Knowledge Base

With the Smart Docs feature, you can save time in the negotiation process by creating a proposal or quote directly from the deal or contact detail view. The document will automatically populate with the relevant deal, contact, or product details from your Pipedrive account.

You can then send the document to your customer with a trackable link and get a notification when prospects engage with your documents to know exactly when to follow up.

Connecting to your storage provider

To start creating documents and proposals for your business, go to a deal or contact's detail page and click on the Documents tab. You will have the option to upload documents from your device directly or connect to your cloud storage – Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or SharePoint.

If you choose to connect to your cloud storage, you will be brought through a flow to grant permission for Pipedrive to access your account. Connecting to your storage provider will allow you to upload existing documents or templates you already have saved to your deals. Any created documents or templates will also be saved automatically to your drive.

After you connect your account, you will see the option to connect to either a personal or shared drive as your storage location.

You can also add and disconnect your account by going to Tools and Integrations > Smart Docs and clicking on "+ Add a new account". You can learn more about how files are stored in this article.

You can also set up a default shared drive for your account. Learn more here.

Creating a shared drive folder

When you connect your storage provider to the Smart Docs feature, you'll notice a drop-down menu, where a person's drive can be selected. When you connect the Smart Docs feature, you are automatically assigned a custom shared drive folder. However, you can also create your own!

Just navigate to the Shared drives tab in your Google Drive account and create a new folder:

Once you've created your new shared folder in Google Drive, all you need to do is navigate to Tools and Apps > Smart Docs and select the new shared folder for use with your Smart Docs:

If the option to view or create a new shared folder does not appear in your GSuite account, it may be due to the edition being used.

While Google Suit Basic does not support shared folders, supported editions for this feature are:

• Business Standard and Plus

• Enterprise

• Education Fundamentals

• Standard

• Teaching and Learning Upgrade and Plus

• Nonprofits

• G Suite Business

• Essentials

If the synced GSuite account does not fall under one of these, the shared folder option in Pipedrive will appear like this:

Creating and sharing templates

Once you have connected your account, you can start creating documents and proposals. You can create a document directly, but we recommend first creating a template so you can save time for your future documents. You can control which Pipedrive roles are permitted to create or add new templates using Pipedrive permission “Can create and import Smart Docs templates”. Read more about permission sets in Pipedrive in this article.

To create a template from scratch, go to the Documents > Templates tab in a deal or contact’s detail view and click on "Document", "Spreadsheet" and "Presentation". You can also import a template from your provider if you already have one saved.

When in the template editor, you can update the template’s name and category and add any Pipedrive deal, contact, product and time-based fields to fill in the content of your template.

To add Pipedrive fields to your template, you will need to copy and paste the field from the right-hand side of your template editor into the template body. The field will show in brackets “[ ]” in the template and be automatically replaced with the deal data when the template is used for a document.

Once you have finished editing your template, you can click on "Close" to save your template or "Use to create document" to immediately use the template to create a document.

Learn more about fields and templates in Smart Docs in this article.

How can I share templates with my team?

You can use advanced template sharing to automatically share the template with other users in Pipedrive. To share a template, open up to edit your template and click on the Permissions tab. There are two different levels of permissions you can give users:

1. Can use this template – Can view the template and use it to create new documents, but can not edit or delete the original template.
2. Can edit this template – Can view, use, edit and delete the original template.

Once a template has been shared with another user, it will show up in the Shared with me section of the template gallery.

Creating a document

To create a document, click on the Documents tab in a deal or contact's detail view. You will see the options to create a document from a previously created template, create one from scratch with a blank document, spreadsheet, or presentation, or import a document from your device.

You can import pre-created documents from your connected Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or SharePoint account. Documents saved locally can also be uploaded as a PDF from your device.

If you select to create a document from an existing template, click on “From template” and click the template you wish to use. The document editor will appear with all of the Pipedrive fields filled in with the deal or contact's data.

You can customize the name and category and adjust the content according to the requirements of the document you are working with. The document will automatically save as you work.

In order to create a document with deal-specific placeholders, you must create it from within the deal details view. To create a document with person-specific placeholders, you must create it from the deal or person contact's details view.

Viewing and sharing your document

Google Drive – If you click on the "Actions" button in the bottom right corner of the document editor, you can share the document, download the document as a PDF or delete the document.

• Request signatures – Request signatures from the recipients of the documents.
• Generate link for sharing – Generate a link to share a read-only PDF version of this document with your customers or any other stakeholders in the deal. This will be displayed in a browser window once the recipient opens it.
• Download PDF – Save your document locally so you can attach it to an email or send it directly to your customers.
• Delete – Delete your document.

OneDrive and SharePoint – To share your document, you will first have to close your document editor and click on the “...” (more) button on the document created on the Detail page.

When you share your document with a link, you will have the option to track views and set up email notifications for when someone opens the document.

If you enable the Track views option, you can choose to be notified by email when your document is opened for the first time, every time, or never. The email notification will show you when the document was opened, so you can know exactly when to follow up with your prospect.

Once a link has been generated, you will see it saved as a version under the Done section of the detail page with the number of views and the creation time. Once a link has been generated, you will no longer be able to update this version of the document.

If you click on the “...” of the document version, you will see the following options:

• Open – Open the document to view the read-only version.
• Get sharing link – Copy the version's link to easily share with customers and change the link settings.
• Request signatures – Request digital signatures from document recipients.
• Download PDF – Download a read-only PDF of this version.
• Delete – Delete your document.

Can I create more versions of the document?

If your document needs to be revised and updated during the negotiation process, you can easily create more versions to document and keep track of the progress.

To create another version of a document, click on the original document, make the necessary updates and generate a new link. Once the link is generated, you will see it as Version 2 under your document:

If you want to create another version of a document, it may be a good idea to disable the link for the first version so there are not two live versions of the document. To do so, click on the “...” of the first version and click on Get sharing link > Link enabled to disable the link.

Adding a signature to your document

Smart Docs also comes with an eSignatures functionality, so you can request document signatures from your customers without needing any extra tools.

Create or upload a document with the Smart Docs feature from the Deal or contact page and find the option to Request signatures. Learn how to request signatures for your documents in this article.