¶ Document Solutions
Before we jump into creating a Document Solution, let's review the concept first.
We encourage you to think of Document Solution as an IKEA Wardrobe. It is a functional and beautiful addition to your home, but before you can enjoy using it, you need to set it up from various individual pieces. We are here to guide you through the whole process so that you can start getting the value from using the "wardrobe" as soon as possible.
So the individual pieces we have are:
- Query Builder - is the frame of our "wardrobe". Using Query Builder you can easily get all the Salesforce data you need for your documents without a single line of code. That way the builder defines what data supports your documents the way a frame supports a wardrobe.
- Document Template - is the facade of our "wardrobe". Document Template defines how your document will look like the way a facade defines it for a wardrobe.
- Button Configuration - is the handle of our "wardrobe". Button Configuration defines how you will open/generate your document the way a handle helps you open a wardrobe.
Now that you are familiar with the concept, we can start to see it in action. To show you how to generate your document using Maven Documents from start to finish, we will go into detail about creating and generating a simple quote document. So let's start!
¶ Creating a Document Solution
To create a Document Solution follow these steps:
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Open the Maven Documents App. You will be using this app through this tutorial, so you should get used to it.
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Open the Document Solutions tab.
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Click the "New" button to create a new Document Solution.
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Document Solution only has the Name field. We're going to name the solution "Sales Quote". Type the name and click "Save".
The Document Solution has been created. You completed the first step towards our goal: a quote document. Next, you'll get started with Query Builder, so you can put some of the Salesforce data in the document.
¶ Document Solution Gallery
Instead of creating your Document Solution manually, you can also choose and install already set-up Document Solutions from our Document Solution Gallery!
- Open the Maven Documents App.
- Select the Maven Documents Settings tab on the far right.
- Select Solution and Templates under MavenDocs Settings.
You can click "Install" to have that Document Solution installed. (Or you can click anywhere else on the preview image to have it opened in the new browser tab)
Currently, you will only find a simple Sales Quote Template in the Gallery, but stay tuned - we plan to add many more very soon. Those new ones will include templates of the most often used documents in Salesforce such as Invoices, Orders, Agreements, Proposals, Contracts, etc.
Once installed, you can access the newly created Document Solution in your Document Solutions tab.
You can freely edit the newly installed Document Solution - add new Templates, change existing ones, add fields in the Query Builder, add new actions - basically whatever you like. It is owned by the user who has installed it and it behaves the same way as if it had been manually created.
¶ Document Solution Advanced Settings component
You will find Advanced Settings as a separate tab on the Document Solution Layout. The tab holds Advanced Settings component that will help you tweak some settings on Document Solution manually.
The component contains several attributes that will likely grow over time:
- Enable Debug
- Use Global Variables
- Data Formatter
- Image Processing Type
¶ Enable Debug
The value is shown as a toggle:
- When the toggle is off, the value is False. Maven's Google service that Maven Documents app is utilizing, is not saving any of the logs of the Document processing.
- When the toggle is on, the value is set to True Maven's Google service will persist a debug log of the Document generation process. This is usually enabled by clients to help the Maven Documents support team debug the issue with the Document generation if there is one.
Default value: false
This attribute is mostly used by the support team, so before playing with it yourself, better contact your support agent.
¶ Use Global Variables
The attribute is shown as a toggle:
- When the toggle is on, the value of the attribute is True. That means Global Variables are defined in Query Builder tab under Query Variables section in the Maven Documents app.
- When the toggle is off, the value is False. This means Global Variables appear as mmdoc:variable element in the Template Builder and you are defining those variables on the Document Template itself.
False is option a legacy functionality and will be abandoned in future releases, as the desired way of defining the variables is on the Maven Documents Query Builder tab.
Default value: True
¶ Data Formatter
The Data Formatter attribute is defined with a string value.
- The Empty field for that setting means that the data from the template document is going to be formatted as usual: with spaces, new lines, etc. Which leads to some additional time spent while generating the document.
- If you place any string value in the attribute's field, the data won't be formatted and that will reduce the document generation time.
Using this setting will be helpful when the generated file is going to have a lot of data and you don't want to hit the Time Out error on Salesforce. In the future, this field will help you to enable any type of custom formatting.
Default value: empty
Be aware of some consequences of having this setting enabled:
1. Date and DateTime fields will be sent in standard ISO format. But if you still need to have a date in the specific format and the formatting turned off, then you can create a formula field on Salesforce and then use it as a merge field in the query.
2. Having a parent.child query will break the generation process. For example, the OpportunityContactRoles.Contact.Name field in the document will cause an error in the generation process. Instead, you can create the formula field on Salesforce, that will hold the data from the child field.
¶ Image Processing Type
This attribute is presented as a picklist with the following options:
- Google App Script signifies that images will be replaced in a serial way (one by one).
- Batch value can be used if a template document includes a large number of images, probably more than 50. Selecting this value can speed up the merge process, but can also slow it down if there are only a couple of images present in the Document Template.
Default value: Google App Script
If you are still not sure about the purpose of any of these settings, we've added some help messages. You just need to hover over the "i" icon next to the corresponding attribute and read the appeared text.