Letters and documents

With the Select Template card on a Salesforce record you create, preview, edit and send letters. The data on the record fills the letter, and every sent document is archived in Centerpoint. This page is about Centerpoint for Salesforce, not the Doc Composer in SmartForms Studio.

An administrator adds the card and the document lists to the record page, see Add components to pages.

Find a template

The Select Template card shows a tree of folders and templates with the columns Type, Name and Description. Type in the search box (Search template…) to narrow the tree. Select a template to enable the buttons. The buttons work on one template at a time, and selecting a folder clears the selection.

A template appears in the card only when all of this is true:

It has the keyword USERSELECTABLE.
Its SOBJECT keyword, if it has one, matches the object of the record you are on.
Its FIELDVALUES keyword, if it has one, matches the field value on the record.
Its CLASSIFICATION keyword, if it has one, matches a permission you have.

Configuration describes the keywords.

Preview a document

Select a template and click Preview.
If the record has more than one possible receiver, choose one in Select Receiver and click Submit. If the record has no receiver, you see No receivers are defined on this record. A receiver is mandatory to be able to create a document.
The PDF opens in a new browser tab. Nothing is saved or sent.

A template that carries the keyword RECEIVERINTEMPLATE defines its own receiver. The choice then reads Receiver defined in template.

Create and send a document

Use Create when the document needs no editing. Preview and Create are only available for templates without an editing process.

Select a template and click Create.
Choose the receiver, if asked.
In Select Distribution Method, choose how the document is delivered. The list holds the distribution methods your Centerpoint company offers, for example archiving or e-mail.
Click Submit.

The card confirms with Document created successfully. Distribution method= followed by the method you chose. If you chose LocalPrint, the PDF opens in a new tab.

Edit a letter in the editor

For a template that has an editing process, only Edit is available. Preview and Create stay greyed out.

Select the template and click Edit.
Choose the receiver, if asked.
The card shows Document session created. Opening the document… and the editor opens in a new browser tab with the letter filled in from Salesforce.
Write the letter, add attachments, bring in texts from the text libraries, preview the PDF and send it. The sent letter is archived.

If you close the editor before you finish, the letter stays in Documents Under Construction and you can continue later. When the letter is sent, it leaves that list.

Save the PDF as a file

If your administrator has turned on the Generated PDF setting, you can also keep a copy of the PDF in Salesforce. In Create and Edit, tick Save the generated PDF as a File linked to this record. The file appears in the record’s Files.

If the administrator chose to always store PDFs, the checkbox is not shown and every PDF is saved. If the file cannot be saved, the document is still created and you see Document was created, but saving to Salesforce Files failed.

See Metaforce Generated PDF.

Follow your documents

Three lists on the record show where each document is.

List	What it shows	What you can do
Documents Under Construction	Letters you opened in the editor and have not finished. Columns Template, Description, Created Date and Valid To, and Classification if the administrator turned it on.	Click the template name to continue writing. Delete a session. Deleting asks Are you sure you want to delete this document session.
Documents in Distribution	Created documents that wait for distribution.	View the document, or Del it after you confirm.
Archived Documents	Documents that were sent and archived, with the metadata from the archive.	View the document. If your administrator set up an external viewer, View opens it there instead of the standard viewer.

Use Refresh to update a list. Documents in Distribution and Archived Documents show eight documents at a time unless the administrator chose another page size. Use Prev and Next to move between pages. In Documents Under Construction, Valid To shows how long the editor session is valid.

Details

If the Create Task option is set in Identifying Field for the object, a task is added to the record for each document. See Configuration.
Access to documents with a classification is controlled with custom permissions. See Metaforce Classification.
To send the same letter to many contacts, see Batch sending.
If a template is missing, see Troubleshooting.