Updating automation templates

Manage and edit your document automation templates for custom applications

Khris Malatumbaga avatar
Written by Khris Malatumbaga
Updated over a week ago

A custom application is any application other than:

Custom applications are purpose-built apps that generate documents specifically for your business. In most cases, these generated documents are then reviewed, approved and signed.

The automation templates associated with your custom applications stipulate the templated content that is generated for a document when someone answers questions in a custom application to generate a new document for review, approval or signing.

The following guide may be useful to administrators who have at least one custom application built in Plexus.


Scenarios for updating automation templates


There may be times when you would like to update the text or output associated with your custom app documents. As a Plexus user with admin access, you can make a range of these changes yourself. Other changes will need to be actioned by contacting your Customer Success Manager.

This guide will highlight the types of changes you can make, and the steps to do so.


When to update the automation template yourself


You can update custom automation templates when you would like to make amendments to the wording in the generated document. For example, if the details within a template need to be changed such as the address or contract clause/s, or if you've noticed a spelling or punctuation error that shows in your templated text, you can manage these simple changes yourself.


When to contact your Customer Success Manager for updates


It is not possible to make changes to the template logic or to the specific app questions. As a general rule, any text within the template that is inside brackets that look like the following should not be edited:

  • {if $ some text}

  • {$ some text }

  • {/if}

Often these brackets use your end-user's inputs to fill in the gaps. This is text that is often highlighted in yellow within your document template and should not be edited under any circumstance.

Doing so is likely to cause a disruption to the usage and output of your app. Any changes to app questions or logic will still need to come through as Change Requests and can be managed by your organisation’s Customer Success Manager.


Editing your own templates


Access to this feature is role-based. For users with the right level of access, you can:

Step 1. Head to the Settings menu and click Automation templates.

You will see a list of all available templates grouped by the app they belong to.

Step 2. Click the name of the template to view a history of template versions for the selected application.

Step 3. Click Download current template to download the template version currently being used to generate documents for users.

Step 4. Update the document in Microsoft Word. Remember to avoid changing any words in {brackets} under any circumstance.

Step 5. Upload the updated template file via the drag and drop tool or your file browser.

This will update the template in the app. All documents generated by the app for the will now use the updated template from this point forward.

We recommend testing these changes by going into the relevant app, selecting the correct template and generating a test document.


Reverting template changes


If there are issues with the template currently being used to generate documents, you can roll back to a previous version that you know will work correctly.

In the image below, you will see each file version against a template name will have actions allowing you to download or rollback the template. Selecting Rollback will use that template version as the current template.

Of course, you may also Download any previous version of the document from this menu as you wish.

Need help? Reach out to our support team via live chat or [email protected] for assistance.

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