Rule - Sending an email with the appropriate custom PDF | ParagonERP

Rule - Sending an email with the appropriate custom PDF


Being able to keep efficient electronic communication between you and your customer is a great asset in this day and age. In Paragon, we already have a few great features related to this: one being that you can email PDF output of a transaction through our action button, and the second being that there is an option in settings under report template editor to create a custom transaction template. We also marry the two ideas so that a custom report can be emailed with the click of a button.  Check out this handy option to avoid having to manually download, and then manually email the custom template PDF.


This automation can be arranged with the setup of a system rule. Please contact us at support@paragon-erp.com for help setting up rules for any transaction. The following will show you how this rule can be used once we install it for you.



Add email option on the action button

Read up about adding options on to the action button, as it is needed for the following instructions:
Navigate to the screen set up for the module that you set up your rule for, i.e. the module that the PDF template is linked to. Create the action button as the image below shows. Note that the button label can be anything you want. We named ours email PDF as it was the most intuitive.


Send individual templates via action button

Pulling attributes from each individual transaction

Head over to the module that the rule is set for. This example uses quote.


Hit the transaction of your choice and then hit the more tab.


In the more tab, you can add the following 6 attributes. When the email is sent, Paragon will pull the information for each transaction directly from these details. The six attributes for this rule are:
  • Template name
  • Email attachment name
  • Email
  • Email cc
  • Email subject
  • Email body

  • To do this, just hit the edit button in the upper right-hand corner. Once the edit page appears, hit the add button to add attributes.






    As can be seen above, you can add attributes from here. Note that the following three attributes must be added for this rule to be used:
  • Transaction template name (the template that is being sent from report template editor)
  • Email attachment name (the name for this file)
  • Email (the email you are sending this PDF to)

  • As with any normal email, the following attributes are optional and can be added at your discretion.
  • Email cc
  • Email subject
  • Email body

  • Fill in the attributes as necessary and hit the save button on the bottom right-hand corner.





    To finally use this rule, go back to summary. Then, hit the action button on the lower right-hand corner and hit the print PDF option.







    The email will be sent to the email addresses you entered in your attributes. When you view the email, you can see that the email was sent with the exact entered values for email subject and email attachment name, as expected.


    Pulling attributes from a specific company in Paragon

    in the case that you want to send a certain customer or vendor an email every time, you can have one set of attributes on one template set for a single company.

    To do this, you must first have your reference screen set up so that you can add the necessary attributes for the specific company of your choice.

          Same as before, you should have these attributes set up:
    1. Transaction Template name
    2. Email attachment name
    3. Email
    4. Email cc
    5. Email subject
    6. Email body
    However, in a reference screen, some attributes could be in the business card portion of the screen, while the rest of the attributes will be under the attribute panel. See our user article about setting up reference screens if you would like more information.

    After your reference screen has been set up, select a customer to get started, i.e. a company from the customer or vendor module.


    You will see that through the reference screen set up done prior to this, the email will automatically pop up on the business card. To add the other attributes, hit the edit button on the upper right-hand corner.


    Once in edit mode, hit the add new button on the upper left-hand corner of the attributes panel to add attributes.


    From here, you should see all of the attributes you have made accessible when you did your reference screen set up.


    Add the ones that you would like. For this specific rule to be used, template name and email attachment name are mandatory attributes for this feature.


    Once you are satisfied, hit the save button on the lower right-hand corner of the attributes panel.


    This will save as follows:


    Now, if you create a new transaction with this specific company, still using the quote module as an example, you will be able to use the action button without having to individually add attributes for each transaction. This is handy because each company has one set of attributes being used for all transactions.




    Sending multiple templates at once via bulk action

    Sending emails for a single transaction was shown earlier in this article. You can choose to do this individually, say if you only have one transaction to send. However, if you have to send many transactions at the same time, you can send as many as you want at once, so long as the necessary attributes are filled for each transaction and/or companyThis means that to use the bulk edit button, you must go into the more tab for each individual transaction or go on the specific company page and fill in the proper attributes first.

    To use the bulk edit button, go back to list view for that module. You can do so by hitting the list view button on the upper left-hand corner.


    Once in list view, hit the bulk edit button on the upper right-hand corner. 


    From here, you can select any transactions you want by hitting the checkbox


    Once you are satisfied with the transactions you have chosen, hit the bulk edit button again. You will see a drop-down bar (as shown below). Scroll to the bottom and hit email PDF.



    Email your custom PDF templates using rules

    The custom PDF template editor allows you to make any kind of layout you need for transactions in Paragon. In Paragon, we also have standard email functionality that you can use to send out transactions and content to customers or vendors. Now you have the ability to use both of these features together by configuring an attribute in My Company.




    After clicking the email button on any transaction, the email dialog appears. If using PDF custom templates, you can populate this dialog before sending it out.



    What's next?


    Barring no attribute input errors, all emails should have been sent with the specific attribute inputs. If you have any other questions regarding this rule, please contact us at support@paragon-erp.com and check out these other articles:




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