Conga: Professional Document Generation for Salesforce

Image Credit: Conga Logo

Salesforce administrators often need to generate professional documents that include data from their Salesforce org. Creating these documents manually is time-consuming and error-prone. Conga Composer is a powerful document generation solution that automates this process, allowing you to create professional PDFs, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets directly from your Salesforce data.

The Conga Suite of Applications

Conga is a comprehensive suite of applications designed to integrate seamlessly with Salesforce. It empowers administrators to transform Salesforce data into professional documents like PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents. The suite includes multiple tools, with Conga Composer being the core document generation solution.

Conga’s Document Generation Capabilities

Gone are the days when Salesforce administrators spent hours manually drafting quotes, receipts, invoices, and other critical documents. With automation, Conga quickly produces professional-quality documents by merging Salesforce data with customizable template designs.

Quotes and Proposals

Salesforce users can now generate professional quotes and proposals that impress clients. Conga enables customization of layout and design, ensuring every quote and proposal reflects your company’s branding and maintains a consistent, professional appearance.

Receipts and Invoices

Conga provides administrators with the ability to create detailed and accurate receipts and invoices, building confidence with customers. With fast document generation, users can rely on Conga for accurate billing information and quick delivery to clients.

Conga’s Template System

From simple documents to complex multi-page reports, Conga supports an extensive range of templates that can be easily tailored to suit specific business needs. Salesforce users can select templates from Conga’s library and automatically populate them with Salesforce data.

Merging Salesforce Data with Professional Layouts

Conga’s power comes from its data-merging capabilities. Users can design layouts and establish connections between their Salesforce data and these layouts. Conga then performs the merge, filling documents with the most current and accurate Salesforce data.

This integration creates seamless and precise documents that not only look professional but also meet individual business requirements, making Conga an excellent choice for Salesforce administrators seeking efficiency, accuracy, and professional presentation in their document generation.

Real-World Use Cases for Conga Composer

Let’s explore some of the most powerful and practical use cases that have transformed businesses across industries.

Quote and Proposal Generation

One of Conga’s most popular features is the automatic generation of quotes and proposals. Sales teams can create professional, branded documents that include:

• Product details and pricing
• Terms and conditions
• Customized messaging based on opportunity stage
• Visual elements like logos and charts
• Related records such as contact information, account details, and opportunity data

With Conga, sales representatives can generate a complete quote document with a single click, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and professional presentation that impresses clients and accelerates the sales cycle.

ORDER Document Generation: Streamlining Complex Implementations

Perhaps one of the most powerful use cases for Conga Composer is generating comprehensive ORDER documents that capture all the details needed for implementation. This is particularly valuable in complex industries like healthcare, insurance, and enterprise software.

Real-World Example: Health Insurance Plan Setup at Anthem

At Anthem, we built a sophisticated Conga Composer solution to streamline the health insurance plan setup process. The challenge was significant: when setting up a new group health insurance plan, implementation teams needed a complete document showing:

• All ORDER object details
• Related Account information (employer details, billing information)
• Opportunity data (sales process, effective dates, plan options)
• Product details (medical plans, dental plans, vision plans, etc.)
• Related records (covered lives, dependent information, plan configurations)
• Pricing and billing details
• Implementation requirements and timelines

The Solution:

We created PDF versions of ORDER object details that pulled in all relevant related records - accounts, opportunities, products, and custom objects. This comprehensive ORDER document became the single source of truth for implementation teams, containing everything needed to set up a new health insurance plan.

The Impact:

• Eliminated Manual Documentation: No more copying and pasting data from multiple screens
• Reduced Errors: Automated data pull ensured accuracy and consistency
• Accelerated Implementation: Teams had all information in one place, reducing back-and-forth
• Improved Compliance: Standardized documents ensured all required information was captured
• Enhanced Communication: Clear, professional documents for both internal teams and clients

The ORDER document generated by Conga included:

• Complete account/employer information
• Opportunity and sales process details
• All selected products and plan options
• Pricing breakdowns and billing information
• Implementation requirements and timelines
• Related records from custom objects (covered lives, plan configurations, etc.)
• Visual elements like plan comparison charts and organizational charts

This single PDF document replaced dozens of manual steps and multiple system lookups, dramatically streamlining the health insurance plan setup process.

