Salesforce Working On Blockchain Product, Says CEO Benioff

Salesforce is working on a product based on blockchain technology, the cloud computing company's CEO has revealed.

Marc Benioff, who founded the company in 1999, revealed the news when speaking to Business Insider's Julie Bort at the TrailheaDX Salesforce Developer Conference on March 28 (check out the video below).

Benioff said he'd begun to hone in on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency after an encounter at a hotel bar in Davos, Switzerland, in January. The World Economic Forum he was attending coincided with a cryptocurrency conference, and a conversation with one of that event's attendees led Benioff to consider the ways his company could integrate the technology.

"I had been thinking a lot about what is Salesforce's strategy around blockchain, and what is Salesforce's strategies around cryptocurrencies and how we relate to all of these things," he said.

After the Davos conversation, Benioff told Bort, he came to the realization:

"You know if you do this, this and this, you could put blockchain and cryptocurrencies into Salesforce."

While not providing details on the upcoming product, Benioff said that he hopes to "have a blockchain and cryptocurrency solution for Salesforce and for all of our customers" before Dreamforce - a conference the company will host in San Francisco from Sept. 25 to 28.

Salesforce is best-known for its cloud computing software for customer relationship management. The company made $10.5 billion in revenue in the year ending Jan. 31.

Salesforce image via Shutterstock

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Salesforce Marketing Empowers the Local Marketer

Dispensed advertising and marketing, Salesforce's newest release, wants to aid entrepreneurs add personalization to company-degree advertising and marketing campaigns. the new product makes it possible for native, franchise, and companion entrepreneurs to add personalization and context to company advertising developed for countrywide audiences.

here's how it works: A countrywide, company marketer will create an automation in Salesforce advertising and marketing Cloud's journey Builder. This pathway is regularly occurring, nameless, and built for a mass audience. With disbursed advertising, native entrepreneurs can hop into a earnings Cloud, a service Cloud, or a group Cloud version of Salesforce so as to add the personalization and context required to capture the attention of the customer or prospect.

if you're an auto dealership, you then doubtless have a string of customary emails that you ship to customers within your advertising and marketing checklist. With allotted marketing, native dealers can pop into Salesforce, discover a client with whom they've recently interacted, and tweak the campaign to encompass the customer's name, any contemporary interplay statistics, and localized offers.

"The research says that purchasers expect related and customized experiences," talked about Meghann York, Director of Product advertising for Salesforce advertising Cloud. "They need it to be obvious they're opening an email or on the web page, that each of those touchpoints is related and that they are known as themselves on each of these channels."

"For our clients who've accomplice networks, that turns into in reality intricate," York persisted. "You could have corporate advertising managing countrywide campaigns, but you've got relationships being built outdoor of corporate advertising and marketing. those homeowners or buyers or partners are communicating in a very personalized way but they should not have entry to the branding or the company message. So it looks like the enterprise is speaking in two distinctive voices."

Compliance and Analytics

Salesforce is also touting dispensed advertising and marketing as a method for country wide entrepreneurs to set expectations for local and associate marketers. by means of growing the initial crusade in advertising Cloud after which distributing the campaign to native marketers, they profit more advantageous handle over how the enterprise's messaging is crafted. sure, the native marketer can add personalization and make changes but the fundamental framework of how the company as an entire interacts with its consumers is there.

"that you could take a corporate advertising, branded e mail but go away areas open for a broker or partner to customize it," stated York. "This makes bound the company advertising message is up so far with the final local conversation that turned into had."

Secondly, the tool offers native entrepreneurs who may additionally now not be regular with advertising and marketing software the skill to see the types of analytics businesses benefit through the use of email advertising, client relationship management (CRM), and advertising automation tools in conjunction.

"at the associate degree, advisors, franchise house owners, and buyers can now see how each and every particular person client is interacting with the messages they've delivered, whereas company entrepreneurs can see how the journeys they've developed for partners have carried out in an aggregate view," according to a Salesforce remark advertising the new product. "for example, after sharing recommended journeys with all of its franchisees, a fast food franchise can look at engagement analytics to uncover that e-mail marketing works superior than digital promoting when providing a seasonal discount."

dispensed advertising from Salesforce is attainable as Salesforce Lightning accessories in income Cloud, carrier Cloud, or community Cloud in constrained pilot these days, and will be frequently obtainable in February 2018. Pricing could be introduced all through normal availability.

