Share your experience using Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)

I used Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) to generate contracts within the legal department of a pharmaceutical company.

We maintained a library of contract templates and terms, and based on our configuration, we selected the proper template, added the details in the relevant fields, and the contract with all details was automatically generated by the system.

As part of the contract management process, we also sent the contract for review and for e-signatures through a DocuSign integration. Once the review was completed and the contracts are signed through DocuSign, the contract was automatically set as active inside our Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) database.

Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is a system that is easily configurable on the Salesforce platform, which is a very flexible platform. It is very easy to use from a user perspective, and it is a very stable system that rarely has any bugs or downtime.

Based on the Salesforce interface, it is very easy to use, navigate and find the contracts that I want. It is also very easy to fill in the missing information on a contract by completing simple fields, and it is also very easy to send for online review or for e-signatures through buttons that appear on the page.

The time it takes to generate a contract and have it signed through an integration is considerably lower compared to having done it outside of the system. We have cases where we needed wet signatures on a contract, which means that the contract had to be sent for signature outside of Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), and this typically needed five or six times additional time to have it ready and activated. 

By using Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), the time it takes to manage a contract, from contract creation to signature, is significantly reduced.

At the time I used the system, it appeared that it was lacking AI features that are very recently developed. I believe that Conga should invest more in developing robust AI features that can be used for redlining a contract and also identifying terms that need to be revised within a contract.

Sometimes their support is not very efficient. That is something that they may need to consider as an improvement.

Their pricing models were not very straightforward, especially in the case where we needed to renew an annual contract. Based on the number of users, the Conga team would provide us every year with a new quotation. On the pricing side, I believe that it is a bit pricey, and the cost structure related to the licenses is not very transparent.

I have been using Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) for three and a half years as a power user and a system administrator.

Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is one of the most stable systems I have seen. We are talking about almost zero downtime.

Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is very scalable, especially the version that is available on the Salesforce platform that we used, which is, of course, a highly customizable and scalable platform. We are overall very pleased with the scalability and we are able to onboard a number of countries from different continents with different contract management processes in the same organizations very easily.

About customer support, I would say that in the beginning at about 4 years ago, they were not very efficient and we were not very satisfied with their support. But in the last year, we saw improvement there as well in terms of efficiency and quality of the fixes.

Positive

The previous solution was a custom-made on prem solution for the customer use case. It was switched because this solution was hardcoded, it was not flexible, and it did not have all the features that we needed to efficiently do the contract management together with redlining and e-signature integrations.

Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is a solution built on the Salesforce platform, so it is a managed package installed in a Salesforce organization. The installation is straightforward, but the configuration can be complex so an implementation partner is necessary.

Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) was purchased through the Salesforce AppExchange. We used Conga managed services and a Salesforce implementation partner to set it up. Overall we were satisfied with the quality of the implemented solution.

There are definitely improvements as far as ROI is concerned, both money-wise and in terms of employees that are needed. Regarding the employees, I would say that it was manageable, with the introduction of Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), to reduce the administrative team that handled the contracts to about half. From a team of six people, it was reduced down to three people by fully utilizing the system.

Licenses pricing was not very transparent at some times and we needed to negotiate it with the Conga Account Executives. The set up cost on the Salesforce platform was more transparent and done together with an implementation partner. 

Unfortunately, I do not have access to that information because it was already introduced in the company when I joined. I know that on the evaluation, ContractPodAI, Ronclad & Icertis were also potential vendors for contract management.

I would advise companies to focus on Conga's roadmap to develop solid AI features moving forward. I would also advise them to consider the scalability together with the stability of this platform and all the features that it has. Additionally, I would advise them to look into the different pricing options for licensing and demand transparency in terms of the contract they sign, especially if it is a multi-year contract with different license types. I rate this solution a 9 overall.

My main use case for Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) involves a customer who has around 10 different record types. We work on getting the contract through the end-to-end contract lifecycle management on Conga, and we also do different kinds of automations. For example, we have a use case where they have a source system from which information is pushed into Conga using a middleware, and then contracts are created on Conga automatically and are automatically generated. After customer review, we can bulk send them to the customers for signature.

I will take the example of one which I already shared. For a particular record type, such as MSA, the contracts that go out to the customer were around more than 1,000 per month, and it is very difficult for the customer to come into Conga and create those contracts manually. We created a process where we pick the contracts from the source system. We have created some custom APIs on our end to fetch that information from the source system. Based on the different APIs we have created, we have created the contracts on Conga and then generated them. Once the customer reviews those contracts, we have created some utilities using which we can send it out to the customer using Adobe Sign automatically. Because of these processes, the customer can send out thousands of contracts in one go instead of creating them and having a lot of people appointed to do this job. It is a one-person job now.

