Octiv Software

Pros

Quick generation of documents. Simple to format

Cons

Not easy to configure. Needs lots of assistance, which isn't always available

Our marketing and sales departments are able to develop the necessary messaging for everything from single ticket buyers’ need-to-knows to the group sales invoicing. With a template to start with and the customization that fits our patrons, Conga suffices for each of our needs.

Pros

Document generation simplifies the processing while allowing for customization based on everything from single tickets to touring contracts. With the vast array of templates and uses, doc gen with Conga allows our sales to be personalized and simplified.

Cons

There is a learning curve to overcome but the extensive resource library and customer support team at Conga make it all possible for even the most unique industries (or IT lacking departments).

Conga has saved my team so much time and effort by allowing us to configure and manipulate templates around a single source of data to produce multiple unique documents.

Pros

Conga enabled my team to easily create and automate all of the different plans and polices that we manage through the use of templates and highly configurable fields, all while maintaining our specific branding and format.

Cons

Conga can be daunting for new users. Thankfully, they have great resources for training and getting users started with creating their own documents.

Some customers need a graphically appealing PDF version instead of a plain text page from Salesforce. Using Conga has saved time previously wasted on manually making these files.

Pros

The default printable view in Salesforce is almost unusable. With Conga, we can now make printable versions (PDF's) of Salesforce records/pages that look great.

Cons

The setup of different templates isn't that straightforward initially. It takes longer to generate the PDF output than is ideal.

Overall a nice tool, and in it's current condition there's some room for improvements.

Pros

In general, this tool works fine to create proposal, presentations and other documents. Most easy is to upload presentations, or work with some fixed templates (which in our case are filled by data from salesforce).

Cons

It can be frustrating and time consuming to create presentations, as there's less features as compared to e.g. powerpoint. Furthermore it happens that bugs occur while editing, or that pages are not loading while viewing presentations.

Very positive, used to get very nice customer service over the phone too, but lately they seem to have outsourced this function and response times considerably diminished.

Pros

The best thing is probably the flexibility that Ms Office merge templates provide with the help of conga. Also lots of support materials available to help admins customize the solution

Cons

The least favourite part is the speed of document generation. It does take a up to a minute to go through the whole process. I would prefer it was closer to instant.

Pros

I liked how easy the product was to upload to Salesforce and then send to the clients for signing. It was not only easy internally for the person sending the document but also for the client to open and access (which means the most)!

Cons

I didn't really have any cons about the software. It was very easy for the client to use which is what mattered most since majority of the time we would send the document while on the phone with them and walk them through signing.

Pros

Its integration with Salesforce is its finest attribute. I can finally map Account and Opportunity objects!

Cons

Not enough options for customization allowed on existing templates (ie editing or changing names, creating custom buttons, etc).

Pros

it's customizable, we can create and store templates for future use, it cuts back on time spent producing proposals, the options to have different users, approval proceses

Cons

it's constantly glitching out on us; some pages will disappear completely while other times our edits aren't saved

Pros

Professionalism it displays to our clients and potential clients. I also enjoy the integration capabilities with CRM.

Cons

It didn't function perfectly with our old version of CRM, but we're upgrading now so it should be resolved.

We used Google Docs / Word Docs for proposals prior to implementing Octiv, which caused two problems:

1) They looked terrible.
2) It was hard to maintain a standard format for proposals team-wide while still giving individual AEs the ability to customize proposals.
3) We couldn't get any intelligence (when they viewed the proposal, what they looked at, etc.)
4) Lacked an electronic signature.

Now, our proposals look great and really 'wow' prospects, they're easy to customize within pre-defined templates, our reps can follow-up based on when proposals get viewed, and our close rate has increased since we're no longer collecting scanned signature pages.

Pros

Sales process was low-pressure. The user interface is easy-to-use, and Octiv's training/onboarding set us up for success from day one. Great company with great people! Proposals are beautiful, and we get great analytics.

Cons

We weren't able to integrate a payment /processor gateway but that has more to do with our current stack than a gap in Octiv's capabilities.

Pros

I used this software with a sales team in the SaaS space. They were able to integrate this into their process easily, and it streamlined our final pitch and contract management process.

Cons

Not much negative to say. It was easy to use and streamlined, and it kept our sales team happy when they used it. Sometimes user adoption was an issue, so they could probably improve their onboarding process.

We've been able to streamline and easily customize our sales process. Not only has our sales team become more organized, but Octiv has been it easier to collaborate and constantly improve our sales proposals. Plus it's nice having proposals that can take on more of a presentation feel and look more visually appealing.

Pros

I love the modern and easy to use interface. Once we put in some initial work setting up our templates and adding in assets, it's been very easy to maintain and update our proposals and training process as we go. The reporting functionality is great. I love being able to see detailed analytics about the sales team as a whole and specific metrics related to each proposal. It's helped up shape what content in the proposals are important and what needs more work.

Cons

We've had some difficulties editing our proposal template. We've tried to make our proposals more image-focused and pleasing to the eye. It has been difficult to link to images within documents, but I've been able to make it work by editing the code.

Pros

It is very user friendly. I am normally able to troubleshoot most issues myself because of the ease of use. The UI is clean and modern looking. The customer service is out of this world - the response rate is phenomenal and they really listen to the needs of their clients.

Cons

There are often small glitches or bugs. Nothing that gets in the way of day to day workflows but they can definitely improve the UX by working bugs out quicker.

Pros

Templated proposals make it super easy to pump out proposals and win work fast! It's relatively intuitive and easy to use.

Cons

So many glitches -- pages will disappear and shuffle in order, errors happen all the time, and other random things. Also the limited users per account can be a hassle for a company our size

With Octiv, we are now able to pump proposals out much quicker than ever before. The notifications and analytics allow us to better understand what drives customer engagement and how they're interacting with our proposals.

We've completely changed the way we write proposals, thanks to Octiv (formerly Tinderbox). We are able to pump out proposals more efficiently (in nearly half the time), and the best part is they're automated. We have a number of templates we've refined, which makes it easy to reproduce for future projects. That's not to say that Octiv doesn't have its faults. Since Octiv acquired Tinderbox, we've experienced A NUMBER of glitches with the software (pages or content disappearing, error messages, etc.) However, the support team has always been super responsive and helpful, no matter how big or small the issue at hand. Despite these nuisances, we love this proposal software, and we're looking forward to bringing our sales team into the process to learn it too. Our creative agency is winning more work, thanks in large part to our new proposal process through Octiv.

Our proposal team has been using this tool for almost two years. When the tool was called Tinderbox, we found it to be pretty good with minor functionality issues. Since it became Octiv, we've gotten into the habit of calling customer support 2 - 3 times per month. There seem to be more bugs than before. Asset pages get lost, user privileges get messed-up, and the whole tool seems slower and clunky.

Pros

User-friendly, easy to teach others how to use, good organizational system

Cons

Since the tool became Octiv, there are more glitches.

Advice to Others

Identify a good cataloging system before you go nuts creating templates.

This isn't the most intuitive proposal writing platform but it gets the job done. They've recently went through a change in the company (was Tinder Box, now Octiv) so there are some bugs to work out but overall, it does what it needs to do and is a reliable platform.