How Templates Work
A document template turns a record into a letter, form or report. It has two halves that are configured separately.
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 — the generated output
The template
Names its datastore, holds the content, names a design, and says what output format it produces. It can also point at a custom page where the document needs to be generated rather than composed.
The design
Everything about the page itself: default font, size and colour, background colour and image, orientation, page width and height, margins on all four sides, and the header and footer HTML with the footer’s vertical position.
Designs are separate from templates deliberately — one design serves every letter you produce, so your letterhead is defined once.
Build the design first
Templates inherit it. Getting margins, header and footer right once, before writing any content, saves adjusting every template afterwards.
Content is merged with the record
The template refers to fields, and generating replaces them with that record’s values. So one template produces a letter for every case, every order, every customer.
Empty fields are the thing to plan for
A letter reading "Dear ," or containing a blank line where an address should be is the characteristic template failure. Decide what each merged field does when it is empty before you send anything to a customer.
Output format matters
A document intended to be printed, signed or archived should be a fixed format. One intended to be edited afterwards should not. Choose by what happens to the document rather than by habit.
Templates are business documents
Which means somebody other than an administrator owns the wording — legal, compliance, the service manager. Changing the words in a template is changing what your organisation says.
Have a review before publishing a new one, and keep a note of who approved it.
Generated documents are records
They are stored, and they are evidence of what you sent. That means retention, permissions and versioning apply to them exactly as to anything else.
Worked example
An organisation built one design carrying its letterhead, margins and footer, then six templates using it. When the registered office address changed, the footer was updated once and every template followed.
Recommendations
- Build the design first, then the templates.
- Decide what empty fields do before sending anything.
- Have the wording approved by whoever owns it.
- Treat generated documents as records with retention.