The Salesforce experience

Salesforce has put giant quantities of time, effort, and supplies into beefing up its advertising and marketing chops. In June, the enterprise introduced Einstein Account-based mostly advertising (ABM), a business-to-enterprise (B2B)-focused device that seeks to automate the work done between earnings and advertising and marketing teams to identify target money owed, marry records between sales and marketing databases, and execute campaigns to each and every account's fundamental determination maker. suppose of ABM as a mutation of Einstein artificial intelligence (AI), CRM, and Pardot advertising and marketing automation—apart from every thing is geared towards prospect businesses as opposed to particular person potentialities.

The business additionally constructed Salesforce Lead Analytics for facebook, an answer for lead technology that lets marketers tie statistics from fb, Instagram, and the fb audience network (facebook's ad platform). The tool monitors particulars equivalent to a customer's first interaction (filling out a lead form) to a first purchase via to subsequent resells and upsells. The Lead Analytics for fb dashboard indicates entrepreneurs ad performance metrics (i.e., views and leads generated), advert-connected sales performance (i.e., "Did somebody convert subsequent to clicking on this advert?"), and AI-based mostly lead scoring via Einstein.

additionally, Salesforce wishes entrepreneurs to have more suitable entry to agencies of facts from trusted partners. therefore, they've announced Salesforce data Studio, a standalone product that falls beneath the Salesforce marketing Cloud umbrella. The platform may also be purchased entirely for the intention of promoting and purchasing information. it may even be delivered to the advertising and marketing Cloud for integration with Salesforce tools catered to email advertising, mobile marketing, digital promoting, and social content material introduction, among other use circumstances.

Salesforce Opens Dreamforce with big Google surprise and more

Describing their new partnership as a natural fit, Salesforce and Google yesterday announced plans to integrate their functions for "smarter, greater collaborative experiences."

As a part of the deal, unveiled all the way through the first day of Salesforce's annual Dreamforce convention in San Francisco, Google Cloud will become the favored cloud capabilities issuer for Salesforce, while Salesforce will integrate Google's G Suite productiveness capabilities into its own client relationship administration (CRM) platform.

Salesforce the day prior to this also introduced myTrailhead, a customizable learning platform for corporations; the Quip Collaboration Platform for place of work teams; and updates to other capabilities, including myEinstein for synthetic intelligence (AI), myLightning for personalized CRM apps, and myIOT for business strategies constructed on internet of things (IoT) statistics.

Integration of Google Analytics an 'business First'

via its new strategic partnership with Google, Salesforce referred to it is going to use the Google Cloud Platform to assist its personal core capabilities whereas working to extend its global infrastructure. in the meantime, the addition of G Suite to the Salesforce CRM platform capability Salesforce clients will profit seamless access to Google services ranging from Gmail and Calendar to Hangouts, drive, medical doctors, and Sheets.

lots of the new integrations, so that it will additionally add sales and advertising and marketing data through Google Analytics 360, are anticipated to roll out in 2018. Salesforce consumers that haven't prior to now used Google's paid enterprise functions might be capable of use G Suite for no further charge for up to one year.

The addition of Google Analytics 360 to Salesforce's capabilities is an industry first, Ryan Aytay, Salesforce's govt vice chairman of strategic product alliances, talked about in a weblog submit. as an example, advertising and marketing professionals should be able to "create personalized audiences in Analytics 360 and easily push them to advertising Cloud for activation in direct marketing channels akin to e-mail and mobile," he observed. "moreover, Analytics 360 information may be available at once within marketing Cloud, providing entrepreneurs one holistic dashboard of client engagement facts."

In a separate announcement from Salesforce, Google senior vice president of ads and commerce Sridar Ramaswamy referred to the brand new partnership aims to "address one of the greatest challenges dealing with our shoppers -- connecting the insights of their CRM with the prosperous facts in their analytics. For the primary time ever, our shoppers will be in a position to seamlessly join what's happening across sales, advertising and promoting, and take motion throughout our ads systems and Salesforce."

