Likelihood to Recommend I think the case when I would recommend Conga CPQ is in a legacy org. In that case, the older style and configuration might be more useful, and you are less likely to find yourself forced to upgrade to lightning. If you are already using lightning, or migrating to lightning, then I would only recommend Conga CPQ if the alternative does not support the features you need.
Read full review The most powerful features are the fact that you can see when your clients have viewed your quote, and that it can pull in real-time information about the products you are selling. It is all online-based, so you can use it from anywhere which is a big advantage over other quoting tools that I have used. We don't use the procurement capabilities, but for quoting pricing and customer visibility it works fantastically.
Read full review Pros The perceived power strength is that it is supposed to contain CPQ, Contract Management, Document generation and template manipulation, and cash/invoice process all in one wrapped package. It was developed on the Force.com platform. They provide multiple releases of their product per year. Read full review ConnectWise Sell does an excellent job of neatly presenting quotes and proposals to the end user. There are multiple different options for the look and function of the quotes. There are also options for custom quote templates that are designed directly for your organization. ConnectWise Sell does a reasonably good job of connecting to and working with Autotask. It took our organization about 6 months to figure out the correct way to flow from quote to invoice with our systems. Sell will easily pull in your customer information from Autotask into a quote and allow you to send the quote direct from your email. Read full review Cons Apttus has not completely transitioned from a product suite to a product platform vendor. Upgrades of certain products can have interoperability issues with other products in the Apttus stack. Our pain point here was attempting to use Apttus Xauthor for Excel to get around product line limitations in the Apttus CPQ shopping cart. The ultimate resolution was for us to upgrade and leverage the latest version of CPQ, where pricing callback limitations were addressed by client side processing, rather than the hybrid Xauthor process we tried to use. Upgrades in general require significant testing to ensure no unanticipated issues occur. We have a complete Salesforce sandbox dedicated to providing an environment for testing any modifications or upgrades. Apttus support model almost requires you to purchase premium support. Given the CPQ system is complex, the level of skilled support available through basic support require you to escalate several times before getting to a resource that can address your issue. Read full review I'd like to see ConnectWise Sell develop a more user-friendly environment for advanced form and template design that doesn't require developer skills or consulting engagements. in order for us to develop these forms makes us reliant on consultants. These engagements are worth the cost, but sometimes we just don't have time to wait for them to be delivered. I'd like to see ConnectWise Sell automatically generate a quote for items such as warranties or services that are expiring in ConnectWise Manage. This would save us a tremendous amount of time preparing quotes. I'd like to see a new version automatically created when changes are made to a quote with the ability to reverse or revert back to a particular version. Sometimes people make mistakes and delete or change something they shouldn't have. Or customers want a change to version 1 only to change their minds when you send them the updated one, and want to go back to the original one. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It is critical to our sales process. We are not satisfied with all aspects of the product and have gone through many tough experiences with their PS, support, and PD teams -- but we're not unhappy enough to re-build what we're already built
Read full review We are in our 4th year with Quosal and fully expect to renew again and again. With their development of additional features such as the Order Porter, Visual Quoting and others, we see the adoption rates continuing to rise while making our time to quoted shorter and shorter. Quosal and ConnecWise's vision of automated quoting is an exciting frontier that we are very happy to be a part of
Read full review Usability Conga CPQ is a great tool but lacks good support and [a] very limited knowledge base which doesn't include day to day errors which users face, thus leading us to support and take more time in turn. Also cart performance can be improved drastically which will enhance the user experience as the user doesn't have to wait for the pricing.
Read full review Quosal is a very solid product with a LOT of functionality. Quosal has two main products that they offer, 'Quosal Sell' and 'Quosal Create.' If you are looking for an "out-of-the-box" or "ready to use" quoting software, I would recommend Quosal Sell. If you are interested exploring advanced functionality and integration or have a resource on staff willing to assume an "admin" role, I would highly recommend Quosal Create.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I have not heard of any issue
Read full review Performance I dont think we use this tool to potential
Read full review Support Rating Tier1/tier 2 support can only handle native functionality. Customizations have to be escalated to developers which aren’t included in the support program. I go ahead and copy the people I directly worked with on implementation for assistance. I would rate them an 8 for support assistance.
Read full review Have to wait till 11pm EST time to get someone knowledgeable. That sucks truly. Almost half my day is gone. They need to provide premium support, where I can contact a "real" Quosal rep, anytime of the day or night 24/7
Read full review Online Training We attended 5 hours worth of webinars early on. We had to understand how objects worked to figure out how to structure our data. I would have liked more in-depth training but it would have been an additional cost
Read full review Implementation Rating Be iterative. Take the opportunity to build a catalog based on how Apttus works well. Learn the tool yourself or use an SI. Take the time to build a configuration / pricing migration tool with X-Author for Excel or roll your own. Stick with OOTB Apttus as any customization will cost you every time a new version is released
Read full review Great implementation, the Quosal team has a smart and well planned process to guide your team through the process. More importantly, they understand the challenges with change and user adoption.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We selected Apttus CPQ over SteelBrick due to the simplicity of SteelBrick's out of the box pricing and ability to customize quoted products. As a global organization with selling a highly configurable products, we felt the ability of Apttus to handle our requirements as standard functionalty rather than a customization was a material difference between the platforms.
Read full review When it comes to the quoting layout Sell gives you so many more customization options. The item inventory is also easier to maintain. Sell is by far the best selling module that I have used thus far and it has helped keep us more organized.
Read full review Scalability Connectwise Sell is listening and building their software to fit the needs of their customers. Sell is consistently looking to us for feedback and making sure their product is working for us as partners/customers. We feel we are generally behind on getting to know their updates and software upgrades. They are a great vendor and wonderful corporation.
Read full review Return on Investment The ability to generate engineered configurations that is right by construction has reduced the cycle time of the customer engagement. The fact that we are able to guide the process and end up with a validated bill of material reduces the iterations with the customers. As long as the validations rules are correct the generated bill of material is accurate. We are now looking at using Apttus to perform quality checks in our product rules since the tool is able to test different configurations quickly and efficiently. Configuration that use to take weeks and consumed valuable engineering resources has been transformed to become a customer facing application that is simple enough for customer to self-service. King Ou Director Systems and Solutions
Read full review Customer satisfaction improvement. It's an impressive and professional way to present information that our customers appreciate. They not only have a clear way of knowing exactly what is being proposed, but now have another method they can use to easily track and organize approved/ not-approved quotes. Improved brand consistency. We have a reputable, trusted image that projects across our client portfolio (not to mention within our community) and this system helps to promote and maintain our transparency and professional image. Following up and referencing past quotes is made easy and quickly, which has benefited us from a time-cost savings perspective. Read full review ScreenShots ConnectWise CPQ Screenshots