HotDocs is a document automation and assembly software product, acquired and now supported by AbacusNext since 2017.
$25
per user/per month
Windward Core
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Windward’s low-code document generation solution embeds into any application, enabling users to populate data-smart documents within the familiar landscape of Microsoft Office. It's a solution from PDFTron since the April 2021 acquisition.
$190
per month
Pricing
HotDocs by CARET
Windward Core
Editions & Modules
Basic
$25
per user/per month
Enterprise
Contact sales team
Windward Hub Standard
$19.00
Per User, Per Month (10 user minimum)*
Windward Hub Premium
$49.00
Per User, Per Month (10 user minimum)*
Windward Core Pro
$547.00
per month*
Windward Core Flex
$605.00
per month*
Windward Hub Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HotDocs by CARET
Windward Core
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
*Pay annually: 15% discount
10% discount for quarterly payment of Windward Core.
It is well suited in the organisations which deals with lots of paper work like legal, teaching, research, etc as they need similar kind of documents again and again. In a typical office set up it is of great use by human resource, marketing and legal department. Hot docs is not suitable if you have a proprietary or solo business as it do not caters to them.
Great for Technical Users. It's great for people a bit more on the technical side. It allows developers to quickly create and modify reporting templates without having to modify source code or make updates to a repository. Potentially Difficult for Non-Technical Users. Making substantial changes to the data portions of reporting can be a bit difficult for non-technical users. While Windward's tools for this are great, it still requires an understanding of the database schema which not all users will have.
Personalized training. We were able to get an expert on a video call who walked us through solutions to each of our unique problems (i.e. all fifty states have different notary blocks, how can we auto-populate it when the state of the deal is selected?).
Team access. Multiple people can work with the templates at once, thus allowing the members of our team who deal with financials to work on their documents while others focus on the organizational and legal documents.
Once you have successfully drafted your templates, it runs incredibly smooth (barring any minor hiccups that happen with software updates) and efficiently.
Native Office output -- not nested tables and/or horrible RTF like other tools generate.
Ease of use -- once the data sources are set up, creating tables is as simple as drag and drop (okay, maybe not exactly that simple, but you can certainly create a table of data using drag and drop, then format it and manipulate it as needed).
Responsive developers and support -- when I've had questions, they've been addressed VERY quickly and professionally.
For the most part, the Windward report designer is intuitive for our users; but there are a few areas where it is less intuitive. In these cases, our users need to search Windwards support wiki site, or even contact their support technicians. This can also be due to the short time we've had Windward and our lack of knowledge.
I haven't had to contact HotDocs very often for support. I suppose I rated them mid-level simply because I would like to see more online training options or white papers to view to assist with learning. I want to understand how to do something versus having it done for me.
Support is something they take pride in. Once an issue is raised, they are quick to respond and provide details on a fix. No complaints on support here.
I haven't evaluated other products. We are so used to HotDocs that it would be difficult for us to switch to something else. We continue to use HotDocs because switching cost is high once you have already started. Be careful before beginning to use this program, as it is hard to breakaway.
We evaluated several other products to integrate with our new software, but Windward Studios was an obvious standout above the majority. Other applications required some level of software development knowledge and experience to create templates and a much steeper learning curve. After consideration of ease of use, as well as a cost-comparison between different products, Windward Studios was the most suitable product to meet our needs.
