Making Templates - Exercise: Creating a More Advanced Template

For administrators and document controllers. How to create and import templates in Samm. 

NOTE: A new version of the template editor has recently been released. The steps below are still generally applicable but there will be some minor differences. The new editor is shown in the template training videos

1. Introduction

This document is for administrators and document controllers. It describes how to create and import templates in Samm. This is a more advanced guide, detailing how to use tables, project lists, and Yes/No fields. Here is the form we are going to use:

Download the above form from here: Samm_Toolbox_Meeting_Minutes.doc

2. Summary

1. Go to Templates, and click Create Template.
2. Add and name the Fields and Sections that your form requires.
3. In Microsoft Word, insert your Merge Fields into their appropriate locations and save the updated document.
4. Back in Samm, edit the template, upload the updated Word document, and save.
5. Publish the form.
6. Enable the template in project/s.

3. Setting up the Topics Checklist

1. Go to Templates, and click Create Template

2.Select Form

3. Enter a name into the Name field like: Toolbox Meeting

4. Add a new field, and change its type to Yes/No

5. Change the Display Name to “Topic” and enter the question information by clicking on the pen tool.

6. As the question has a generic name (Topic), which we will be repeating, we need to change the merge field. Change it to 1.

7. Repeat this for the other nine questions, numbering their merge fields 1-9, with Topic (Other) as a Text Area instead of a Yes/No field. You can enter any text you like for “Merge Field Override”, but it is usually preferable to keep them as short as possible.

8. Click the button “Save and continue”.

4. Creating the Site Inductees Project List

1. If a “Site Inductees” Project List Type didn’t already exist, then you could create one, by going to Admin => Proj. List Types, and clicking Create, and calling the new list “Site Inductees”.

2. To add/edit/delete items in a project list you must go into a particular Project Home, then navigate to Lists (down at the bottom) and then Project Lists.

3. Also see "Project List items".

5. Setting up the Attendees and Minutes

5.1 In the Template Editor

1. Create a new Section, and call it Toolbox Meeting Minutes.

2. Drag the system fields Date Raised and Project down into the new section.

3. Create a new field, change its type to Table, name it Attendees.

4. Click the pen tool to edit the table, then click OK.
5. There are 20 boxes in the attendees section, so create 20 rows.

6.Add a New Column field, change its type to Proj. List

7. Name the field Names

8. Select Site Inductees as the list

9. Change the Merge Field Component to n.

10. Add a new Column and change its type to Signature Box

11. Name the field Signature

12. Change the merge field component to s.

13. Click Save, and return to the full template editor.

14. Add another field, change its type to Table, name it Minutes, and change its Merge Field Override to m.

15. Create the table as below: Note that List – Multi is the same as Proj. List, but allows for multiple answers to be selected.

16. Save the table, and return to the full template editor.

5.2 In Word

UPDATE
If you have access to a Windows computer then use this easier variation of the steps:

1. Click Save and Continue instead of Save
2. Skip step 2
3. Do step 3 as below but use the APE Word Add-in instead of the inserting topic
4+. Skip steps 4 and 5, and proceed from step 6 below.

Otherwise (if you have a Mac, or a Word version less than 2010) then proceed as follows.

1. Scroll to the bottom, and click Save.

If you have access to a Windows computer then use this easier variation of the steps:

1. Click Save and Continue instead of Save

2. Click Export, and then Merge Fields. This will download a .csv file (Comma Separated Values file).

3. Using Microsoft Word, insert the merge fields into the word document (if you don’t already know how to do this, see the topic Inserting Merge Fields into a Word Document for Windows or Mac). When it’s done, it should look something like this:

4. Insert “Image:” at the start of the Signature Box merge fields (in this case aR1s, aR2s, etc) to see the actual signature (otherwise it will say “Signed in Samm” in place of the signature). See Inserting Merge Fields into a Word Document for Windows or Mac.

5. Return to your form, and click Edit
6. Click Browse and upload the saved MS Word document, then save your form again.

7. From here, you can Preview your form to check for mistakes and formatting changes, or click Publish to make it useable.

8. Enable the template, to either make it available to projects by default or within specific projects, as described at Customizing Templates for Different Projects.

6. Importing templates

The Template Import page allows you to create or update a Template by importing from a .json file that was previously created by a Template export. That can be useful if, for example, you use a test server for creating new templates (or updating versions of a template) and testing them privately before migrating them across to a live web site.

Click the Browse button to select the .json file, then Import.

After importing, edit and publish the template as follows:

• Upload the MS Word template (which is usually obtained from the same source as the .json file)
• Select each Project List and Organisation List in the template, including inside any tables
• Save
• Publish when you’re ready to make the new/updated template available to users
• Enable the template, as described at Customizing Templates for Different Projects.

The import process gets the template’s name from inside the .json file. If there is no existing template with that name then a new template will be created.

6.1 Updating Templates using Import

If there is a template with the same name then that will be updated. In that case the existing template is merged with the template being imported. Fields and sections may be created, updated and deleted. The history of the existing template is kept.

If the import process would create 2 fields with the same Merge Field name then an error will occur.