Document studio

Administration → Document studio is where you design the documents the product produces from a record: a work order pack, an inspection certificate, a purchase order, a compliance report. This is different from document settings, which are about files people attach; here you design a template once and the product fills it in from each record.

Document studio listing the document templates and what each is produced for

Who can use this screen

Reading templates takes View configuration lists; designing them takes Edit configuration entries — System Administrator, Maintenance Administrator and Maintenance Manager by default. Without the view permission the screen says Documents are designed by an administrator. See roles.

The list

Element	What it shows or does
templates	How many templates exist
published	How many are available to the product
produced	How many documents have been produced from them
New document	Opens the designer on a blank draft
From HTML	Opens Import a document: paste the HTML your previous system printed from, or Choose a file, then Convert. You see what it becomes before anything changes
Search the documents	Narrows the list as you type. It matches a template’s name, the kind of record it is produced for, its status and its module. Nothing matches when nothing does
Module headings	The templates grouped under the navigation’s own module headings — Work, Assets, Inventory, Property, Procurement and so on — each with a count, so a document sits where the screen that produces it does. A template for a kind of record no module claims is listed under Other
Each table	Name, Produced for (the kind of record), Blocks, Status and Produced (when last produced, or never)

The Import a document dialog for converting an HTML document into a template

The shipped templates cover contracts, warranty claims, consignment notes, asset handovers, gate passes, asset disposals, compliance certificates, property handovers, inspections, lost property reports, shutdown reports, calibration certificates, completion certificates, issue notes, work orders, permits, capital projects, stock movements, stock on hand, purchase orders, requisitions and requests for quotation. A published document is produced from the record it is about — the Document button on a work order, for example — or by a rule with the Produce a document action. Either way it is filed against the record under Files.

The designer

The middle of the screen is the page itself, drawn by the same renderer that will produce the file. Click a block on the page to select it; Move up and Move down reorder it, Duplicate copies it and Remove deletes it. These are on the selected block’s own panel as well as in the list of blocks. You can also drag a block on the page and drop it on the upper or lower half of another, where a line shows which side it will land, or drag a block’s grip (Drag to move this block) in the list. A checklist or another block that prints as several parts is one block to click and to drag.

Control	What it does
All documents	Back to the list
Status pill and blocks	Draft, Published or Retired, and how many blocks the page has
Shown for	The record the preview is filled in from (The record to preview against). No records of this kind yet when there is none
Margins	Shows the page margins on the preview
Import HTML	Replaces the page with a converted HTML document
Save	Saves the template. Held while a block is incomplete — see below
Publish	Makes a draft available to the product
Retire	Takes a published template out of service. What it already produced is kept

Save is held on an incomplete block. A heading or a paragraph with no words in it (spaces alone count as empty), a signature line with nothing written under it, a picture with no field and a table filter with no column are each refused when saved. The designer checks for them first, holds Save on the first one it finds, and says on the page which block it is and what it wants — Block 28 is a heading with no words in it. Write some, or take the block out, before saving. — with Show it to select that block. This matters most after importing a long HTML document, where an empty heading is easy to miss. A published template is saved whole, so while it is published Save is also held on a table with no source, and the page says: A published document is saved whole. Pick where each table’s rows come from, or take the table out, before saving.

Template statuses

Status	Means
Draft	Being written. Nothing in the product produces it yet
Published	Available to the product — offered wherever its record lets you produce a document
Retired	Out of service. What was produced with it is kept

The blocks

Add a block offers eleven kinds:

