Likelihood to Recommend CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Pros CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
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. Read full review 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. Read full review Cons CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
Most HotDocs templates demand high-level code. This includes complicated Word codes Using HotDocs is incredibly user-friendly. Creating and maintaining templates is a programming task Read full review It is hard to pick out the tags if they are mixed in with a block of text. Using report variables in select statements causes the selection list of available fields to not show anything. The color themes do not match the office selection and it feels very disconnected. Read full review Usability CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
Could be more intuitive - could even "suggest" fill-ins with the option to take or not take the suggestion.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Support Rating CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Implementation Rating CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
If you use WordPerfect X9 - choose"no word-processing software."
Read full review Alternatives Considered CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Return on Investment CARET (Abacus Data Systems, Inc. )
Time savings by employees when generating documents mean better ROI efficiency for labor. Faster, more accurate turnaround for documents needing to be generated from templates. Large capital expenditure depending on the number of users and developers. Read full review As a fully integrated solution, the ROI is impacted when a client gets stickier with our solution because they see the benefit of Windward. Support has been fantastic for our development team so that as we integrate the solutions we have a clear and clean design. Read full review ScreenShots Windward Core Screenshots