doxseradbTheFormTool – a product I once described as “smart, simple document assembly” – starts shipping its newest product tomorrow and is offering purchase discounts through today.

The new product, Doxserá DB, is a database version that can pull data from multiple sources and generate multiple documents for multiple audiences. The version coming out tomorrow works with Excel spreadsheets, with support for SQL databases coming July 31 and Access soon thereafter.

Through the end of today, TheFormTool is offering discounts to current customers and new customers. Customers who already own Doxserá, an advanced version of TheFormTool used to create multiple or repetitive documents, have already been sent a discount code that provides savings of some $400 on every license purchased. New customers can purchase a one-year license today for $239, after which the price will be $279.

In an email sent out this week, TheFormTool said the customer discount would apply even to new customers who buy Doxserá today (which is $129 a year) and then also buy Doxserá DB. The email said this would still net a savings of $216.

TheFormTool’s core product – which, by the way, is free – is an add-in for Microsoft Word that makes it extremely easy to create document templates (using question-and-answer tables) and generate documents using those templates. The next-level product, TheFormTool Pro, adds a number of power-user features. Doxserá (see links below) incorporates all the capabilities of TheFormTool Pro but extends them to the creation of multiple documents at a time, such as when preparing a company formation or bankruptcy filing.

This newest product, Doxserá DB, extends those capabilities even further by allowing lawyers to pull data into documents from multiple sources, be they different tabs in a spreadsheet, different spreadsheets, or even different spreadsheets in different file locations. The next release will extend that to SQL databases and will be a free upgrade to customers who have already purchased the first version.

Here is how the website describes it:

With Doxserá DB, an author can empower a document to reach out from itself and into Excel spreadsheets and SQL databases, filter information based on applicability, then select and incorporate the data within the document or use it to modify other data or conditions.

… Doxserá DB is the answer for power users who need all the sophistication possible to create and automate truly sophisticated intelligent documents but who value the ability to do it for themselves.

Part of the idea of Doxserá DB is to make use of data you already have. If you do corporate law, for example, you may have spreadsheets listing the companies you represent and another listing the people associated with those companies, perhaps as officers or board members.

Assume you have to send a notice of annual meeting to people associated with a particular company. Doxserá DB automates this task, letting you generate the letters automatically using just one of two questions.

In fact, a video on the website shows how you can automate this task across all your corporate clients for all that are having an annual meeting in a given month using just one question – or I should say using no questions. Rather, it just creates one entry on your form letter – “Click fill to create annual meeting notice letters for next month” – and that’s it. The data is pulled from the appropriate spreadsheets and all the letters are generated.

See also:

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.