Adobe InDesign vs. DocuSign CLM

Adobe InDesign is very well-suited to creating professional-looking page designs. If you want a newspaper or magazine to have attractive pages that go beyond simple templates, InDesign is the best option out there, to my knowledge. It's less suited to scenarios where people without page design skills are responsible for creating pages, as it requires some training and skills to use effectively.

Incentivized

DocuSign is useful for collecting electronic signatures on isolated documents and packets that are administered separately or integrated into another system. DocuSign is integrated into our onboarding system, Paylocity, which is where the employee completes all onboarding tasks required for employment. Integrating DocuSign with Paylocity allows us to send documents that require more than one signature along with other onboarding tasks, which makes for a less confusing onboarding experience for the worker. DocuSign also allows us to automatically run E-Verify from the integrated Form I-9 Document, which saves us lots of time onboarding each employee.

Incentivized

• Customization - With Adobe InDesign, as well as many other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, I can fully customize my workspaces and save different workspaces. This makes it easy to navigate through my project and have the panels and tools I need easily accessible and configured based on my project needs.
• Styles - Adobe InDesign has character styles, object styles, and tables styles. This speeds up my workflows and allows me to easily apply the same format across multiple elements. This is super helpful, especially when working with length documents.
• File compatibility - I can easily export my files into so many different file types.
• The Book feature - This feature is really helpful when creating books or very long documents with multiple sections.

Incentivized

• Alerts when documents are signed
• Notifications if customers don't complete any or all of their required tasks
• Showing clients exactly where to sign
• Making signing easy and fast

Incentivized

• Not naturally a WYSIWYG display (this is an option, and doesn't always work as intended)
• Moving images and photos around while holding an additional key
• Layers or objects are not easily clickable behind other objects.
• Adobe InDesign does require some fair system resources to work smoothly

• Increase sending limit for initial plans
• Faster return for client service requests
• When correcting a document, no new email is sent for notification of an update. The clients have to go back to the old document, and it feels uncomfortable for them.

Incentivized

I've had great experiences with the product and plan to continue to use it. It has been my go-to product for designing and creating materials. I have had great luck with it and have been able to create all of the needed marketing materials that have been requested for our company.

Incentivized

If you know what you are doing it is an amazingly granular and powerful application. You can control pretty much any aspect of the design and layout of your documents and make changes globally and rapidly. But, if you don't know what you are doing...you will be staring at your screen in bewilderment for a long time. You can learn it, but be ready for a hefty time investment.

Incentivized

I've needed Adobe InDesign team very little which is a bonus in and of itself.

One of the advantages of Adobe InDesign is it is faster and less glitchy than Microsoft Word.

Adobe support is ok but not great. Chat support often doesn't initially understand the question at-hand and it takes awhile to get to the right agent. Phone support has long wait times, and though I've had more luck there, it does take quite a time investment if you are looking for help. However, Adobe does have some online learning solutions available as well as a knowledgebase for frequently asked questions. If you're looking to learn how to use the platform, there are lots of resources which can typically be found in a few Google searches. If you have a technical issue with the system, that's going to be a bit more of a time investment as far as getting a tech's assistance to resolve the problem.

Incentivized

I am constantly experiencing issues with SpringCM.

Incentivized

Attending Adobe MAX each year is extremely valuable.

Incentivized

The online training works well and is not wholly necessary as it is user-friendly and you can learn by doing.

Implementation was smooth and easy.

Microsoft products do not match the aesthetic tools that [Adobe] InDesign offers, cannot support the customizable options available for export, and do not produce documents with as high a degree of accessibility. That said, they do have their place in collaboration in a team- I'd consider Office to be the first step and [Adobe] InDesign to be the final product.

Incentivized

DocuSign CLM has a much improved user experience compared to similar products we have used. The streamlining of templates and traceability through the signing process are huge benefits, and better than competitors. The ability to set up designated templates for different use-case scenarios, and roll out efficient documents for signing, is invaluable, as well as other functions like Bulk Send and PowerForms.

Incentivized

Working in a cloud environment makes it easy to scale and share resources.

• A great ROI for time in my small architectural practice, [especially] when a design has been updated and a report needs to be submitted. We can be submitting many reports that all look similar, clean and beautiful. We just save as the file and replace the images with more updated images. This way the client finds it easy to navigate updated reports, as many as they can be.

• Positive - has helped us track renewals which allows us to get out of "bad" contracts or renew "good" ones.
• Negative - we had hoped for it to help us determine which terms and conditions we have agreed to in other contracts. This has made contract review remain a lengthy process.
• Positive - We are now able to find all of our contracts which has helped us get out of unnecessary contracts (which positively impacts finances).

Incentivized