7 Industry-Specific Use Cases of Document Automation in Salesforce

What Teams Need from Salesforce Document Automation

Salesforce helps store and organize a lot of business data. But when it comes to turning that data into documents, the process remains slow and manual. People often copy fields into templates, update files manually, and send drafts back and forth for changes. Every industry works with different types of documents. 

A real estate team might send property offers. A healthcare group might send treatment forms. A finance team might prepare monthly reports. The tools inside Salesforce can help with simple cases, but they often fall short when the document has special rules, formatting, or requires data to be pulled from different sources.

Why is document automation in Salesforce important? In 2024, the Salesforce document-generation market was valued at around USD $1.2 billion and is expected to reach USD $3.5 billion by 2033. Many teams use these tools to pull data from different parts of Salesforce and create custom documents. 

This saves time and helps with legal reporting. Separate industry reports show strong growth in document automation across many industries. However, there are still challenges, especially around data privacy and security. The most active users of document generation include healthcare, insurance, retail, manufacturing, legal, finance, education, and real estate.

Image from Verified Market Reports

In this article, we will share common challenges and seven ways teams in different industries use document automation to get their work done faster and with fewer mistakes.

7 Industry-Specific Use Cases of Document Automation in Salesforce

Different industries use Salesforce in different ways. But one thing they all have in common is the need to create documents: offers, contracts, reports, letters, and more. Manual work takes time and leads to mistakes, especially when the document includes many fields or rules. Below are seven real-world cases where teams use document automation to handle this work better.

Healthcare: Automating Treatment Plans and Billing Summaries

Healthcare teams often send treatment plans, intake forms, or billing summaries. These documents may include patient details, appointment info, and custom notes from different parts of Salesforce. Manually copying this data can be risky and time-consuming. Automation helps generate required documents more quickly and with fewer errors, while supporting the secure handling of sensitive data.

Benefits of using document generation for healthcare companies:

• Saves time by creating documents in bulk
• Reduces manual errors when pulling patient data
• Ensures sensitive data is handled securely
• Improves consistency across treatment plans and forms
• Helps staff focus more on patient care, not paperwork

Legal: Making Contracts and Case Documents

Legal teams deal with contracts, NDAs, and case summaries. These often require special clauses, conditional sections, and approval steps. Pulling data from Accounts and Contacts into the right legal format can be hard to manage by hand. Document automation helps lawyers and staff keep wording consistent and speed up the review process.

Benefits of using document generation for legal teams:

• Maintains consistency in contract language and formatting
• Automates insertion of client and case-specific details
• Reduces time spent on repetitive drafting tasks
• Minimizes errors in critical legal documents
• Supports faster contract turnaround and approval

Real Estate: Preparing Offers and Agreements

Real estate agents prepare offer letters, property details, and agreements. These documents need data from listings, buyers, and sellers, and must look clean and professional. Automation helps agents generate documents quickly, send them for signature, and store them in Salesforce without switching apps.

Benefits of using document generation for real estate companies:

• Speeds up offer creation and closing processes
• Pulls accurate listing, buyer, and seller data directly from Salesforce
• Ensures documents look professional and consistent
• Avoids switching between multiple apps or systems
• Saves time so agents can focus on selling, not paperwork

Finance: Producing Reports and Compliance Papers

Finance teams create client reports, invoices, loan documents, and compliance forms. These often include figures pulled from multiple objects, like transaction history or payment plans. Manual entry increases the risk of errors. Automation ensures the right numbers appear in the right places every time.

Benefits of using document generation for financial companies:

• Reduces risk of calculation or data entry errors
• Speeds up reporting and invoicing cycles
• Ensures consistency across compliance and legal documents
• Enables teams to generate multiple reports at once
• Improves client satisfaction with timely, professional reports

Education: Sending Admission Letters and Student Records

Schools and training centers send admission letters, program offers, and student records. These documents may change depending on the course or student profile. Automation helps staff generate personalized documents quickly and focus more on students rather than paperwork.

Benefits of using document generation for education institutions:

• Saves time by generating documents in bulk
• Personalizes content based on student and course data
• Reduces manual work and human errors
• Ensures consistent formatting and information
• Frees up staff to focus more on student engagement and learning

Manufacturing: Writing Quotes and Delivery Papers

Manufacturing teams create quotes, delivery sheets, and work orders. These documents often rely on product data, shipping details, and customer info. Automation helps sales and logistics teams generate all the needed files from Salesforce, reducing errors and duplication.

Benefits of using document generation for manufacturing companies:

• Saves time by creating documents automatically
• Reduces errors caused by manual data entry
• Ensures delivery and order details are accurate
• Supports quick communication between sales, production, and shipping
• Helps teams focus on managing orders, not paperwork

Staffing and HR: Generating Offer Letters and Onboarding Documents

Staffing firms and HR teams generate offer letters, contracts, and onboarding packs. These documents include candidate data, job information, and custom terms. Automation ensures documents are accurate and ready to send quickly.

Benefits of using document generation for staffing and HR teams:

• Speeds up creating and sending offer letters
• Reduces errors in candidate and job details
• Standardizes contract language and terms
• Simplifies onboarding with consistent document packs
• Frees HR staff to focus more on candidate engagement

Automating Documents with Salesforce-Native Features and Their Challenges

When teams begin thinking about automating document workflows in Salesforce, the first step is to explore what the platform already provides. Salesforce offers native tools that, while not always as flexible as dedicated third-party solutions, can still cover many essential needs, especially for smaller or less complex use cases.

