Templates

Templates allow users to create communication materials with guaranteed brand compliance in a fully customizable web-to-publish engine with flexible workflows. With our smart templates, you can

  • Create on-brand designs directly in your web browser without installing any additional software.
  • WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing in the browser.
  • Work together on documents with colleagues.
  • Connect to Kadanza assets and inject metadata in documents.
  • Use datasource functionality and link (product) databases to the templates.
  • Set up approval flows to stay in control of what is created.
  • Export documents in production ready pdf, following your printing specifications
  • Connect to your print partners and order documents directly from inside Kadanza.
  • And more...

In this article:


Creating templates

Important to mention upfront is the template creation.

Templates are created within CHILI GraFx. The templates are based on your existing designs, but are optimized and rationalized for creative automation. When Layouts of GraFx Studio is activated in your Kadanza license, a number of active templates can be configured in your Kadanza installation. Your users can use these active templates to create documents.

You can compare CHILI with Indesign on steroids. It’s a complex (online) design tool with a vast amount of possibilities and options to create smart templates. In-depth training sessions are needed before you can get started with the editor and create useful templates.

If you have your own CHILI license, you can of course create your own templates. If you don’t (yet) have your own CHILI license, we can recommend different service partners who can create templates for you. Keep in mind that the creation of templates is not included in your Kadanza license fee, only the amount of active templates (when Layouts or GraFx Studio is enabled) is a part of the license fee. As the cost of creating a template depends on the template’s complexity, creating templates is always done on quote.

Getting started with creative automation is both challenging and fun. As templates help to automate design tasks, there are some limitations in the flexibility many designers are used to having when designing. The more designs are rationalized, the less exceptions are possible (which is both a pro and a con). In the beginning this might seem overwhelming, but our template creation partners will guide you through this transition and help you get more familiar with creative automation with each template that is created and activated in Kadanza. During workshops, we get a clear view on which requirements you have, what kind of templates are needed, how the templates should work, which workflows are needed,… Once this is all clear, an estimate will be provided for the template creation.



Adding a new template

Depending on your service partner, new templates are configured in Kadanza. But as an admin, even without your own CHILI license, you can add new Layouts templates to your installation. The only thing you need from the template creator is the CHILI document ID of the template you want to add.

Click on the "New template" option on the top right and fill in the requested information.

  • Name: You can give any name to the template regardless of the name in CHILI publish platform. Choose a name that makes sense for your administrators.
  • Title: It can be the same as the title, but this will be visible on the front-office. Here we advice to choose a name that makes sense to your end users.
  • Reference: Any reference can be given even it can be the same as the name and title. Just keep in mind that a reference should be unique.
  • Chili document ID: The ID of the template in CHILI, which is needed to link the template.

When you click on the "Create" option, it creates the template and the template configuration page will open. Here you can configure the general settings, workflow settings, export options, and extra features. 


General settings

In this section, you may activate or deactivate the template, much like in the templates' main view, and update the information you entered when adding the new template. Aside from this, you can choose a category, add notes, or upload a preview image. 


Workflow settings

User groups

Templates provide a variety of workflow combinations, and different workflows may be configured for each template based on its use case. As templates are placed on pages, it is important that the user groups that have access to the page also have access to the workflows. If not, an empty page will load when users try to create a document.

CHILI editor settings

When you selected the user groups that should have access to the template, you need to add the "Chili editor settings". These settings determine how the interface looks like when working in the template. Each type of template has a dedicated editor setting, so it is important that you select the correct one in the configuration of the template.


Collaboration settings

Although it is not possible to collaborate on a document (two or more users working in the same document at the same time), it is possible to transfer a document to another user to work on. The ability to transfer documents depends on the configuration of the collaboration settings.

You can add one or more groups, and users of these groups will be able to transfer documents between them by selecting another user from the editor list. Using the group “All users” for the collaboration settings would result in a list of all users in the editor dropdown, meaning you can transfer the document to any of the users on the platform. Most likely, this is not what you have in mind.

A more interesting suggestion is to create (one or more) specific user groups instead to create a dedicated workflow. And we can refine our choices even more with two additional options.

  • "Only show users that appear in the same user groups as the currently logged-in user": with this setting enabled, the user will only see users in the dropdown that appear in the same user group(s) as the logged-in user. Every user that is in at least one of the selected user groups will be shown in the editor dropdown.

  • "Exact crossmatch": with this option enabled, only users that appear in the exact same user groups as the logged-in user will be shown in the editor dropdown. This allows you to narrow down the list of users in the editor dropdown.


In order to share documents with other users, the "Show editor column" option should be enabled in the page settings of the template.


