Hi there -
Have been using the Word Plug-in to create documents for customers (contract, SLA, other forms) and have run into a real issue - but Sugar says this is how it works. Looking for any alternatives anyone knows about.
- Created a Word template (called "SLA") using plug-in. Pull in Account Name and related Contact (name, title, etc.) placeholders for merge
- Upload the Word template to DOCUMENTS module
- Now, to work with a customer, go to the DOCUMENTS module and find the Word .doc file
- Open it with Word, select ACCOUNT and associated CONTACT
- Data merges to the correct places in the document. In the Word Plug-in, select to UPLOAD and click the checkbox to create a note
- The plug-in uploads the merged document to the DOCUMENTS module and calls it "SLA" - along with 500 other documents it would create called "SLA"
- The plug-in creates a note in ACCOUNT module with the title "Mailmerge performed". There is no link to the document - there is a comment that says, "document uploaded to DOCUMENTS module called SLA". Someone coming along 6 months from now will have no idea what this note means or is related to.
- There is no relationship between the merged document and the Account or the Contact. If we want to relate them, we need to go into the DOCUMENTS module, find the merged doc that was upload and manually relate it to the ACCOUNT
So even though we select an account and a contact (in this case) to merge into the document, the plug-in does not create any sort of relationship when the document is uploaded - kind of like it does half the job.
At this point, I guess we would use the plug-in to maybe merge the customer information - although as slow as that is, our business office users could probably just type the name of the account and contact into the form just as fast. Then save it to a local file and then add a NOTE to the ACCOUNT with an attachment.
I suppose the plug-in might be more helpful if we had a very complex document with tons of information to merge but we don't.
Just checking to see if anyone else has come across this - or found a work-around.
Thank you!
Bob
