Danny Fellars: Is is this template this is your own this is your own engine, or is this a Google Doc?
Rupert (DocsAutomator): So this is a Google Doc. Docsimator has no own engine. It's all Google Docs based, Word based, or PDF based. So you can overlay a PDF. But this is not this is a Google Doc. But, actually, Google Doc there was generated in preparation for this show, generated with Docs Elementor's agent. Yes. So, yeah, we can look at that in the second example sort of and see how that works out, which sort of also goes back to goes to your question a bit, like, how how are things changing with AI? I think things are changing a lot. And, basically, everything is changing in a way. But, yeah, this has been generated with DocsAdamer with DocsAdamer's built in agent in the platform. Yep. Cool. So this is basically how data is then mapped. So we'd always select the base, the table, and then it's all about taking these place orders that you see here in the template and mapping them to the corresponding fields in a table. So if we go into a table, we have this base here where I'm sending out these quotes. And then, of course, we find all our data in those fields that can then be mapped to the placeholders that we've defined before. What's cool now with AI is actually we can reverse that logic because often it starts really with the data structure. Often it starts with, I have built my base. I've built built out Airtable, I have my fields there already. And then it was always this kind of tedious process of going into Google Doc and checking, okay. What do I need on here? What kind of fields do I have? And adding them one by one. But now, actually, you can take the AI agent, and the the agent will look at the fields and then just generate the template based on the fields that you already have in in Airtable, which, yeah, is kind of, yeah, really reversing that process, basically, of how you get to the to to the template. So we have mapped sort of the main fields. And then for the line items parts, we have a linked field on here called quote lines. And then the field mapping there reaches into that related table, basically. And we map the we basically map the fields then from that related table to the placeholders inside of the line items table. Yeah. When we're happy with this, we can generate previews. We have a we can we can generate previews via the preview button, select a record. We only have three records here in the in the set in the base that we have here and then that previous generate. Usually, request time for Google Docs is eight to ten seconds around that around that number. Unless there are hundreds of line items, then it's going to be a bit longer. Yeah. But then this is sort of generated. I can also expand this here. And, like, it doesn't always look that clean at first try. So I had I had done some work on it before before this role, to be honest. Like, the formatting of the numbers, for instance, had to be changed in ad table a bit. I had to change the template a bit here and there. Let's see how the AI agent does in the second example when we when we generate that. Sort of it's a it's a journey to get a really, like, nicely working AI product, to be honest. But I think this looks pretty clean now. So if we're happy with this. So if you're generating previous, you always get these, like this watermark on here and then also this footer where it has Docsometer's logo on it. Mhmm. When we set this to active and this is also the moment where you need a subscription for DocsAutomator. So all of everything we've seen so far, you can do in test mode, and you can just test basically as long as as you need until you're happy with how it comes out. But once you turn this to active, you will need a subscription, but then also the watermarks disappear basically from from the documents. When we now generate them from Airtable, which we set up now. Let's actually go into interfaces for that because I had created the button here already, which isn't fully set up. I want to use this button here. I want create a new automation, generate PDF. Oh, let's actually call it generic quote. And then one way and there are a few ways to do this, but one way is to use a script inside of Airtable automations. So we say trigger from Airtable, and then we click on script, and we can just copy this script here. We add it in, and we need to pass the record ID from the left. We have recently added now AutoCreate, which is based on Airtable webhooks Oh, that which, yeah, is works really well because it's so nicely implemented in Airtable. And it's because I have the comparison to Notion, for instance. Like, I don't want to shame any platforms, Notion also is a great platform. But it takes about a minute to get notified by Notion Add Table. It takes about a second to be notified via the webhook. So it's it's pretty instantaneous. So I'm just gonna show this here, like, because this has been always the the way to Yeah. To do it and gives you a lot of flexibility inside of Airtable automation. It still does. Like, you could this is now on a button click, but, of course, you this could be based on any trigger. You can basically generate a document, and you can use the full like, all the triggers that are basically available in automations, of which there are a lot. But there's also now this really easy way of auto generating and auto creating without basically setting up anything in Airtable. And I'd say we do that in the second use case based on Okay. Based on a certain condition. We have turned this on. And what we want is this is called signed PDF, but, actually, it's just PDF. We want the document when it's created. So I can initiate document creation from here now, but we also want it to be stored in add table. That's an action where we say save PDF to add table attachment field. And, yeah, it's still called sign PDF, that field, but we keep it that way for now. And now if everything's set up properly, then we can generate this, and we should see that, again, after those eight, nine, ten seconds, we should see the document without watermarks appearing here in the PDF field. There we go. So now we can open it, and it looks nice and clean. And we could take it now from here and send it off. We can email it via Airtable, or Docsimulator also has sending emails built in. So you can send via Docs Implementer's infrastructure, email infrastructure, or you can also send via via Gmail or Outlook. And so you can also use that. While we're here, a few more actions after document generation, basically. So all of these actions run after the document is already generated. The PDF URL itself can be stored to AddTable. You can keep the Google Doc, which is a powerful feature if you want to keep editing the document. So you're not necessarily interested in the PDF that comes out, but you're interested in the dynamically written Google Doc to edit it further because you may maybe you have a certain paragraph in it that needs to be edited manually or so. You can save the PDF to Google Drive. You can automate saving it in DocsInnovator's documents folder. So I'm pushing a bit to use DocsInnovatorMare as a system of record, which sort of came when I launched the e signing suite. Suddenly, there is a lot of interesting data in DocsOdometer, so this is sort of now part of it as well. And a feature that's used often is merging existing PDFs. So maybe you have some sheets, some type of sheet you always want to add to your generated documents, then you can do that here here as well. Those are sort of the Document is really, like, as I said before, a targeted automation platform for document automation. So these are sort of the most useful actions that I see where I know you would you would have a platform like Zapier or Yeah. Make.com or nnn also where you could basically choose from anything. Basically, stitch together anything. Basically, DocsAnimate has added the most requested actions kind of that run after document generation.
