HotDocs Advance Suite Overview

The HotDocs Advance Suite consists of two applications, HotDocs Author and the HotDocs Advance web application. HotDocs Author is the desktop-based tool you use to transform existing Word, PDF, and plain text documents into HotDocs templates and HotDocs Advance web application is the web-based tool you use to organize uploaded templates, launch interviews, and download assembled documents. Using the HotDocs Advance Suite, you can significantly reduce the time you need to generate client or customer specific documents, such as individualized loan applications, court forms, sales proposals, business contracts, medical forms, and more.

Overview

The HotDocs Advance Suite is a complete template producing, interview delivery, and document assembly platform comprised of HotDocs Author and the HotDocs Advance web application. HotDocs Author enables you to create and edit HotDocs templates and then upload those templates to HotDocs Advance, while HotDocs Advance enables you to organize and manage your uploaded templates, launch interviews to gather data from your users, and download assembled documents containing the unique data entered by the individual template users. In fact, from a single template you create using HotDocs Author, you can generate an infinite number of similar (but individualized) documents using the HotDocs Advance web application.

Common Tasks

Among others, the HotDocs Advance Suite enables you to perform the following common tasks in the two applications that make up the platform:

HotDocs Author

HotDocs Advance Web Application

  • Manage uploaded templates and template groups
  • Control user access to templates
  • Create new work items
  • Download assembled documents

Workflow

After obtaining a valid license, the first step you take to use the HotDocs Advance Suite to transform your existing documents into HotDocs templates is to download and install the desktop tool you use to create templates—HotDocs Author. You download Author by logging into the HotDocs Advance web application, and from the account menu, clicking the Download Author link. Once installed, you can use Author tutorials to familiarize yourself with how Author enables you to transform your existing Word, PDF, and plain text documents into HotDocs templates. For example, you can use the Author add-in for Word to perform many template creation and editing functions from within Word itself, Component Studio to edit components (the basic building blocks of a template), and more. Once you have finished creating your templates, you also use Author to upload them to the other part of the HotDocs Advance Suite—the HotDocs Advance web application.

With the templates uploaded, you then use the HotDocs Advance web application to deliver interviews and to assemble any number of individualized documents based on those templates. To do this, you assign an uploaded template to a Work Group based on department, topic area, etc. With a template in a Work Group, you can then create a Work Item, that enables you to launch an interview based on a template you select and to then take the answers from that interview and save them to a specific location. Lastly, with the interview completed, the Work Item provides you with a link to download the assembled document—the client-specific document that contains information gathered in the interview, in the locations you specified when you created your template.

HotDocs Advance Suite and Previous Versions of HotDocs

The HotDocs Advance Suite provides you with a number of notable features when compared to previous versions of HotDocs, for example:

  • Interviews are designed and able to take advantage of new components with new functionality, such as Single select variables, Multi select variables, Fixed tables, and more
  • The Advance web application provides you with new methods for template and user management tools
  • Streamlined process for maintaining updates to the Advance web application and the HotDocs Author template authoring tool
  • A web API for customers looking to integrate their own web applications with Advance
  • Updated terminology and vocabulary
  • A number of features related to the template-authoring tool, including:
    • A new add-in for Microsoft Word, featuring both a redesigned tab on the Word ribbon and the HotDocs Field Editor pane, enabling you to perform many template creation and editing functions from within Word itself
    • Templates and associated files are organized via the Workspace Explorer window, enabling organization of templates and associated files into workspace folders
    • Component Studio, the component editing tool that enables you to create, edit, and organize your components
    • New tutorials available to use from directly within HotDocs Author

If you are familiar with previous versions of HotDocs, you may also be interested to learn about the differences between HotDocs Advance and previous versions of HotDocs (now considered Classic HotDocs).

this should actually point to a document that describes the differences in a documentation-style way

Licensing

For information on licensing, contact HotDocs sales and support.