How to configure conditional custom PDF printing and emailing
Introduction
Communication with your customers and vendors is vital in maintaining successful business relationships. Using the report template editor in Paragon, you can create custom PDF output templates that can be assigned to each module in Paragon. To find out more about creating your own templates, you can read our article on How to create a custom PDF template for any transaction.
Using the report template editor along with our print configuration module gives you a centralized area to configure where and when each template should be used in printing and emailing through the print and email action buttons. The print configuration grid can be found in the reports and data card in the settings screen.
Adding a configuration
When you get to the print configuration screen, you will see a table made up of 5 columns: module, priority, action, template and conditions. To get started, hit the edit button. In edit mode you can select the add button to add a new line.
When adding a configuration line, you will be asked to provide the module and template to use under a specified set of conditions. These conditions can be any combination of attributes on the transaction but these can also be met using company attributes. For example, if an attribute was not filled out in the transaction but is present on the company being used, Paragon can pull the data from the company instead. We have shown a complete walkthrough of print triggering in the next sections.
You must also specify the order in which each set of conditions is checked using the priority column. In the example here, a specific invoice template will be used if the invoice is marked as overdue. Then, because of the priority, the conditions for the invoice - due immediate template are only checked if an invoice is not marked as overdue. If a transaction doesn’t exactly meet any of the conditions, the default template that comes pre-installed for that transaction type will be used.
Triggering print configurations
Following on with our example, when we create an invoice with the attribute overdue set to yes, we should now be able to print our overdue template pdf.
In the more tab, we can see the attribute has been checked and we can now hit print from the action button.
After hitting the print button, we triggered the conditions to give us the overdue template instead of the default template attached to the invoice module.
If you use any template rules for your printouts, you will still need to use the configurable action buttons.
Print configuration with company attributes
As mentioned previously, you can also trigger print configurations based on attributes of the company used in the transaction. For example, if you have a company that requires their PDFs to be in a different language, we can automatically trigger this by using the attributes related to that company, as long as that attribute is blank in the transaction. If the attribute has been filled on the transaction, the print configuration will use this instead.
Start by creating your configurations, in this case we will have English and French example templates for credit.
Next, you will need to make sure that the company you will be using on the template has the correct attribute set up; in this case French.
Once this is confirmed, we can create a new credit transaction, but we will leave the language attribute blank.
Remember to use the correct company on the transaction!
Now, when go to print or email our credit, we get the French example template.
Now that we have changed the language attribute on the transaction, we have met the conditions for our other template, despite using the same company.
Email template configuration
When you are setting up your configuration on the print configuration area, you also have two other options available to use: email and print & email. Email allows you to set up a separate configuration to your print set ups, or you can use print and email to set up the same template for both functions. Simply choose the module, template, and set of conditions that must be met in order to use that particular template.
Make sure to set up emailing in Paragon in order to use this feature!
Once you are happy with your configuration, the specified template will be automatically attached to any emails you send using the email action button on any transaction.
In the example below, a French template will be used to match the language set on the order. The set of conditions for each template are limitless, so you can be as detailed as you need to be in order to fit your business’ needs. You can even take it one step further by using a rule to pre-populate the subject line and body of the email with a message in that language. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at support@paragon-erp.com for help in setting up rules.
What's next?
For more guidance on printing with Paragon, browse this handy article for the next steps:
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