With these options, it is possible to create complex workflows. For example: A user is allowed to add text and images, then transfer the document to a copywriter, who can only review the text but not change the images. Once the text is approved, the copywriter can send it on to the designer to check if the correct images are used. When ready, he can send it to the creator, who can then request approval until the final document is approved and can be either downloaded or sent to a print partner.


Approval settings

If templates have export settings with "Document approval required" enabled, these export settings can only be used if the document is approved. In othert words, if a user wants to download the print-ready file, it needs approval first.

Admins can select a usergroup in the approval settings. Every user from this group will receive an email when approval is requested, after which he can start the approval flow.


Export options

In this section, you can define which export options to use per template. Export options allow your users to export a document as pdf or as image. After configuring export profiles, admins can select which ones are applied to the template. On top, you can choose which user groups can use each export option.

Besides exporting documents, it is possible to transfer them to a print partner to have them printed. Kadanza offers an order flow, where an order form can be configured to match your print partners' requirements.

An order generates a production-ready PDF (according to the print specifications of your print partner) and an order XML containing all the order specifications for your print partner. This XML can be configured to meet the requirements of your print partner so their internal order system can pick up the order.

The PDF and order XML are transferred to an FTP server at the print partner, after which the printer will follow up on payment and delivery.


Extra features configuration

Depending on the template, it is possible to configure some additional features


Variable-driven:

Variable-driven templates are templates in which all editable data is added in variables instead of in the document, and then stored in the database instead of in the template content. This allows to reuse the data entered in other documents that have the same variables.

Advantages:

  • Users can create documents while the templates are still in development.
  • When a template is updated in the CHILI publisher, documents are updated as well without losing any content.
  • Users are always working with the most recent version of a template.
  • Users can switch between templates with similar variables. This is convenient for example when you have created a document in 1 format and you want to create the same document in another format while keeping the content

Disadvantages:

  • No inline editing, only variables can be used
  • When a template is updated, users can no longer edit/export/duplicate documents based on an older version of the template. Users have to update their documents to the latest version in order to proceed.
  • Because only variables can be used, templates are less flexible.

When editing variable driven templates in CHILI, he admin must ensure that the version is updated in the template via the Admin Console by simply navigating to the template and publishing a new version.

When a template version is updated, users who have documents based on the previous version will not be able to edit, duplicate, export, or order the existing document without first updating it to the latest template version. However, when a user creates a new document, the latest version of the template will automatically be used.

The following document will not affected by a new template version:

  • Documents with status approval requested
  • Documents with status approved
  • Documents waiting for order approval
  • Locked documents
  • Archived documents

Metadata source:

Using the metadata function allows you to map frames in the template to metadata attributes of your assets. That way, metadata added in these attributes will be injected into the frames when placing an image. For example: you have images of your products, and by placing the image, you can inject metadata such as product information, price, availability,... in the document.


Start by importing the CHILI fields. This will load all frames with metadata attributes. Then import the metadata fields, which will load all metadata attributes. After both are imported, you can link each CHILI field to its metadata attribute.

External datasource:

The external datasource feature is similar to the metadata feature, but instead of selecting an image, users can select a set of data from a datasource file. That file is either uploaded directly to the template, or is imported from an FTP server. With this feature, it is possible to create a file directly from your PIM system and map it to the templates.


Upload in the template:

  • Select "Upload csv"
  • Choose the correct file

Import from FTP server

  • Select "Import CSV from FTP"
  • Add the correct FTP information
  • Select how many times the csv is imported. We recommend daily, but the frequency depends on how many times the data is updated.

When imported, you can import the CHILI fields and import the CSV fields, after which you can map the CHILI fields to their relevant CSV columns.

The CSV field names are the headers of each column. In case additional (useless) information is listed in the csv, you can use the CSV Row offset to remove these useless lines from the imported data.

Example:

  • the headers are in row 1
  • row 2 - 4 contain explanatory text and tips on the values starting from row 5
  • the CSV Row offset should be 5

DAM URL:

The DAM URL is used to define from which entry point users can select assets in the template. In many cases, the general "all assets" entry point is chosen, but admins can decide to change this to make sure only appropriate images can be selected.

For example: you have a template for a certificate in which employee images are placed. You can then create an entry point with only the "Employee image" categories and link this to the template. That way, users can not select other company images.

On top of that, the categories added to the entry point have permissions, so by selecting a specific entry point, you can allow users to select images without being able to upload images


Service partners

Creating and configuring templates is quite complex, as a lot of configuration options depend on the template variables and how the template is developed. In general, if you are working with a service partner to create your templates, we recommend that the service partner also manages the template configuration. That way, he can test the setup and the entire configuration before the template can be used by your users.

Interested in learning more about the smart templates, or looking for a service partner to help you get started with smart templates? Get in touch!

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