Quip Collaboration Platform

Salesforce the day prior to this also launched the Quip Collaboration Platform to allow users to work together on live files. The providing is constructed on technology bought remaining 12 months when Salesforce purchased a San Francisco startup named Quip for an estimated $750 million.

the new platform enables organizations to create and work on documents that can encompass true-time facts through the use of embedded functions referred to as are living Apps. among the many information sources supported through are living Apps are Salesforce information, calendars, and kanban boards. more such apps are being developed by using DocuSign, Atlassian, and different companions.

The Quip Collaboration Platform will help groups be "greater nimble and productive without using email or switching between dozens of apps and looking for lost information," Quip co-founder and CEO Bret Taylor talked about in a Salesforce announcement. the new Quip features additionally encompass Salesforce files join for Quip that lets users attach live Quip documents in Salesforce Chatter feeds, corporations, and different apps.

myTrailhead for Gamified practising

an extra update unveiled the day gone by will see Salesforce's three-year-ancient Trailhead getting to know platform extended with new capabilities for groups that need to personalize their in-condo practicing environments. The myTrailhead growth will let companies create centralized, gamified components for onboarding, skills practising, and carrying on with education.

the new platform includes a trail Maker guided setup tool, a Trailhead Profile to supply an entire view of each employee's skills and practicing checklist, a trail Mixer device for developing customized getting to know applications with content material from varied sources, a trail Tracker app for motivating employees with gamified leaderboards, and trail Checker for designing interactive challenges with quizzes, stand-and-deliver evaluation tools, and more.

A pilot offering of myTrailhead is expected to launch sometime in the first half of 2018, with the platform becoming attainable to a much broader viewers later within the yr. greater details about pricing could be introduced at the moment, Salesforce observed.

targeting the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'

moreover the Quip Collaboration Platform and myTrailhead, Salesforce is also rolling out loads of different features updates aimed toward helping companies deliver "smarter, more customized digital experiences that location the client at the core of their enterprise."

those updates include new capabilities to allow authorities to better connect with purchasers using AI, IoT facts, and other advanced technologies. Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff noted the updates are designed to fulfill company needs within the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution.

expertise adjustments mean client expectations are additionally altering, while extra statistics and statistics-pushed insights are being used to enhance business products and functions.

are expecting more Salesforce news this week, as Dreamforce 2017 runs November 6-9, with keynotes on the way forward for Work, Equality, the service Cloud, revenue Cloud, Commerce Cloud, fiscal capabilities, B2C advertising and marketing, artificial Intelligence, the information superhighway of issues, and extra.

photograph credit: https://www.sciencealert.com.

Instantly Generate Documents from Salesforce and save in SharePoint

With WebMerge you can automatically populate all kinds of documents from your favorite cloud apps like contracts, quotes, reports, letters, and more.  Along with generating documents with the click of a button, you can also save your documents in cloud storage like SharePoint so your whole team has instant access to the files.

In this example, we’re going to show you how to automatically generate a proposal from an Opportunity in Salesforce, then we’re going to automatically save that proposal inside SharePoint in a customer-specific folder.

To get started, we’re going to setup the template for our proposal using a Word document.  Inside Word, we’re going to add our logo, contact info, and other repeating information, then for the spots that we want to customize with our customer/opportunity info, we’re going to use merge fields that look like: {$AccountName}, {$Amount}, etc.

Here’s what our proposal template looks like:
 

Once we have our template ready, we need to upload it to WebMerge.  From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button and enter a name.  On the next step, choose Office Document as the document type and then pick the file from your computer.
 

After you’ve uploaded your template, you’ll be taken to the Settings tab where you can modify various options like the type of file that we want to generate and the name of the file.  For this example, we’re going to generate a PDF and include the name of our opportunity in the file name.
 

Next, we’re going to setup the delivery of our document so that the merged document is automatically saved in SharePoint.  On the Deliver tab, click the New Delivery button and select SharePoint from the list.

To authenticate your SharePoint account, you’re going to need to enter your SharePoint Site URL which looks something like https://example.sharepoint.com/sites/Examples/  (you can find this URL by logging into your SharePoint account and grabbing the URL from that page).
 