Contract and Agreement Generation

Conga excels at generating legal documents, contracts, and agreements. Organizations can create:

• Service agreements with dynamic terms based on product selection
• Master service agreements with account-specific details
• Renewal contracts with updated pricing and terms
• Amendment documents that reference original contracts

Invoice and Billing Documents

Financial teams leverage Conga to generate detailed invoices and billing statements that include:

• Line item details from related records
• Payment terms and due dates
• Account billing information
• Historical payment data
• Custom billing fields and calculations

Implementation and Setup Documents

Beyond the Anthem example, Conga is perfect for creating implementation documents across industries:

• Software Implementations: Technical specifications, configuration details, and setup requirements
• Service Deployments: Service plans, resource allocation, and timeline documents
• Product Configurations: Detailed setup instructions with all selected options and customizations
• Project Kickoff Documents: Comprehensive project plans with all stakeholders and requirements

Compliance and Regulatory Documents

In regulated industries, Conga helps generate compliance documents that include:

• Required disclosures and regulatory information
• Audit trails and documentation
• Standardized forms that meet regulatory requirements
• Historical data and change logs

Advanced Features: Related Records and Data Relationships

One of Conga’s most powerful features is its ability to pull data from related records. This is what made the Anthem ORDER document solution so effective.

Working with Related Records

Conga can traverse Salesforce relationships to include data from:

• Parent Records: Account details when generating from Opportunity or Order records
• Child Records: Line items, related products, or dependent records
• Junction Objects: Many-to-many relationships and related lists
• Custom Objects: Industry-specific objects and their relationships

Multi-Object Document Generation

The Anthem implementation demonstrated Conga’s ability to create documents that pull from multiple objects simultaneously:

• Primary Object: ORDER (the main record being documented)
• Related Account: Employer information, billing details, contact information
• Related Opportunity: Sales process, effective dates, plan selection journey
• Related Products: All selected medical, dental, and vision plans
• Custom Objects: Covered lives, plan configurations, implementation requirements
• Related Lists: Dependents, beneficiaries, and other related records

This multi-object approach ensures that implementation documents contain everything needed in a single, comprehensive PDF.

Best Practices for Conga Implementation

Based on real-world implementations like the Anthem solution, here are key best practices:

1. Start with the End in Mind

Before building templates, understand:

• Who will use the document?
• What information do they need?
• What related records are critical?
• What format is required (PDF, Word, Excel)?

2. Map Your Data Relationships

Document all the relationships you need to traverse:

• What’s the primary object?
• What related records are needed?
• Are there junction objects or many-to-many relationships?
• What custom objects contain critical information?

3. Design for Clarity

Create templates that are:

• Easy to read and navigate
• Well-organized with clear sections
• Visually appealing with proper formatting
• Consistent with your brand guidelines

4. Test Thoroughly

Test your templates with:

• Various data scenarios (complete records, partial data, edge cases)
• Different user profiles and permissions
• Various record types and configurations
• Real-world use cases

5. Iterate Based on Feedback

Gather feedback from document users:

• What information is missing?
• What’s confusing or unclear?
• What would make the document more useful?
• How can the process be improved?

6. Document Your Templates

Maintain documentation for:

• Template purpose and use cases
• Data sources and relationships
• Field mappings and calculations
• Update procedures and version control

Conclusion: Transforming Document Generation

Conga Composer has transformed how organizations generate documents from Salesforce data. From simple quote generation to complex ORDER documents that streamline entire implementation processes, Conga Composer has proven its worth across industries.

Whether you’re generating sales quotes, implementation documents, contracts, or compliance paperwork, Conga provides the tools to transform your Salesforce data into professional, comprehensive documents. Real-world implementations like the Anthem health insurance plan setup solution demonstrate that with proper planning and execution, Conga can transform complex, manual processes into streamlined, automated workflows.

By leveraging Conga’s powerful data merging capabilities, multi-object document generation, and flexible template system, organizations can eliminate manual documentation work, reduce errors, accelerate processes, and improve communication with both internal teams and clients.