Formstack Documents

Formerly WebMerge

[Formstack Documents (formerly WebMerge) is] well suited for a mid-size organization that has multiple data inputs and needs to provide structure and professional document generation. As helpful as it is, the cost would prevent smaller businesses from realizing the cost savings that a larger one will.

Formstack Documents [(formerly WebMerge)] is extremely well-suited to relatively simple document generation across a variety of target formats. It also does much better than other options I tried out when I was dealing with relational data, as opposed to single table data, on the source side. It is a single direction solution - put data in, get document out - so it wouldn't be as great a choice for documents that are iterative and need updates from the source data; you will generate an entirely new document each time.

Formstack is ideally suited for any use where you need to take information from one place and translate that to a single attractively formatted document. This is great for helping companies better use their data. For example, a client survey answers could go directly to a Google sheet with AL submitted answers, but a single client's answers could do into a single formatted sheet meant to be shared.

I contacted Formstack support a few times when I was initially setting up our document(S) and they were very helpful. They responded quickly and were able to identify my problem and offer a solution. They offered to help walk us through the creation of our document(s) as well and were there to provide as much guidance as we needed.

Good for:
- Building out frequently-used forms.
- Decreasing human error and time spent on repetitive tasks.
- There's very little it can't do in terms of drafting complex documents with lots of options.

Not great for:
- Increasing billable hours.
- One-off projects.
- Using as a tool that everyone in the organization will need to understand (it can be a little complicated).

Support was always readily available and happy to assist whenever I had a question or needed help. Great experience every time.

Formstack Documents is well suited for companies that want to easily and quickly produce PDF proposals and email them directly to clients with the push of a button. Any company that uses sales software with integration options can benefit from using Formstack Documents. If you are an old-school company that does not use much technology, then Formstack Documents may not work within your existing model.

I've had almost no service issues with Formstack Documents in almost 5 years of using the software (it was formerly Webmerge). When I have had a service issue, the support team is very helpful and responsive and usually gets back to me right away. I have not used the support team since Formstack took over Webmerge.

WebMerge does a great job of prefilling applications and forms. It doesn't matter if you have a word document or a PDF. It's handles a variety of data types such as text boxes, date, check box and option buttons. If you are prefilling a PDF it has limitations if you have a large narrative field that needs to grow and expand.

[It is well suited for] automation. If you work in child care, where regulations abound, this program is what will take the tediousness out of the small tasks. Design the document the way the organization needs, and just plug in the form fields. Your involvement with the tasks will be whittled down to just putting it in the folder. It also has a reliable email platform which you can use to route the documents to the relevant places. You can send documents to your printer automatically, as well as all the people who need to be included. When you get down to it, the automation can give you back hours from your day. On the flip side, it is not appropriate if you need signatures electronically. The process of getting the signatures will bog you down because you'll have to get what you need first, and then transfer an image from wherever you are integrating. We use Formstack and use an image field to transfer electronic signatures. Sometimes it's cut off by the size of the field; other times it is too small, or doesn't show up, or the image itself shrinks the text on the page. Leave the form to automation needs, and eliminate the amount of people getting involved.

Excellent for automating the generation of forms once you've capture the data elements.

WebMerge works perfectly for companies using CRM or whatever other software involving customer data, like attributes and deals data. Also, WebMerge is perfect to deal with the creation of a great variety of different documents, think whatever document and WebMerge will be able to create it for you. However, it needs some training to work with it perfectly.