Once you authenticate your SharePoint account, you’re going to need to pick the folder that you want to save the proposals in.  We’re going to save the documents in our Shared Documents folder, but we’re going to use a merge field to dynamically create subfolders for our customer.  You can find this option under More Options.
 

After you save your SharePoint delivery, we are done with the setup process inside WebMerge and we’re ready to setup the integration with Salesforce (or any other cloud app).

Inside Salesforce, we’re going to setup a new WebMerge Mapping.  For this example, we’re going to give it a name then choose Opportunity as the main Salesforce object.  Then we’re going to select the document that we just setup in WebMerge.
 

On the next page, we’re going to match up the merge fields from our document with our Salesforce fields.  In the Field Mapping section, you’ll see your merge fields on the left and then a dropdown of your Salesforce fields on the right.  Go ahead and pick the corresponding fields for each one.
 

Once you have matched up all of your merge fields, go ahead and save and activate your mapping.  We’re ready for a test!  Open up one of your Opportunities and then click the WebMerge button to populate the proposal.

Once you click the button, Salesforce will send the information over to WebMerge and your document will be generated and then saved in SharePoint.

Here’s what our proposal looked like ready to use inside SharePoint.
 

Congrats, you’re all done!  You can now instantly populate and save documents in SharePoint from your favorite cloud CRM, online forms, and more.  Can you think of any other ways you can use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?

Send Annual Subscription Renewals in Batch from Salesforce

Managing all your customers or donors from Salesforceis a great way to keep track of their history and make sure none of them fall through the cracks.  Add WebMerge to your Salesforce org and you can automatically generate all kinds of documents like contracts, thank you letters, receipts, and more.

In this example, we’re going to show you how to automatically send out annual subscription renewals from Salesforce to all of our customers with the click of a button.

To get started, we’re going to setup the template for our subscription renewal.  We’re going to build this using a Word document.  Inside Word, we’re going to add all of our normal info like our logo, contact info, and then for the spots that we want to insert our customer’s details we’re going to use merge fields that look like {$Name}, {$Address}, {$Amount}, etc.

Here’s what our renewal template looks like:
 

Once we have our template finished, we need to upload it to WebMerge.  From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button and then enter a name for the document.  On the next step, click Office Document then select the file from your computer.
 

After you have uploaded your template, you’ll be taken to the Settings tab where you can modify various options like the type of file that you want to generate and the name of the file.  For this example, we’re going to generate a PDF and we’ll include the name of our account in the file name.
 

Next, we’re going to setup the delivery of our document so that it is automatically emailed directly to our customer.  From the Deliver tab, click the Edit button under the default email delivery.  For the To address, we’re going to choose the merge field for our customer’s email address.

If you don’t have a merge field in your document for the customer’s email address, then choose <<Other>> from the dropdown then enter something like {$Email} in the box.

Feel free to edit any of the other settings in the email.  You can use merge fields in any of the settings as well.
 

Once we have our email delivery saved, we are done with the setup process in WebMerge, and we’re ready to setup the integration with Salesforce.

If you haven’t already, please install the WebMerge managed package from the AppExchange and follow these Setup Instructions.

Inside Salesforce under the WebMerge Mappings tab, we’re going to create a New Mapping.  Go ahead and enter a name, then for the Object, we’re going to choose Contact.  Then we’re going to choose the document that we just setup in WebMerge.
 

Next, you’ll be taken to a page with more settings for your mapping.  Specifically, we want to go to the Field Map section where you’re going to see a list of the merge fields in your template.  For each of the merge fields, you need to pick the corresponding Salesforce field from the dropdown on the right.

This tells the system how to pull data from your Salesforce database and send it over to WebMerge so that it’s populated in the correct spot on your template.
 

Once you have matched up all of your merge fields, go ahead and Save and Activate your mapping.  The last step of the process is going to be settings up a Button on your List View so that we can generate multiple docs (in batch).

Since we’re creating the documents from the Contact record, we need to go to Setup > Customize > Contact > Buttons, Actions, and Links.  On this page, we’re going to create a New Button.  After we give it a name, we’re going to choose “Execute Javascript” as the behavior and we’re going to show this button on the list view page.

