Upload templates to the Automated Content Builder Experience

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.

Templates are Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Word documents that contain placeholders. 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.

The template’s placeholders are linked to preconfigured data nodes. These nodes serve as connectors, replacing placeholders with pertinent data during the document generation process. This saves time and effort in creating tailored presentations and enforces brand standards.

Now that we’ve added placeholders and transformers to templates, we’ll learn how to upload our template to the ACB Experience.

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
• Templates with placeholders
  
  

Do this step by step

1. Navigate to Content, Experiences, and enter the Automated Content Builder Experience in the Web App.

2. On the Templates tab, click New Template in the top right corner.
   

3. In the Templates details tab, fill in a template name and an optional description.
   

4. Select the asset you want to use as a template. You can:

   • Select an asset from your existing documents in the dropdown menu. Only assets with the ACB template tag defined when creating the Experience will appear in the dropdown.
     

   • Upload a new asset. If you have multiple Divisions, select which one to add the file to and click Upload. The newly uploaded file will automatically be stored in your Library and given the ACB template tag defined when creating the Experience.
     

5. Optionally, you can add template tags to your selected asset. They can be used to quickly find templates with the Template tags filter in the overview page of the ACB Experience.
   

6. Toggle the Configure filename setting to enable a fixed filename or disable it to allow users to modify the filename.
   

   • If you enable the fixed filename, a field will appear to enter the chosen filename. Users won't be able to change it, but text placeholders can be used in the filename. For example {accountId}-{accountName}-{date}. These placeholders are configurable in the same place as the other placeholders in the ACB Experience in the Showpad Web app.

   • If you don’t enable filename configuration, the filename will be the template name followed by the current date and time. For example, "My template 2023-11-24 10:03". This can be changed by the user when generating a document.

7. You can save your template as a draft by clicking Save as draft in the top right corner.
   Or, click Next to configure and map the required data nodes to your placeholders. 
   

Continue to our next article to learn how to configure the data nodes needed for your template.