Opero Documents and eSignature
Link | |
|---|---|
Pricing | US$7/u/m for Documents and US$5/u/m for Signature |
5 Users / Year | US$144 |
Description | Simple Documents and eSignature app that uses Google Docs as the basis for the templates |
This is an amazingly priced document generation and eSignature app that works really well IF:
You use Google Docs for everything.
You can compromise when things don't work as you expected (or spend 5 hours rebuilding the document and finally getting it to work!).
Details
Opero has a suite of tools that are reasonably priced including Documents, eSignature, Forms, Shipping, Fax, Payment, and SMS. I haven't used anything other than Documents and eSignature so I can't comment on the others.
Opero's biggest selling points are the price, no minimum number of users, and the fact that everything is done in Google Docs.
There are huge limitations compared to other Doc Gen tools (eg no Excel/Sheets or Powerpoint/Sides merge), but then you will pay a lot more for a tool that does that.
See my e-Signature Apps document for what I was looking for in an eSignature app when looking for something for my client.
Documentation
The documentation is good, but there are still a few error situations missing from their extensive error documentation. https://www.opero.com/knowledge/
Setup
Unfortunately I tried a really simple scenario first, and when I did the actual document I found that it would not work because the document was "too complex". Look, my document is not too complex, but Opero has some limitations as to the complexity they can do. This was 12 1 page sections for product blurbs to show and hide based on criteria from the Salesforce record, and it could not do that. So we've had to do massive work-arounds that involve generating the document and then manually deleting the not needed pages after the document is generated. OMG my document is NOT too complex at all! And I can not even pinpoint what made it work now, but I deleted 1 paragraph at a time and generated the document until it worked… then put the same paragraph back in a while later and it still worked. I have no idea why it happened but it is working!
Then there is a huge amount of setup that is required that is just cumbersome and unnecessary based on other doc gen solutions. You want one paragraph to show if product is X and another value to show if product is Y - that means you need two, yes two, checkbox formula fields needs to be created. There is no ability to show or hide based on matching text that you can do in a simple Word Formula.
Google Docs Security
You have to give Opero full access to your full corporate Google Docs account. This is not good. I'm not sure if this is a Google Docs API limitation. I would like to see it that you could give access to one Folder only.
Or alternatively set up a random Gmail Account and use that only for these documents, but then you can’t edit the documents easily.
Good Things
Editing the document is a good experience and can be done within Salesforce. It's easy to add tables with related data.
You can easily automate bulk documents - see every other app that charges you a few dollars US to do this!
If you make some compromises you can get this to work and it works reliably and it works well. It does what it says on the tin...
It has most of the requirements in my e-Signature Apps document.
The end result eSignature document is as good as you would get out of any other eSigning app.
Issues
Apps that are actually not really Lightning need to be flagged on the Appexchange and given 6 months to get their shit together and get everything lightning-ified. I'm only giving them leeway because their pricing is so reasonable.
Docs
Nothing I can do can get HTML (Rich Text) fields to work. This is with support at the moment. I have tried it in 3 orgs, 2 Google Docs accounts. Nothing. I will update this when I hear back from them. Well HTML fields do work now… there was two things… 1 is ensure you have a paragraph mark after each HTML field, and DO NOT have any section breaks in the document. Yay! It works!
No formatting options for fields - so if you want to format a date or a currency or a percent you have to create text formula fields like you had to back in the olden days. Thankfully I was able to get away with just the $ in front of the currency fields, but I had to format the percentage fields because there was no way to not show the % symbol if there was no discount.
You can only use Classic Email Templates! OMG!
There is a Lightning email functionality but it doesn't work if you use Signature also. So I've had to do a hack work-around and just email a link rather than emailing a document. Otherwise you are taken to a Classic page to email a document if you have Signature installed! OMG!
The limitation of having to create every conditional option as a checkbox formula field is such a PITA. I have 30 checkbox formula fields!
Because of the work-around where we have to generate the document then edit it, I can't then email the document as an attachment, I can only use the Download as PDF link and get people to download the document from the email. I hope that is acceptable to my client. (I may be able to change this now, but I actually don’t mind it, so we will see what they say, because of the other mentioned Classic issues it may not even work well to attach the document).
After Generating the Google Doc, you can have the Document open in Google Docs directly. HOWEVER, if you click BACK it will generate the document again. So have it save the link to a field and return to the record instead, then get the user to open the document from that link.
Images are a pain, but that is Salesforce's issue with the Files vs Documents debacle, not Opero's.
You can merge PDFs onto the end of the generated document - IF you generate it as a PDF. HOWEVER, the can ONLY go onto the end, and there is no way to merge two generated documents into one PDF. Hugely limiting, but see the pricing!
Signature
There is a feature for the recipient to make comments on the Document, but you don't get an email notification about that, only a Google Doc notification, AND they can still sign it. I have turned that off, and am sending the document as a PDF.
The signature page is really really ugly and doesn't look like the signature page on the video, and there is no way to customise it. (You can pay to have a different URL other than accept.today though, and you can have a different ending page).
They need to allow full branding of the signature page - and preferably customised from Salesforce so you can have different branding based on different documents.
The completed file only saves as an attachment, whereas Files work for Documents.
I can not get the customised Internal emails working... I will have to do the hack of creating formula fields on the signature object.
I can NOT get the Signature fields working as they are documented... but as I can't get the tables working as I wanted I've ditched that idea altogether and will just use the eSignature details - that is good enough.
The hacky work-around for having the internal signer store their signature on file in Salesforce is not good. AND there is an issue with it so the only place you can store the file is in Documents.
It has excellent tracking through every part of the eSignature process.
Google Docs Issues
Tables have very limited formatting options, and you are going to struggle compared to Word. I just had to give up having some data in a table in the end. The issue is with the very long field names from Opero Signature… but if you really really need the signature fields in a table in the document, then create your own formula fields with short names… yes, bizarre workaround, and I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure it will work).
You can't do more advanced things like embed another document into a google document, convert from Markdown to formatted text, or do fancy formulas like you can in Word. (yeah I tried everything to get around the complexity issues).