In the big box on the page, we’re going to enter Javascript that will trigger the merge.  Click here for a full how-to article with the Javascript code.
 

Once we’ve created our button, we need to add the button to our list view page by going to Search Layouts, finding the List View layout and clicking the Edit button.

Now, when we go to our Contacts list view page, you should see the button you just created.  We’re going to select a list of contacts that we want to send our renewal notice to and click that button.  Then you’ll see a message that the documents have been created.
 

Once you click that button, all the data for those records is sent over to WebMerge and your renewal notices will be generated and sent out.  Here’s what our merged notice looked like:
 

Congrats, you’re finished!  You can now automatically generate all kinds of documents (one at a time or in batch) from your Salesforce org.  Can you think of any other ways you can use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?

Get Started Now!

Populate and Sign Buyer Representation Agreements from Salesforce

Managing your real estate agency via a CRM like Salesforce is a great way to maximize your sales efforts and keep your clients happy.  With tools to track new leads, manage deals, and communicate with current clients, Salesforce can keep your entire team on the same page.

With WebMerge, you can instantly take data from Salesforce and automatically populate all of your real estate paperwork.  From agreements to offer letters to closing documents, you can populate all these documents with the click of a button.

In this example, we’re going to show you how to automatically generate a buyer representation agreement from inside Salesforce and then we’ll send that agreement over to HelloSign for e-signature.

To get started, we’re going to setup the template for our agreement using a Word document.  Inside Word, we’re going to add our boilerplate agreement info then for the spots that we want to insert our client’s information, we’re going to use merge fields like {$FirstName}, {$Address}, etc.

Here’s what our buyer representation agreement template looks like:
 

Since we’ll be sending the agreement over to HelloSign for signature, we need to add a HelloSign signature tag to our template so that HelloSign knows where to embed the signature.  The signature looks like:    [sig|req|signer1]
 

Once we have our template finished, we need to upload it to WebMerge.  From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button and then enter a name.  On the next step, pick Office Document as the document type and then pick the file from your computer.
 

After you’ve uploaded your template to WebMerge, you’ll be taken to the Settings tab where you can modify various options like the type of file that is generated and the name of the file.  For this example, we’re going to generate a PDF and then include the name of the client in the file name.
 

Next, we’re going to setup the delivery of our document to HelloSign so that it is automatically sent to our client for signature.  From the Deliver tab, click the New Delivery button and select HelloSign.  After you enter your HelloSign API Key, you’ll need to pick the merge fields for the signer’s name and email address.
 

After we save our HelloSign delivery, we are done with the setup process in WebMerge and we’re ready to integrate our agreement with Salesforce using our managed package from the AppExchange.

Inside Salesforce, we’re going to setup a new WebMerge Mapping.  This Mapping tells Salesforce how to pull information from Salesforce and send it over to WebMerge so that it populates the template correctly.
From the WebMerge Mappings tab, create a New Mapping.  Go ahead and enter a name, then pick Contact as the Salesforce Object, then pick the Buyer Representation Agreement for the WebMerge
Document.
 

Continue to the next step and you’ll see the same fields at the top, but then we need to scroll down to the Field Mapping section.  This is where you’ll see a list of all the merge fields in your template and you’ll need to pick the corresponding Salesforce field from the dropdown on the right.
 

Once you have matched up all of your merge fields, go ahead and save the Mapping.  We’re ready to test the document!  Go ahead and open up one of your contacts and you’ll click the WebMerge button.
 

Once you click the WebMerge button, the data will be sent over to WebMerge and your agreement will be generated and sent to HelloSign.

Here’s what our agreement looked like ready to sign in HelloSign:
 

Congrats, you’re all done!  You can now instantly generate all types of real estate paperwork from your Salesforce account.  Can you think of any other ways you can use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?
 

Get Started Now!

Automatically Fax Court Filings from Salesforce using Phaxio

Filing your court documents are an important part of the legal process and can also be time consuming.  However, many courts still accept filings via fax and that can be a great way to save time.  Especially when you use a service like WebMerge to automatically generate the court documents and send them via fax service like Phaxio.

