Generating Documents
Generating produces a document from a template and a specific record.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Layout & Pages:
- Document Templates — the templates themselves
- Document Designer — page size, margins, header and footer
Architect Panel → Data:
- Documents — where output is stored
Architect Panel → Automation:
- Workflow Builder — generating as part of a process
Three ways it happens
- By hand, from a record.
- From a workflow, as a step in a process — the letter node.
- In bulk, across many records.
Generating from a workflow is the useful one
It means the document is produced at the right moment, every time, without anybody remembering. A decision letter generated automatically when a case reaches its outcome is a letter that always gets sent.
Bulk generation needs care
Producing five hundred letters is producing five hundred letters. Check a sample before running the whole batch — a template fault multiplied across a mailing is expensive and public.
Generate ten, read them, then generate the rest.
The output is stored
Generated documents are records in their own right. That means they are the evidence of what you sent, which is exactly what you want when somebody disputes it.
It also means storage grows, and that retention applies.
Keep what you sent, not what you would send
An important distinction. Re-generating a document from today’s record produces today’s content, not what the customer received last March.
The stored copy is the record. Do not rely on being able to reproduce it.
Generation is not sending
Two separate things, and worth being clear about in a process. A document generated and not sent is a document nobody received, and it looks identical in the record to one that was.
Watch for failures
A generation that fails — a missing design, an unavailable field, a record in an unexpected state — should be visible. A workflow step that silently failed to produce a letter is a customer who was never written to.
Check the first one of each type
When a template goes live, read the first real document it produces. That is the cheapest possible quality check and it catches the thing testing missed.
Worked example
An organisation generates decision letters from a workflow at the point a case closes, storing each against the case. Bulk runs are sampled at ten before proceeding. Reading the first live letter of a new template found a merged field that was empty for one case type.
Recommendations
- Generate from workflows so it always happens.
- Sample ten before a bulk run.
- Keep the stored copy — do not rely on regeneration.
- Read the first live document of every new template.