Templates and document generation

The firm's templates

Templates are the firm's own Word files, under Settings, Documents, Templates. The register has the tabs Templates, Clauses, Merge tokens, Generated (every document made from a template) and Bulk runs. Each template says what it produces and which matter types it is for, and each version is kept, so last year's wording can still be read.

A template opens on its record, with three tabs:

• Overview: where it stands, who keeps it, the matter types it serves and who has it checked out.
• Versions: every version on its way through review, in force or kept in the history. Two versions can be compared side by side.
• Usage: what each version made, when it was last used and by whom, newest version first.

Retire stops a template being offered without touching anything already generated from it; Offer it again offers it again.

Editing a template: check out and check in

One person edits a template at a time.

1. On the template's record, choose Edit. The template is checked out to you. Choose Download the draft from the header's menu and edit it in Word, with the merge token list open beside it.
2. When you are done, choose Check in and upload the file. It becomes a new version, in draft.
3. Changed your mind? Choose Cancel check-out from the header's menu; nothing is kept.

Who has a template out shows under its header. An administrator can choose Break the check-out, with a reason, when somebody else is away. Upload a new file, also in the menu, adds a new version from a file without checking the template out, while no version is waiting for review or approval.

Where a clause the template inserts has a newer version, Edit asks whether the draft takes the newer wording or keeps the wording the template took.

A version's review

A new version is a draft until a second reader approves it.

1. The author submits the version for review.
2. A reader who may approve templates opens it, reads it as a PDF or downloads the Word file, and Approves it or sends it back to draft with a reason. Its author is told either way.
3. Publish puts the approved version in force. Every document generated from then on uses its wording; documents already made keep theirs.

A version no longer wanted is Discarded: it stays in the history, marked as discarded.

The clause library

Wording the firm repeats, such as confidentiality or dispute resolution, is kept once as a clause under Templates, Clauses, and inserted into templates by its code, written {{> code}} in the Word file. A clause's code is fixed once it is made, since templates name it.

Each clause has its title, what it is for and the practice areas it applies to. Its versions go through the same review as a template's. A published clause version is taken by each template's next version, so a published template's wording never changes under it. A clause's Templates tab lists the templates inserting it, with the version each took, and flags a template on an older version.

Merge tokens

Placeholders in a template are merge tokens from the catalogue under Templates, Merge tokens: the firm, the matter, the client, every party, dates, amounts and amounts written in words, the responsible partner, the court and the signature block.

The catalogue is grouped by what each token is about. Search it as you type, open and close the groups, or jump to one from the list beside them; a link to the page keeps your search. Each token shows what it means, an example of what it prints, whether it can be left blank, a copy button that copies it as a template names it, and how many templates use it, which opens those templates. Narrow it to the tokens that can be blank, or to those used or unused.

Draft from a template

1. On the matter's Documents tab, choose Generate.
2. Pick the template and check the preview.
3. Generate. The document is made in the background as Word for editing and PDF for sending, on the letterhead of the matter's office, and filed on the matter with a link back to the template version it came from and the letterhead version it was printed on.

Letters to many parties

A bulk run makes one document per party, each addressed to that party. A party with no address fails its own copy, by name, and the others are made.

Preview a template

Preview against sample data draws a template with sample data and files nothing, so an administrator can check a new template before anyone uses it.