In this example, we’re going to show you how you can generate court documents with the click of a button from Salesforce and automatically fax them to the court using Phaxio.  We’ll be using our friends over at Zapier to help send the fax with Phaxio.

To get started, we’re going to setup our document (template) in WebMerge.  We’ll be using a Fillable PDF as our template.  This PDF will have a field for each piece of information we’ll be pulling from Salesforce.

Here’s what our document looks like:

When your PDF is ready, let’s upload it to WebMerge.  From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button then type in a name for the document.  On the next step, choose Fillable PDF as the document type and then pick the PDF file from your computer.

After you’ve uploaded your PDF, you’ll be taken to the Settings tab for your document.  On this page you can update things like the type of file that is produced and the name of the merged file.  For this example, we’re going to generate a PDF and we’re going to include the Case Number in the file name.

Once you’ve saved the settings, you’re going to be taken to the Deliver tab.  This is where you can define how you want the merged document delivered.  To send the document to Phaxio, we’re going to setup a new Webhook delivery.

But first, we need to setup a Zap in Zapier so that we can setup the webhook in WebMerge.  From inside Zapier, click the New Zap button.  For the Trigger, you’re going to select WebMerge and then pick New Merged Document as the trigger.

Zapier will have you authenticate your WebMerge account and then do a test merge.  They’ll give you a URL to enter for your webhook.  Take this URL and go back over to WebMerge and setup a New Webhook delivery.  Enter the URL that Zapier gave you into the webhook setup.

After you save the webhook in WebMerge, you’ll need to do a quick test for Zapier (to make sure everything is working).  Go ahead and click on the Merge tab in WebMerge and select the Manual Data Entry option.  This will give you’re a Form URL that you can enter test data and it will merge a document and send it over to Zapier.

After you’ve submitted the test, go back over to Zapier and finish the WebMerge trigger setup.  Next, you’re going to setup the “action” of the zap.  You’ll want to pick Phaxio as the app and then Send Fax as the action.

Zapier will have you authenticate your Phaxio account and then you’ll setup the fax settings by defining the fax number and then the file that you want to send over.  Go ahead and complete that step by adding the WebMerge field (click the button on the right).

Once you’ve mapped the fields, follow the remaining steps and then activate the Zap.  Now, you’re ready to setup that last piece of the puzzle and integrate with Salesforce.
If you have not done so already, please install the WebMerge managed package from the AppExchange and follow the setup instructions here.

Inside Salesforce, we are going to setup a New Mapping that will serve as the integration point between our Salesforce data and WebMerge document.  From the WebMerge Mappings tab, click the New WebMerge Mapping button.  We’re going to select the Case object and then pick our template that we just setup in WebMerge.

On the next step, you’re going to scroll down to the Field Mapping section on the page.  This is where you’re going to match up the Salesforce fields with the merge fields that are in your template.  For each merge field (listed on the left), go ahead and pick the corresponding SF field from the dropdown on the right.

After you have all of the fields matched up, go ahead and click the Save and Activate button at the bottom of the page.

Now, it’s time to run a test!  Go ahead and jump over to one of your cases and click the WebMerge button on the page.  This will take your case information, send it over to WebMerge.  WebMerge will populate our PDF and then send out the webhook which will deliver the document to Phaxio for faxing!

Here’s what our court document looked like after merging:

Congrats!  You can now send faxes from Salesforce using Phaxio with the click of a button.  Can you think of any other ways that you could use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?

Get Started Now!

Woocommerce Salesforce CRM Integration

The Woocommerce Salesforce integration Plugin is an indispensable tool to help you synchronize data instantly between Woocommerce and Salesforce. The plugin allows to synchronize register customers in Woocommerce to Lead in Salesforce, order in Woocommerce to Account and Contact in Salesforce.