Other examples include that we have done a legacy upload of around 10,000 contracts at a time. We have used Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) to send amendments out to the customer using Conga's processes. Within Conga, we have used wizards to give users a questionnaire where they can put information and then create contracts for them and generate. We have also done some auto-generation within Conga.

The best features Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) offers would be that it can support very large templates or contract types because it has those kinds of capabilities. I have worked on other CLMs as well, where they are only meant for small-scale enterprises, but Conga is one of those CLMs which can be used for large-scale enterprises where you can support large templates. You can store an endless amount of fields. There are limitations, but the limitation is on the higher end. They have wizards, which commonly are not available in all CLMs. They have a questionnaire, but they also have a record type and a questionnaire. All these features really attract customers towards Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM).

The template size is mainly valuable because the customer that I am dealing with has a basic template that would be around 100 pages. Their most complex template is around 1,000 pages. When you have to handle these kinds of complexities with approval processes, we have one record type where the approval process is so complicated that it goes out to five different approvers at a time. It is a parallel review, and some are sequential reviews. Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) has those capabilities where you can handle such complicated approval processes.

There is one functionality called DAR, Document Assembly Rules, where you can have the DAR into the template and then, based on the logic on the UI, you have to build the rules on the UI. The language automatically gets pulled into the contract. If you have a field based on which different clauses should appear, then DAR is a very good functionality to use.

The only drawback of Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is that it does not work for small-scale business areas because I have implemented it for one customer with four or five pages of templates and three to four record types. For that small business, Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) does not work well because it is a bit complicated. Sometimes all customers need is a click of a button to go in and do things, and Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is a bit complicated for such kinds of businesses.

There are definitely areas where Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) could be easier to use for smaller businesses, particularly making processes more streamlined and user-friendly.

I joined my first company, HP, and then after two years, I switched to Elevate, and I have been with Elevate for more than eight years. My relevant experience is around eight years in this field.

Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is stable. I can say this because we have a lot of customization, and whenever there is a system update or a platform upgrade, we do not face any kind of issues. That would be the best example to give here.

If you are using Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) on Salesforce, its scalability is high because you can do a lot of customization. We can do auto-generation of contracts and create some kind of custom code to send out contracts to the customer in one go using Adobe Sign. We have done a lot of customization on the reminder front where if the end user has a need for their customers to send a reminder whenever the contract has been sent for more than 30 days and they have not signed, we can do those kinds of customizations on Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) on Salesforce very easily.

Customer support is really good. They have a customer portal where you can raise issues quickly whenever you face any kind of issues with the platform, and they promptly try to resolve it or hop on a call with you to get your queries resolved.

Positive

When this customer came to us, they were on Emptoris, IBM, but because their use case was so complicated and huge, we had to move to Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) eventually. We did the entire migration of the contracts plus the templates, and everything was reconfigured on Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) by us from Emptoris.

At that time, we had Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), actually we had Apttus, which is now Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), and we even looked for Apttus on AIC. However, Salesforce was always a better option, so we eventually went for Salesforce on Conga.

When we started this project, we had around two business areas, and then it changed based on how Conga improved and how things flowed over the years. We now have around 10 business areas or you can say record types on Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), which was a huge shift for the customer. It helped them get a lot of revenue by handling different kinds of business areas on Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM).

When we started, we had a team where we had, per record type, one implementation lead, then we had a particular CE configuration engineer or a functional consultant, a tester, and of course a solution architect. Now, we only have a functional consultant and QA to test things out. Conga provides some automated testing scripts which you can use. We only have to test the part where we have done some customization on Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). The rest of everything is managed by Conga. The team size automatically has reduced based on that.

I have already mentioned how we have saved time and how we have reduced staff, so that effectively points to the revenue generated. That is the only metrics that I have.

Because it was all customer-driven, I am not even sure about the pricing and the setup cost. For licensing of Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), we had the Salesforce Ultimate subscription for Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), which is the best one to get if you have a large-scale organization. The licensing part is good, and we do not face any kind of issues because we can support a lot of end users based on that.

I would say eight. I am actually reducing two points because I do not think it works for small business areas where there are no complications and it is a straightforward implementation. Conga does not work very well for those situations because if the customer is not that tech-savvy, they are going to face issues with Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) because they will not be able to understand how complicated it is. The UI is not that straightforward. If we compare it to other CLMs that are in the market, for example, Ironclad or Malbek.

Go for Conga Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) if you have large contracts, complicated processes, and if you want to do some customization that most of the contract lifecycle management tools cannot provide. I would rate this product an eight overall.