The following tips can help you troubleshoot Conga Composer to get you back up and running quickly. Try these tips before doing anything else.

Clear Your Cache or Try a Different Browser.

The first step in troubleshooting should always be to clear your cache and/or test in a different browser.

To clear your cache in Chrome:

  1. Open Chrome.
  2. On your browser toolbar, click More.
  3. Click History → Clear browsing data.
  4. Select the checkboxes for Cookies and site data and Cached images and files.
  5. Use the menu at the top to select the amount of data that you want to delete.
  6. Click Clear browsing data.

In Mozilla Firefox:

  1. From the History menu, select Clear Recent History.
  2. From the Time range to clear drop-down menu, select the desired range; to clear your entire cache, select Everything.
  3. Next to Details, click the down arrow to choose which elements of the history to clear; to clear your entire cache, select all items.

In Internet Explorer:

  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. IE 8: From the Tools menu select Internet Options.
  3. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Delete.
  4. Un-check the Preserve Favorites website data box.
  5. Check the Temporary Internet files, Cookies, and History boxes.

In Safari:

  1. Click Safari on the upper left-hand side of your screen. In the menu that appears, click Preferences.
  2. In the window that appears, click the Privacy tab. Click the button Remove All Website Data.
  3. Click Remove Now in the pop-up window that appears.

Test with Different Data or Run on a Different Record.

Sometimes data itself can cause the problem. Test your Composer solution with different data or from a different record to ensure the data you are trying to merge is not the source of the problem.

Determine Where the Problem Is

If you have reached this point in troubleshooting and have not solved your issue it is time to run a test to determine where the problem is. The problem likely lies in one or more of the following areas: the Composer URL, the Composer Template, or Salesforce permissions.

How do you determine where the problem is? Follow the steps below to run a merge process with a blank template:

  1. Save a blank document to your desktop as Test Template.
  2. Launch the broken solution.
  3. Select the Test Template from the Local Templates tab and click Merge & Download (or Merge & Email).
  4. If the Composer window returns an error, the problem likely lies with the Composer URL.
  5. If the document merge is successful, the problem likely lies with the Composer template.

If the problem lies with the URL, see the information below about analyzing the Composer URL. If the problem lies with the template, see the information below about deconstructing the template.

Analyze the Composer URL.

The Composer URL tells you a lot about the solution. Access the Debug URL and copy it into Notepad or another program where you can view it. Look for illegal characters (spaces, *, & anywhere other than at the beginning of a parameter, %, pipe ( | ), ;, etc.), fields that are not updating correctly, or formulas that don't seem to be working. If you cannot solve the problem yourself, you will likely need to provide the Debug URL to your Business Analyst anyway, so you are moving in the right direction.

Deconstruct the Template.

With larger templates, we recommend removing one page/slide of the template at a time and running the merge process again. For smaller templates, you can remove a paragraph at a time. Keep doing this until you run a successful merge. At that point, you have likely identified the source of the error in the template and you can work on correcting it.

View Data Workbook

If the problem with your template is that data are not merging, the View Data Workbook is a handy tool to help identify the issue. From the Tools & Settings drop-down on the Composer user interface, you can select the View Data link, which downloads an Excel workbook that contains all of the data Composer has retrieved for your solution.

A simple rule of thumb: if the data you expect to see in your template is not in the View Data Workbook, they are not going to merge into your template.

If data are not in the View Data Workbook: the problem likely lies with the data source retrieving the data (i.e. the Salesforce report or Conga Query). Check the reports or queries for your solution to ensure they are returning data properly.

If data are in the View Data Workbook: the problem likely lies with the template. Check the detail region to ensure it is properly formed with TableStart and TableEnd merge fields (and make sure the proper dataset name, i.e. the alias, is referenced).

Check Salesforce Permissions for All End Users

In addition to the above, the problem could pertain to Salesforce permissions. Please see Permissions Needed to Use Composer for more information.

If you are a System Administrator, you can use the Login as User functionality in Salesforce to run solutions, download the View Data Workbook, and review error messages as end-users, which will be helpful in identifying the permissions issue.

Field Level Security (FLS) is the most likely culprit when it comes to Salesforce permissions.

Investigate Error Messages

Lastly, if you are receiving an error message, search for your error message on the support site. You can review all documented error messages in Composer Error Messages. Error message articles contain information about what is causing the issue as well as steps to address it.

If all else fails, view options for Contacting Support. Experienced Business Analysts are on hand in all regions to help you with your issue.

Do not use a colon in document file names.

Additional Troubleshooting Tips

  • Passing an ampersand (&) as data in a Conga Batch or Conga Trigger solution is a known problem.
  • Ensure you are not logged into multiple Salesforce instances.
    • Being logged into multiple instances of Salesforce (Sandbox, Production, Development, and so on.) in the same browser is always a bad idea. Try logging out of all instances except the one in which you are working and run the solution again.
  • Be sure you have not exceeded product data limits.
    • If you are experiencing an issue, it is possible you have exceeded the limits of what the product is able to do. Check the Product Data Limits to ensure you are within the bounds of what the application is able to do.