Key features Woocommerce Salesforce CRM intergration allows sync following data:

• Synchronize Registered customer from Woocommerce to Lead in Salesforce CRM
• Synchronize Order from Woocommerce to Account in Salesforce CRM
• Synchronize Order Products from Woocommerce to Salesforce CRM
• Synchronize Order from Woocommerce to Salesforce CRM

Learn More

Links and relevant references

Building E-Commerce Solutions with WooCommerce - Second Edition

Building E-Commerce Solutions with WooCommerce

E-Commerce Blueprint: The Step-by-Step Guide to Online Store Success

Collect Signatures for Contracts, Quotes, and Proposals using HelloSign

In today’s internet-driven world, the possibilities of improving your business processes are endless.  From marketing to sales to customer service, you can deliver a much better customer experience by leveraging online tool.

One great tool you can use to collect fast and secure e-signatures is HelloSign.  With HelloSign you can handle all of your signatures under one roof using a legally binding platform that allows your customers to sign documents from virtually anywhere.

Add WebMerge to your processes and you can automate all of your paperwork with the click of a button.  With WebMerge you can setup automation to populate templates with data from your favorite CRM, online form, internal system, etc to generate professional documents (contract, invoices, letters, and more).

Plus, you can instantly send these documents to HelloSign for e-signature without having to upload any documents or send out any links to your customers.  WebMerge and HelloSign handle everything for you!

In this example, we’re going to show you how to use WebMerge to generate a contract from Salesforce for a deal we have closed and then collect the customer’s signature using HelloSign.

To get started, we’re going to setup our contract template using a Word document.  Inside our Word document, we’re going to add our boilerplate contract details and then we’re going to add merge fields for the spots in our document that we’d like our deal information to go.

These merge fields are just like any other text in our document and look like {$FirstName}, {$CompanyName}, {$Amount}, etc.

Here’s what our contract template looks like:
 

Since we’ll be collecting a signature for this contract using HelloSign, we need to define where we want the signature to go in the document.  HelloSign has “Text Tags” that you can use to indicate the spot in the document that you want to place the signature (more info).  These text tags are just text and they look like:    [sig|req|signer1]
 

After we have our template finished, we’re ready to upload it to WebMerge.  From the Documents page in WebMerge, click the New Document button and then enter a name for the document.  On the next step, you’re going to pick Office Document as the document type and then pick the file from your computer.
 

Once you have uploaded your template, you’re going to be taken to the Setting tab.  On this page you’re going to be able to customize various settings like the type of file that is generated and the name of the file.  For this example, we’re going to be generating a PDF and then we’re going to include the name of our deal in the file name.
 

After we’ve updated our settings, we’re ready to setup the delivery of our document to HelloSign so that the contract is automatically sent out for signature.  Head over to the Deliver tab and click the New Delivery button, then select HelloSign from the list.

You’ll be asked to enter your HelloSign API Key (which you can find in your HelloSign Account), then you’ll need to define the name and email address of the signer.  We’re going to be using merge fields for the signer’s information because it will be coming from Salesforce.
 

After you have saved your HelloSign settings, you’re all done with the setup inside WebMerge and we’re ready to setup the integration with Salesforce so we can generate this contract with the click of a button.

If you haven’t already, install the WebMerge Managed Package from the AppExchange and run through the setup process.
Inside Salesforce, we’re going to setup a new Mapping for the contract we setup.  Under the WebMerge Mappings tab, click New WebMerge Mapping. 

We’re going to give the Mapping a name “Contract” and then we’re going to choose the Opportunity object as our primary object where the data will come from.  Then we’ll pick the contract template that we setup in WebMerge and continue.
 

Next, we’re going to be taken to a page where we can map the fields from our Opportunity object to the merge fields in our contract.  For each of the merge fields, you’ll need to match up the corresponding Salesforce field.  This tells the system how to send your data over to WebMerge so that it is placed in the proper spot in your template.
 

Once you have all of the fields matched up, go ahead and save and activate the mapping.  You’re now ready to merge a contract!

Go ahead and pick on of your Opportunities and then click on the WebMerge button on the record detail page.
 

When you click the WebMerge button, it will send the data from your Opportunity over to WebMerge, your contract will be generated, and then the contract will be sent over to HelloSign for signature.  It’s that easy!

Here’s what our contract looked like ready to sign in HelloSign:
 

Congrats, you’re all done!  You can now automatically populate all types of documents using WebMerge and collect signatures with HelloSign.  Can you think of any other ways that you could use WebMerge to simplify your paperwork process?
 

Get Started Now!