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 Icertis is well suited for organizations that have a large number of contracts to manage and need a centralized platform to manage them. It is particularly useful for organizations that need to track and manage contract expiration dates, renewals, and other important dates. It is also well suited for organizations that need to comply with regulatory requirements and need a platform to help with compliance.In terms of scenarios where Icertis may be less appropriate, it may not be the best fit for organizations with a small number of contracts to manage. It may also not be the best fit for organizations that need a high degree of customization, as the platform does have some limitations in terms of customization options. Additionally, Icertis may not be the best fit for organizations that want a platform that is focused on specific industries, such as construction or real estate, as it's more generic in nature.It's worth noting that Icertis is a powerful and flexible tool, and its suitability for a particular organization depends on the specific needs and requirements of that organization.
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 Contract Creation and Management: Icertis excels at streamlining the contract creation process. It allows users to easily create and manage contracts using pre-approved templates, which can be customized as needed. The platform also includes built-in e-signature capabilities, making it easy for all parties to sign and execute contracts electronically. This has greatly reduced the time and resources needed for contract management, and has enabled our organization to be more efficient in the contract creation process. Contract Compliance: Icertis helps organizations stay compliant with regulatory requirements by providing real-time tracking and alerts for contract expiration dates, renewal dates, and other important dates. This feature has been particularly useful for our organization, allowing us to avoid costly contract renewals and stay compliant with legal requirements. Analytics and Reporting: Icertis provides powerful analytics and reporting capabilities that allow organizations to gain valuable insights into their contract portfolio. These analytics and reports can be used to identify trends, track performance, and make more informed business decisions. This has been particularly beneficial for our organization, allowing us to better understand the performance of our contracts and make more strategic decisions. 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 Some features are unnecessarily limiting. For example, the inability to delete records or change fields later if it turns out there has been a mistake in how the contract was entered or the term was described. The Icertis form fields are NOT the contract record that is required to be kept. If someone makes an error, they should be able to fix it. The contract itself doesn't change, and that is the business record. Too much is built on the assumption that the person requesting the contract is the one with the control or ownership of the contract. It would be better if the person to whom the contract is submitted for review was the owner in the system. Not all requests will in fact end with a contract. Sometimes requests are started and the project is abandoned or put on hold for a period of time. More status fields that reflect the reality of contracting would be helpful. 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 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 Some functionality could be achieved with less clicking, the change management could be done a bit a better for deployments
Read full review Reliability and Availability I have not heard of any issue
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 super dependent on how much money you want to pay. The general regular support can usually take around one to two weeks to get an answer and sometimes that issue is fixed but the underlying issue is not addressed even if you call out that it is a repeated issue. It appears that sometimes support is not really trained in how your instance is set up so there can be a bit of back and forth just to be able to get the appropriate support.
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 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 In our organization, we chose Icertis over Ariba Contracts because of its comprehensive feature set and its advanced contract analytics capabilities. We found that Icertis provided us with more flexibility and customization options, which was important for our organization's specific needs. Additionally, the AI-driven contract insights provided by Icertis have been extremely helpful in helping us optimize business decisions and realize the full potential of our contracts.Another important factor is that Icertis is industry agnostic, while Ariba Contracts has a stronger presence in specific industries. Icertis is more suitable for a wider range of organizations and that's why in our fictional organization we selected it.Overall, both Icertis and Ariba Contracts are powerful contract management software solutions, but Icertis's advanced contract analytics and its flexibility and industry agnostic approach make it a better fit for our fictional organization.
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 Since implementing the platform, we have seen a significant reduction in the time and resources spent on contract management. This has allowed us to reallocate these resources to other areas of the business, resulting in increased revenue. Additionally, Icertis has helped us to improve our entitlement and obligations management, allowing us to better track and manage our contract expiration dates, renewals, and other important dates. This has helped us to avoid costly contract renewals and stay compliant with regulatory requirements, thereby protecting us against noncompliance and penalties. The platform's built-in analytics and reporting capabilities have also been valuable in helping us to gain valuable insights into our contract portfolio, allowing us to make more informed business decisions. Additionally, the platform's contract intelligence has helped us to shorten our sales cycles, which has enabled us to close more deals in less time. Read full review ScreenShots