Create your first template using Showpad User information

The Automated Content Builder (ACB) app enables the creation of documents and presentations tailored to prospects' context and industry-specific needs. Customer data automatically integrates into marketing-approved templates to create impactful, personalized content in seconds.

In this article, we’ll walk through the process of:

• Preparing a simple template with text placeholders
• Configuring it in the ACB Experience
• Testing your template by creating a presentation

The example template will create an introduction slide for our users. The text placeholders in the template will be replaced with Showpad user profile details.

This article is intended to help admins new to the ACB app to create their first template.

Key features

• Enables the creation of tailored documents and presentations
• Helps provide customizable templates for sellers
• Uses real-time data on document creation
• Retains analytics on the generated documents of the original template

You need this to succeed

• Showpad Content Ultimate or Showpad Content Essential & Plus with the Enterprise add-on
• Showpad's Automated Content Builder add-on 
• Showpad admin access
• The Automated Content Builder app installed
• An existing Automated Content Builder Experience
• Access to the data required to configure the template

Do this step by step

• Prepare your template
• Upload your template to the ACB Experience
• Configure the required data
• Map template placeholders to the configured data
• Test the template
• Recap

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Prepare your template

Templates are Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Word documents. Google Slides or Docs directly imported to the Library from Drive will automatically be converted to PPTX or DOCX format when used in the Automated Content Builder.

Templates must contain placeholders. They are codes added in templates identified by curly braces: {example}. The template’s placeholders will then be linked to preconfigured data nodes. These nodes serve as connectors that retrieve the data required for the template. When a user creates a document from a template, the data retrieved is automatically inserted into the document's placeholders.

Multiple types of placeholders are available and can be used to insert different kinds of data into your presentation or document.

To create our first template with the ACB app, we’ve prepared a presentation that you can download at the end of this article. It contains the following text placeholders:

• {firstName}
• {lastName}
• {companyName}
• {email}

The idea is to create an introduction slide for Showpad users where the text placeholders will be replaced with Showpad user profile details.

Find more information on the different types of placeholders in this article.

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Upload your template to the Automated Content Builder Experience

1. From the Content menu, select Experiences and click on your ACB Experience in the Web app.
2. Select Templates from the left menu, then click New Template in the top right corner.
   
3. Enter a name for your template. Optionally, you can add a description.
4. Click in the Upload a new document box and select the template example (provided at the end of this article).
   If you have multiple Divisions, select which Division to add the file to and click the Upload button. The newly uploaded file will automatically be stored in your Library, and the specific tags that identify ACB templates (learn more here) will be applied to the asset. These tags make any asset selectable as a template in the ACB app.
5. Add the Template tag ‘intro’. These tags can be used in the overview page of the ACB Experience to quickly find templates with the Template tags filter.
6. Click Next.
   

Find more information about uploading templates to the ACB Experience in this article.

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Configure the data nodes

Data nodes serve as connectors, replacing template placeholders with pertinent data during the document generation process.

To collect all the data necessary for the template, you need to create a tree structure with the required data nodes. A tree structure is a flow of data nodes. Various flows can be created where each flow is represented by a tree branch. A tree branch has a first node and, optionally, one or various subsequent nodes. The subsequent nodes depend on the previous node’s input to be configured.

The example template only requires a single data node.

1. Click the plus icon in the Configure template tab to add a data node.
2. Select Showpad and User info. Optionally update the node name.
3. Click Save.
4. You can test the validity of your data node by clicking the Run data flow button in the bottom left corner.  The name of the node will turn green if it is valid or red if it is invalid. 

Find more information on the different types of data nodes in this article.

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Map the template placeholders to the corresponding data nodes

1. In the Placeholder configuration section on the right of the Configure template tab, click on the first placeholder tag box. Placeholders are presented alphabetically.
2. Select the Placeholder tag value that will replace the text placeholder from your configured nodes.
3. Optionally, you can add a Fallback value. It will be used if the selected field does not exist or is empty.
4. Click Save. When a placeholder has been successfully mapped to a data node, a check icon will be displayed and the mapped data node name will be displayed in the placeholder tag box. 
   
5. Repeat the process for each of the remaining placeholder tags and map them to their respective data nodes.
   

   Note: If all placeholders are not configured, a message will appear at the end of the placeholder list, and the Publish template button will be disabled.
   

6. After successfully configuring all placeholders, click Next to test your template. You’ll generate a document from your template and ensure that all the placeholders are replaced by the expected value.
   You can also directly publish the template by clicking the Publish template button in the top right corner.

In this article, find more information about mapping template placeholders to preconfigured data nodes.

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Test the template

1. On the Test your template tab of the Template Builder, update the document’s name if needed.
2. Click Generate preview.
   
   • If an error occurs when generating the document, you’ll be notified with an error message.
   • When the document has been created successfully, it will be uploaded to My Files. You will be notified when the file is done processing.
3. Use the link provided or the navigation menu to navigate to My Files. This will open a new window. Open the Automated Content Builder drafts folder in My Files, and click on your newly created template to see it in the asset viewer.
   
4. If you’re happy with the results, return to the ACB Experience and click Publish template in the top right corner.
   

Learn more about testing ACB templates in this article.

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Recap
We’ve built a template that aims to create an introduction slide for Showpad users. This template:

• is a PPTX file containing multiple, basic text placeholders with format {placeholder},
• uses data coming from the data node Showpad User profile details,
• generates a new document where each text placeholders are replaced with the user’s
• configured profile details.

Tip: Group placeholders to map them in bulk

For placeholders linked to the same data, we can use dot notation format: {Object.Field}.

For example, the Showpad data node returns a User object with the fields firstName, lastName, companyName, email, etc. So, in our example template, we can use the following placeholders:
        - {user.firstName}
        - {user.lastName}
        - {user.companyName}
        - {user.email}

Note that the object name in the placeholder is customizable. However, the fields name must be exactly the same as the fields contained within the object.

Placeholders linked to the same data will be displayed under the same group in the list of configurable placeholders. They can be bulk-mapped in a single click, all placeholders will then be automatically populated. Learn how to map grouped placeholders in this article. 

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