Conga Composer is a document generation and automation tool designed to simplify and streamline the process of creating and distributing customized documents, presentations, and reports.
Conga Composer integrates with any data source, including CRM systems like Salesforce, and allows users to dynamically merge data from these sources into templates to generate personalized documents.
$20
per month per user
Oracle CPQ
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Oracle CPQ is a cloud-based application that helps sellers configure the right mix of products or services and create accurate, professional quotes to quickly meet their customers’ pricing needs.
We used to manually process information which are available in Salesforce to another system, right now we just click a button and these information is available in another system. This process eliminate human error and provide accurate information in our financial reporting. This process helps our accounting department provide efficiency and accuracy on providing data.
I think CPQ had worked so well for our company because of the widespread nature of our associates and tracking orders that were being placed in multiple time zones. My team specifically needed a way of analyzing these orders to track our progress in real time and sort out any supply orders before they became an issue. If you are in a centralized location with a smaller team then this may not yield much use to you.
Significant setup time, cost, and maintenance. We have to use an implementation partner
Does not always play well with other software, even Oracle software. While this is improved and being further improved, that it was a third party acquisition means things sometimes require a little extra care
Additional setup documentation and first walkthroughs would be helpful, especially if it was all in one place
Though I love how easily Conga Composer ties into Salesforce and its given analytics, it takes a lot of data entry to get up and running. I don't love that sometimes queries can take a long time to pull. I like keeping our marketing templates consistent via templates in the system. Pulling multiple objects into one report is fantastic too.
So far it is all good with BigMachines, looking for new features since Oracle acquisition has created a lot of expectations. We have outlined our limitations (out of box functionality) in our periodic customer successor advice meetings for a while, hope we get a resolution soon. Also, the BigMachines user license fee has increased a lot in the last three years.
It's a fairly simple tool to integrate into your current business structure. When we've had issues, we were able to resolve them extremely quickly. The users click a button and it can bring in all the quote lines, and our credit application seamlessly into our tool. I'd definitely recommend it to other colleagues
The software UI can be as complex or as simple as you need it to be (depending on the business). It does require training others on quote configuration and the order in which to build out order positions prior to configuring a quote. Once users are trained;however, it is fairly straight-forward. The UI is still more static than other new wizard/drag-and-drop models, but it get's the job done
It depends upon the day however there are so many failure points with online services, including our internet service, that this is probably closer to 9 with the latest version
It's been hit and miss depending on the issue. We use javascript to generate the urls which has confused many techs even though it generates a clean url - they are overwhelmed by the concept of code and can't understand that the url is all that matters.
Some specific support personal was good and fixed some problems fast using proper solutions. But when one of them went to sleep when we had critical issues and they do unreported commits to our production environment which caused issues and they were hiding it?? you can not give more than a two (maybe even that is too much). They also failed to add a feature for us which also bring the grade down.
They have pretty good training. Our business analysts have been able to go to entry and advanced level training. They have a train the trainer model. Our business analyst attended training, then trained the rest of our staff.
It was a much more technical implementation than we thought. It involved much more code.
Future releases have made and will make administering the tool easier.
EDL consulting had one good developer, but when he was moved off, they were horrible to work with.
The BMI sales team does a “BOA” or a “Business Operation Assessment” which is extremely valuable, not only for them to scope an implementation and get more reach within the organization, but it is also a documentation of business process that most organizations don’t have. It highlights inefficiencies and allows for correction during implementation.
Having a dedicated team (in-house) for implementation is key
I think Nintex is the primary competitor for Conga Composer, but I have not personally used it. I was not present for the decision to purchase Conga but I would recommend it in future document automation vendor selection processes because I have seen how well it works! We are especially fond of complementary features in Conga Composer, including Conga Email Templates and Conga Global Merge.
Oracle engagement is ahead. They are active in the development of the tool and provide great support after implementation. They also listen to their customers and offer opportunities to feedback and provide input through activities like the customer advisory board forum.
Increased Sales Rep efficiency. Being able to create multiple quotes ACCURATELY and quickly was a game changer.
Large implementation time. It's a little difficult to fit BMI into a SCRUM style build, with multiple working models and prototypes of all 3 simultaneously.
A larger fee for licensing and implementation cost. ROI wouldn't be realized in the first year.
