Digital White Papers

DOCUMENT FACTORIES: BUILDING DOCUMENT AUTOMATION TOOLS organizing a new company, convertible note financings and equity venture financings. Our document automation tools lead the end user through an online questionnaire to solicit information relevant to preparing the documents. We provide tutorials and guidance to end users, including links to relevant external information, to help them complete the questionnaire. Based on the information provided by end users, our tools will generate the relevant documents automatically in a Microsoft Word format. We have placed a publicly available version of our venture financing term sheet generator on our external website. The term sheet generator is a simplified version of our internal tools, and it provides a good example of how they work. SEE THE WEBSITE Test the term sheet generator THIRD-PARTY DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE VERSUS IN-HOUSE SOLUTIONS A threshold consideration is whether to build a solution using tools available in-house (such as Microsoft Word macros) or whether to license document automation development software from an outside vendor. A solution built in-house with available tools might be sufficient if the expected automation is fairly basic (i.e., fill-in-the-blank-type automation). It could also serve as an intermediate step, enabling proof of concept at a modest cost and helping to define key requirements for evaluating third-party solutions, if and when that is appropriate. More complex automation may require third-party development software. Document automation development software: •Enables the coding, analysis and publication of document automation templates and the structuring and organization of the questionnaire •Generates the online questionnaires •Generates documents based on answers to the questionnaire References to document automation tools are to particular solutions built using document automation development software. The best approach will depend upon the nature of the documents to be automated; available financial, technological and personnel resources; and how receptive people at your firm or company are to new technologies. SELECTING DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE The document automation development software you select will play a significant role in the quality of the document automation tools you create and the overall development and end-user experience. Several vendors provide the development software for document automation. The basic functionality of development software provided by different vendors does not vary significantly — almost all development software will enable you to create automated forms in which you can insert text and choose between different text options. There are, however, qualities that can have a significant role in the success of your document automation initiatives, including: •Ease of use. A critical factor is the ease of use of the development software from

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