Danny Fellars: Yep. And if you wanna do more, you could send to a webhook into Zapier and do more there. Yep. Exactly.
Rupert (DocsAutomator): Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Or, like, in we we will see that with esigning as well like, in esigning flows as well as, like, always some system needs to be notified that a document got signed. So that that's then happening via the webhook notification as well. Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of the first the first use case end to end. Yeah. Generating these quotes from from this space.
Danny Fellars: Having having built, you know, the the functionality to, like, update Google, I know, like, the API is not easy to work with with Google Docs. And having a little bit experience with Microsoft, I can't imagine the Microsoft integration being much easier. So what you've done here is actually very, very hard to do, so I commend you for it.
Rupert (DocsAutomator): Yeah. It's it's also a few thousand iterations, I'd say. You asked about AI development before. Right? And it's of course, you can vibe code something like Docs Automator now. But vibe coding, your Google Docs integration is, like, not at first try. Right? It's not possible at the moment. Basically, all the edge cases and everything that could potentially happen are not documented well enough for any AI to pick up on it. Yeah. So it would take still lots and lots of iterations, basically, to get to it. And doing a Google Docs space has been a blessing and a curse throughout the entire you know, I think you know this as well. Right? Like, it's sort of it's it's it's so convenient, but it's also such a pain to work with the API and and just adhere to this index based to to this index, which basically is recalculated all the time. Yeah. It's and and in the design in I mean, it's it's it's g I mean, it's a genius in a way how it is designed is is amazing. But reading a Google Doc does not have the same structure as writing a Google Doc, which is such a flaw in in the entire design of the thing. You know? Because otherwise, you could could just so easily take something and just basically, like, replicate from what you've what what you took. And yeah, that makes it makes it's it's infinitely harder if if sort of those two things are not the same. Yeah. Yeah. It's it also took quite a while to get to a point where I had, like, a testing harness that was good enough to feel really comfortable about making changes to the platform. Right? Because you can have something working you can have something that sort of works at some point, and then it is what it is. But then when you wanna make changes to it, like, a big early change was, for instance, grouping. Because in, like, all ad table users, we're seeing grouping in ad table tables. Mhmm. And then they wanted to see that in line items as well. So I was adding that in, and then it was changing like, I was like, I had to make so many so many changes to the to the nature of how line items worked, etcetera. This was pre AI or this was, yeah, pre AI or basically when you were copy pasting from ChetiPT quite a lot still, but it ChetiPT also wasn't that good in writing code at that time. Right? Yeah. At this like, now we have a testing harness that's, like, really or the testing harness that I work with is is is really nice because now I feel really comfortable, and I might change the platform that whatever is rendering in a certain way is not gonna change, basically. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Fellars: Very true. Cool. So go give us an overview of the different platforms that you support and different formats
Rupert (DocsAutomator): for Basically, the easiest way to see this is now let's go into, you know, into this one. And if we go on Let me remove the Centimeters. Yeah. If this would work, it doesn't. I actually don't know why right now. Let me create a new
Danny Fellars: K. So Google Docs, Word, and PDF for the formats.
Rupert (DocsAutomator): Exactly. Yep. So if we there we go. I think it's when I it changed that it's blocked right now. Google Docs, Word PDF for templates. And then you see here sort of all the platforms that Docs Abidder integrates with. So you see those on top here. Those are sort of natively integrated in the sense that the mapping of data happens inside of DocsAutomator. Right. So, course, we've seen Google Sheets, Google Forms, Notion, Smart Suite, and ClickUp. So this is all of these platforms are end to end integrated, basically. And then these here, there we like, Docsimulator has an app, basically, or is integrated in the platform. So in software, for instance, in software workflows, Docsimulator has an action in software workflows, but the mapping happens inside of software. So software kind of you give doc your Docsimulator API key and then automation support. And then you and then also based on the template the template linked on that automation, the place orders are pulled from that template, and then you sort of link the data in in the software in software workflows. Glide, pretty much the same thing. No local, same thing. And yeah. So these are the these are the platforms platforms right now.
Danny Fellars: Very cool.
Rupert (DocsAutomator): Yeah. Alright. Since this is an, like, of the Yeah. The the is always, like Airtable definitely always has all the features that Docs Unlimited has. The other platforms don't always have all the features in all their depth at all times, basically. So I'm trying to reach sort of p feature parity between all of them, but AirTable definitely always gets sort of gets everything that that's new first, basically.