significantly reduced their document preparation time and automated the manual steps typically required to deliver a contract, sales proposal or virtually any set of documents that require customization. Our latest version of LOOPlus introduces new features that will help companies of any size increase efficiency around document creation enabling them to deliver mass customization and control around document creation throughout their entire organization.

New features include:

1. Document Queue: Allows a Dynamic Document Package (DDP) to be sent to a Queue for fulfillment allowing the salesforce user to create multiple document packages, from any Objects, with the click of a button. From the Queue, the user can deliver the document through email, download the document or send through another work flow, like e-signatures by EchoSign.
2. File Options for the DDP: You can now map any field from Salesforce.com into Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and PDF. In addition, we have opened up the service to allow a creator of the DDP to include (as required or optional files) any JPG, GIF, Bitmap, PNG, Plain Text, Rich Text, XML, Visio, Publisher and/or HTM/HTML files to the packaged document.
3. Work Flows: DDPs can now be triggered by a work flow in Salesforce.com. This allows a company to have Dynamic Document Packages created based on work flows on the front and/or back-end of the document creation. This integration is extremely powerful for organizations that require mass customization for a high volume of document packages. We have a single organization generating over 4,000 DDPs a week with LOOPlus.
4. Images: A DDP can now have images dynamically passed into the files used to create the final packaged document. This can be extremely valuable for documents that require private labeling or letters that required an image of a sales rep signature.
5. Outbound Messaging: Using Salesforce’s outbound messaging, a DDP can be deployed behind the scenes, i.e. without any user intervention. The DDP is created based on the information in the outbound message and the final PDF is sent back to Salesforce for any further work flows to be completed.

Please contact us today if you are interested in learning more abour our LOOPlus service for Salesforce.com. You can also install LOOPlus from AppExchange and use our 30-day free trial.

Zillion Business Review has interviewed our Co-founder, Jim Roberson, about our company and our on-demand document automation services. Zillion Business Review is published by the Dutch publisher Zillion Media B.V. The magazine is an international business magazine aimed at the top management and executives in international companies.

Zillion became interested in our company due to our recent LOOP Exchange announcement. One of the editors contacted us for an interview. The interview was recently published in the Zillion Business Review and we wanted to share the article with you.

Zillion Business Review - “Automating to PDF”
view the article

We wanted to share a recent review from one of our LOOPlus customers, Aurora Lifetools, on Salesforce.com. We continue to expand our salesforce.com users while refining our document automation services. If you use salesforce.com, we encourage you to install our free trial and begin automating document creation for your entire team.

Killer App
01/23/08 by Drew Hyde, Partner

Aurora Lifetools provides Social Security Disability Representation nationwide. LOOPlus is the killer application we have been looking for. It reduced our time in contract preparation by almost 90%. The staff at Drawloop is unbelievable, support, sales, billing - just phenomenal. This one app alone saves us enough to pay our salesforce subscription. The integration with EchoSign is flawless and simple and leaves you wondering how you ever did anything the old way. We will be implementing a solution that auto-creates a complete docket and related exhibits and records, and annotated correspondence this spring. We have looked, and looked and cannot find another product that will do this either in salesforce or standalone for under $20,000. What more is there to say, great product, great service. Work with Drawloop, they make money, you make money, the cool factor is unbelievable - everyone is happy.

Learn more about LOOP and LOOPlus on Salesforce.com

If you are like most of us, you have been using Microsoft Office documents for years in your personal and professional life. These files usually contain years of hard work and directly impact how you do your job each and every day. Knowing this reality, we created LOOP DDP making it easy to web-enable your Microsoft Office files.

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you have a spreadsheet that you want to share but you hesitate because it contains years of hard work or even proprietary company information. It’s usually at this point, you have to decide (a) should I email the file?, (b) should I spend the time to remove all of my formulas?, or (c) should I use a file sharing service?

