Create and Configure Document Templates
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Understand the purpose and capabilities of Salesforce Spiff Document Management.
- Create and configure a new document template, including uploading text and images.
- Manage document templates, including saving drafts, publishing, duplicating, and archiving templates.
What Is Salesforce Spiff Document Management?
With Salesforce Spiff's document management experience, files can be created and customized. You can set up approval processes where documents requiring one or more approvers, such as contracts, can be sent out to any number of sales reps in Salesforce Spiff with a few clicks. Additionally, with our Merge Fields functionality, the documents you create can be quickly customized for each rep.
Note: Documents are only approved with this feature; recipients cannot add signatures to files sent to them with this feature.
Create and Customize a New Document Template
To get started, click Documents using the navigation bar at the top of your screen. From the Documents page, click +New Template, where you can then create and customize your new template.
Create the Template
From the Documents page, you can perform these actions.
- Name the template.
- Copy and paste your document text from an external Word document composer or PDF. You can also compose a document directly in the tool.
- Upload images.
- Customize any merge fields that will populate the document with custom entries per user. (You learn how to use merge fields in detail in Unit 3.)
- Save a draft of the template.
- Preview how the document will appear to potential recipients.
- Download a PDF preview.
- Publish the template. (Note: Once a template is published, it’s no longer editable. Published templates need to be copied or duplicated, after which edits can be made to the duplicate. This is to preserve the integrity of the template—that is, it can't be changed after it’s been sent to approvers.)
Remember to click Save Draft as you work to retain any changes to the file.
Draft, Preview, and Publish Templates
Now that you know where to create your templates, let’s go over how to draft, preview, and publish them.
Draft Templates
After navigating to the Documents tab and clicking +New Template, a blank template will appear. Once you name your template and include content in the body of the template, the option to save the draft is grayed out. You can select Save Draft anytime during this process and your work is saved before you exit. Once you save your draft and navigate out of the template to the Documents tab, your new template appears under the Templates tab in Documents. You can come back to work on your template as many times as needed until you publish it.
Preview Templates
Once you save your template as a draft, you can preview the document before publishing it. In the preview, you can select a rep to view the document as. Click 
(only available if the template has been saved as a draft) to see how this document appears to users before sending it out. When in preview mode, use the dropdown at the top of the screen to select recipients and view the document with their corresponding merge field entries populated. The preview option allows you to view the document as that user and confirm the merge fields are populating as expected. You can also download a PDF preview using the export icon 
on the top right of your screen.
Publish Templates
After your customization is complete, click Publish Template on the top right of your screen. Remember, once a template is published, it's no longer editable. Published templates need to be copied or duplicated, after which edits can be made to the duplicate.
Document Template Management
The main templates tab is where you can send, duplicate, archive, and delete your existing templates. Note that archived templates can be unarchived at any time. If you delete a template, note that any document that has been sent for approval or sent and fully approved—that is, any documents listed in the Approval Requests tab—isn’t affected. However, the template is no longer available to send out for additional approvals.
The next screenshot outlines each action available for documents. With the buttons, you can send a published template, duplicate a template, archive a template, or delete a template. Remember, deleting a template is permanent and can't be undone, so only delete what you absolutely must. The recommended approach for removing historical templates is to archive those files.
Resources
- Salesforce Spiff: Documents and Document Approvals (login credentials required)