Block	Puts on the page	Settings include
Heading	A line of bold text that starts a section	The words, and how it is written
Paragraph	Wrapping prose; long text breaks across pages a line at a time	What it says, with placeholders
Labelled facts	Pairs of label and value, in one or two columns — the record’s own numbers and dates	Add a fact (a Label and a field), One column or Two columns, the label’s position (Above the value or Beside it, in a cell). Picking a field inserts it where the cursor is, so one fact can hold several — “`{{asset_number}}`, `{{asset_name}}`”
Table	Rows queried from the record — its tasks, its parts, its readings — or columns written from the record itself. Breaks across pages and repeats its header	Rows from (the source), Which rows, Columns, At most this many rows, Newest first or Oldest first — see the table block
Change log	Everything that changed on the record — who, when, what it was and what it became	Include comments
Checklist	The checks on the job or inspection with their answers, results and notes, and the photographs and signatures taken for them	Which checklists (Every checklist on the record or chosen ones), Only the checks that failed, whether to include Photographs, Signatures, Notes and Who answered, and when
Picture	One or two photographs from the record, side by side	The field holding the picture, A second picture beside it, Caption, Box width, Box height, Border — for the block, or for each picture, so a before and an after can be framed in different colours — and Border gap, the paper left between the photograph and its frame
Signature line	A rule to sign on, with who is signing, when, and the mark they made if one was captured	Who signs, The label, and where it is printed (Under the line)
Divider	A hairline across the page
Space	Vertical whitespace	Height, in points
Page break	Everything after it starts on a new page

There is no barcode or chart block, and a logo comes from your letterhead rather than a block.

The table block

Rows from offers only the sources that belong to the kind of record the template is produced for, grouped by how they belong to it:

Group	What it holds
Its own lines	The record’s own rows — a work order’s tasks, parts and labour, a purchase order’s lines. Open by default
Records raised from it	Records created from this one. Folded until you open it
Its activity, files and messages	What is filed against the record. Folded until you open it

Picking a source ties the table to the record for you, so only that record’s rows are printed. Show every source, not only this record’s own rows offers the full catalogue for the rare table that needs it; a source a template already reads stays in the picker either way, marked Chosen now. Where nothing points at the kind of record, the picker says so. Under Columns, each column is either a field of the source or fixed text: A column from the record, or fixed text takes typed words, a placeholder from Insert a field (such as {{created_by_name}} or WO {{work_order_number}}), or both, and prints the same on every row — who raised the job, its number, a revision letter. A table of only written columns, with no source, prints one row. Add the column adds it. Ticking a field gives the column the field’s label as its heading. Drag a column’s heading to change the order of the columns; its heading, width, alignment and note move with it. Remove the column takes it out. Each column has a format beside it, As stored until you choose one — Money, Number, Whole number, Percentage, Duration, Date and the rest, offering only those that suit the field. Duration writes a number of minutes as days, hours and minutes, so a turnaround of 302 prints as “0 days, 5 hours, 2 min” rather than a bare number a reader may take for hours. The words are in English whatever your organisation’s language.

The document settings

Field	What it means	Notes
Name	Printed at the top of the page, so a placeholder belongs in it: Work Order `{{work_order_number}}`	Required
Produced for	The kind of record the document is about. It decides which placeholders resolve	Fixed once saved, because changing it would silently empty every placeholder
Only offer it when	A condition, using the same builder as rules	Left empty, the template is offered for every record of its kind. Narrow it by location, category or the producing person’s role. A record that fails the condition simply does not offer it
Footer	Added to the foot of every page, after your name and before the page number	Usually empty
Show your letterhead	Your logo, legal name and address at the top of the first page, and your name in the footer of every page	Taken from Branding and Organisation. A missing line is left off rather than printed blank, and the screen lists what is missing (Printing without a legal name, an address and a logo)
Paper	Your country’s paper, A4 — 210 × 297 mm or Letter — 8½ × 11 in	Your country’s paper is Letter in North America and A4 elsewhere. Pin a size only for a document that must be one size everywhere. The preview follows it
What it is for	A description shown in the list
Remove this document	Deletes the template

What you can put on it

What you can put on it lists every placeholder available for the chosen kind of record, grouped as the record’s form is, with the value it would print for the record in Shown for. It includes the record’s own fields, your custom fields and, under Looked up for you, the names its references resolve to and figures already summed — the asset a job is about, the site it is at, the vendor an order is to. Search the fields finds one; Copy the placeholder copies it, such as {{work_order_number}}. A field that holds only an internal reference is not offered, because printing it would print a meaningless code. A work order offers Completed (resolved) by and Closed by, filled in from whoever moved the job to those statuses.

Producing a document

On a record, the Document button renders a published template against that record and opens the result rather than downloading it, so you can check it before it leaves the building. The file is filed under the record’s Files whether or not anybody opens it.

Document settings

Retention, categories and tags for every file attached to a record — including what this screen produces.

Setting up

Configuration