Developer Role in CCM/Document Composition

Hello, I’m Lauriane. I joined Coexya Rennes in November 2019, following a career change into development. I work as a document composition developer within the Quadiant team, which currently has around twenty members.

What does document composition mean to you?

Document composition is a little-known term, yet it’s something we encounter daily. To understand it, let’s start with the need it addresses. Imagine you’re a bank needing to generate account statements every month for millions of clients. Your client data is stored in your database. You could either manually create each statement in Excel, or you could turn to technical solutions to automate this process.

That’s where document composition comes in. It’s the intersection of publishing and IT, encompassing all tools and methods that enable organisations to automate the generation of outgoing communications, particularly for their clients.

These communications can include traditional paper formats, but increasingly also digital formats like PDFs for client portals, emails with attachments, and even SMS messages.

Our clients are mostly large enterprises in sectors like banking, insurance, telecommunications, and energy. Document composition is a key part of CCM (Customer Communication Management).

What technologies are used in document composition?

At the Rennes office, we have the privilege of working with market leaders like Quadiant and OpenText. To create a document composition workflow for, say, a bank, we use an orchestration tool to manage client data and direct it to a composition tool.

The composition tool contains templates, such as the account statement layout. These templates are like fill-in-the-blank documents with variables that are dynamically populated based on the data flow. For example, a table might have rows for each transaction, or certain text might appear only if specific conditions are met.

The output is a fully customised communication tailored to the client. From there, the orchestration tool sends the communication to the appropriate provider, whether for printing, emailing, or sending SMS.

Even though we work with a suite of software tools, we often need to script within or outside the software, developing utilities to automate processes based on project requirements.

What are the essential qualities of a document composition developer?

First and foremost, rigour is critical. Clients entrust us with communications that sometimes reach thousands or even millions of recipients, so their brand image is at stake.

Good interpersonal skills are also vital. While some tasks are solo, teamwork and regular client interactions are an integral part of the role.

How have you grown since joining?

Since joining Coexya Rennes two years ago, my growth has been gradual. I started with training—there’s no formal external training in document composition, so all new hires are trained internally.

After that, I worked on increasingly complex projects, always progressing step by step.

What does your current project involve?

Currently, I’m working for the insurance arm of a major national bank. The client is migrating their document composition workflow to Quadiant, and my role is to verify the quality of developments and communications that have already been migrated.

What are your future career prospects?

As a document composition developer, several career paths are open to me. The most natural is becoming an expert in a few years. Alternatively, I could move into project management or even the commercial side, participating in pre-sales.

Coexya also offers opportunities across various Business Units, so if I become curious about another area, I know I’ll be supported in making the transition.

Why join the Rennes office?

The first word that comes to mind is kindness. Our teams are diverse, from juniors to seasoned experts, and the focus is on cohesion and mutual support.

Management genuinely listens to and considers our expectations. I’d tell a newcomer that at Coexya Rennes, we take our work seriously, but we also know how to have fun.

We organise plenty of internal events, like quizzes and the infamous blind test, which has become an institution. These evenings are full of laughs, a bit of drama over contested victories, and stories we still talk about months later. It’s always a good time!