There’s one major problem with these options . . . all expose your spreadsheet and give away your hard work or proprietary information. With LOOP DDP, you now have a better option. Take a moment to learn how you can web-enable and automate your Microsoft Office files for sharing without exposing the files:

Steps to Web-Enable Your Microsoft Office Documents

We are proud and excited to introduce the beta release of LOOP Exchange. LOOP Exchange is a simple yet revolutionary way for you to web-enable Microsoft® Office® documents for file sharing.

Register today for LOOP Exchange, it’s free! If you are already part of our LOOP community, you can login to LOOP Exchange with your LOOP email and password to begin building and deploying Dynamic Document Packages (DDPs) for sharing.

LOOP Exchange is an industry first as it lets anyone create, build and deploy web-based solutions with the same Microsoft Office files that people have used for years. Since LOOP Exchange is built on a simple and proven technology, no programming experience is needed to create and deploy Dynamic Document Packages. Our LOOP community will be able to easily and safely share all of their hard work and intellectual capital without exposing their documents, formulas or secrets. LOOP Exchange brings web-based solutions to anyone who has ever worked with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

What makes LOOP Exchange different?
Unlike other file sharing services where files are posted for sharing in their original format, LOOP Exchange goes beyond just sharing. We allow you to share your document or set of documents as a web-based solution protecting your original files and delivering dynamic output to the user. LOOP Exchange converts the files into a web-based solution to capture inputs on a web form and dynamically create output as a single PDF. The original files remain secure and untouched.

Since LOOP Exchange is part of LOOP, it also leverages our document packaging technology, which makes it easy to add other file types to your DDP, including any PDF, JPG, HTML, XML, Text, BMP, GIF, PNG, Publisher and Visio files, and deliver all of them as single PDF.

What is a Dynamic Document Package (DDP)?
A DDP is a document or group of documents consisting of Microsoft Excel, Word and/or PowerPoint files used to create web-based solutions. All of this is done without exposing any of the formulas or other confidential information from your original files.

To learn more, click here. We look forward to seeing you on the LOOP Exchange!

Today, we announced the Alpha 50 Program to our thousands of LOOP users. We are looking for alpha users to test and build Dynamic Document Packages (DDPs) on our new service called LOOP Exchange. LOOP Exchange is a simple yet revolutionary way for you to web-enable documents for file sharing (learn more). We are opening the Alpha 50 Program to our first 50 users requesting to be part of our alpha user group. If you are part of the first 50, you will be one of the first people to experience LOOP Exchange.

We are excited to have 50 of our users be the very first people other than internal developers at Drawloop to run, build and deploy web-enabled document packages on LOOP Exchange. We want to make sure that the LOOP Exchange experience is high-quality, easy-to-use and a powerful tool to web-enable your Microsoft Office documents. We thank you in advance for your participation.

To joint the Alpha LOOP Program, send an email to alpha@drawloop.com.

We look forward to seeing you soon on LOOP Exchange!

Beyond Sharing

Posted by SoftwareCEO

This month Intel opened a new website called CoolSW that uses “crowd sourcing” to highlight software. “The CoolSW site is an online community of people passionate about software,” says the site. Members post information about an interesting software company, and site visitors vote on whether that company is “cool.”

If you sometimes need a PDF but don’t want to spend $299 for Adobe Acrobat, this free service could be the answer. LOOP is a SaaS offering that creates PDFs from MS Office files, graphics, or web pages. It can even combine numerous files into a single PDF.

One obvious use: Packing a mess of files into a single attachment that’s easier to send and receive by e-mail. LOOP doesn’t offer all the advanced features of the full Acrobat package, but how often do you need those anyway?

This free PDF-making software comes from Irvine, Calif.-based Drawloop Technologies, which claims 30,000 users. The company provides more powerful document packaging services for a fee. This is one example of the kind of disruptive technology that established software firms need to watch out for. Note to Adobe: Consider buying these guys before you-know-who discovers them. Copyright (c) 2007, Computing Technology Industry Association, Inc.