Here are some built-in features you can use:

Salesforce Native Document Features: Capabilities and Challenges
Feature	What It Does	Limits or Challenges
Email Templates	Send standard emails with fields like names and dates filled automatically.	Limited design options; cannot include complex conditional content, making customization difficult.
Merge Fields in Email Alerts	Automatically insert data into email alerts.	Supports only simple data insertion, not full document creation, limiting document complexity.
Flow with Send Email Action	Automate sending emails based on record changes or events.	Limited to sending emails; cannot create full documents like PDFs or Word files.
Printable View / Page Layouts	Create basic print-friendly versions of records.	Minimal formatting options; no advanced customization available.
Reports and Dashboards Export	Export data as PDF or Excel files on a schedule.	Reports lack advanced formatting; cannot merge data from multiple Salesforce objects.
Mail Merge with Microsoft Word	Merge Salesforce data into Word documents using Outlook or Word add-ins.	Setup is complex; limited support in newer Salesforce interfaces; less user-friendly.
Custom Code (Apex, Visualforce)	Build custom document generation processes using code.	Development can be costly and time-consuming; requires specialized skills; maintenance adds ongoing expense.

While Salesforce’s built-in tools cover simple document needs, their limits often push teams to consider code-based automation. However, coding solutions can take a long time to build and maintain, with significant costs involved. Many manual steps may still remain, and scaling for large document volumes can be challenging.

Did you know that nearly half of organizations (42%) reported in a 2023 study that they struggled to match document templates with dynamic data, especially when connecting Salesforce to ERP or older systems?

When Built-In Tools Aren’t Enough

Salesforce’s native tools work well for many use cases, but as document needs grow more complex, teams often start looking for faster, more flexible solutions. For example, generating contracts from custom templates, personalizing offers, or sending out branded PDFs across multiple objects and teams.

That’s where integrated document automation for Salesforce apps can help. These tools are built specifically to solve the limitations of standard automation. They offer pre-built components, guided flows, and more advanced template engines, helping admins and users generate polished documents with less manual setup, and some even include AI-powered capabilities to speed up the process.

Image from AppExchange 

Did you know there are tools that can be installed and ready to use in about 15 minutes with minimal setup? For example, let’s consider MergeUp, a document automation tool built specifically for Salesforce users.

Features That Simplify Document Automation

MergeUp

While many apps promise ease of use, only a few truly deliver when it comes to working inside Salesforce. The right solution should not just automate a document, it should do it without slowing you down or forcing workarounds. Here’s how modern tools like MergeUp approach the problem differently:

1. Build Your Initial Template Quickly

You can upload an existing Word or PDF document, and MergeUp will scan it to find where Salesforce data like names and dates belong. The AI assistant creates a template for you in minutes, which you can then review and adjust before using. Unlike many similar apps that require building templates manually, a process that can take days, this fast setup gives you a ready-to-use template quickly. Plus, the automatic mapping of fields helps avoid manual mistakes when creating documents.

Create MergeUp Template

2. Add Conditional Logic with Ease

Documents often need to change depending on specific situations. MergeUp lets you add simple “if-then” rules inside your templates. For example, you can set a sentence to appear only if a discount exists, otherwise, it’s hidden.

Create Expression

3. Connect Multiple Related Records with Custom Queries

Documents often require data from several Salesforce objects linked together, like contacts, opportunities, and products. MergeUp lets you create simple queries inside the app to pull data from all these related records, no coding needed.

Child Query

4. Generate Large Batches of Documents at Once

When you need hundreds or thousands of documents, MergeUp can create them all in one go. You can track progress, download results, or send files without leaving Salesforce, saving lots of manual work.

Create MergeUp Batch

5. Handle Tables and Repeating Data Smoothly

Many documents include lists, like invoice line items or product details. MergeUp can automatically fill tables by looping through related Salesforce records.

Auto-Filling Tables in Docs from Related Salesforce Records

You define the table once in your template, and MergeUp fills in all the rows dynamically when generating the document.

Results of Auto-Filled Tables with MergeUp

6. Use JavaScript for Advanced Customization

For teams needing extra control, MergeUp supports JavaScript inside templates. This allows you to calculate values, manipulate data, or customize how information appears. For example, you can calculate a discounted price directly in the document without changing Salesforce data.

7. Built for Salesforce Lightning Experience

MergeUp uses the latest Salesforce technology (Lightning Web Components). It fits naturally into your org’s look and feel, works on all devices, and offers a smooth user experience that feels like a native part of Salesforce.

Final Thoughts on Document Automation for Salesforce

Automating documents can help save time and cut down on mistakes. Salesforce’s built-in tools work well for many everyday tasks and smaller teams. But when your documents need to be more detailed, include data from different places, or follow special industry rules, these tools might not be enough to fully automate document creation in Salesforce.

Knowing these limits helps you figure out when it’s time to try something more powerful. Apps like MergeUp by Upsource Solutions make it easier to set up and create the documents you need, right inside Salesforce.

By understanding what your team needs, you can find the best way to make your document work faster and easier.