Documents on Action Items

Summary: This article describes how to configure Action Items with steps that automatically pull documents from the Association > Documents Library, or with steps that can automatically post documents to the Association Document Library. This article will also describe how to use dynamic tags so that documents can be sourced or organized by report dates.

If you are trying to learn more about adding attachments when stepping on an individual Action Item check out this article- Adding Attachments When Stepping an Action Item

Objectives:

• Configure an Action Item
• Pull documents from the step to the Association Document library
• Post documents from the step to the document library instead of pulling them from the Document Library
• Use dynamic tags in the File Path so that documents can be sourced or organized by report dates

When configuring the Action Item step, select the Document Setup:

1. Navigate to Settings > Action Types/Steps
2. Find the Action Item and drill down to the Step where the documents need to be added.
3. Click on the hamburger menu to the right and select Documents
4. Add one or more file paths using the  + Add New Record button.

Pulling Documents FROM the Library

• The Order Number dictates the order of the documents if you have multiple file paths
• If you want just one document, you’ll specify the path, including the full name of the document which includes the extension, such as .doc or .pdf 
  For example: to pull ONLY the Welcome Packet file, we would enter:
  • Documents/Welcome Packet/Welcome_Packet.pdf
• If you want all documents in a specific folder to be included, the file path to the folder will end with a slash (“/”). Following our previous example, to pull in everything from the Welcome Packet folder, we would use:
  
  • Documents/Welcome Packet/
• When working with an action item, any documents included on the Step setup will be sourced and included with the communication sent on that step.

Posting Documents TO the Library

• To post attachments from the Action Item Step to the Document library, select the Output checkbox
• If the file path configured does not exist in the Document Library, that path will be created automatically.
  • Note: Folders created in this way have a default Security of Board.
• If the file path ends with a slash ("/"), the document(s) will be posted with their existing file names.
• If you specify a file name, any attachments will be combined into a single file with that file name.
  • If there are any non-PDF documents, the output file will be a .ZIP
  • If all documents are PDF, the output file is a PDF
• If any reports or letters are generated on the same step that is posted to the Document Library, the system will wait until the generations are complete prior to posting. In this instance, there may be a few minutes before you see the documents in the Document Library.
• When working with an action item, any attachments included (either through the Existing Attachments field or Uploaded at that time) on the step configured to post documents will be saved in the specified location in the file path

Using Dynamic Tags in the File Path

It is possible to use dynamic tags in the file name so that documents can be sourced or organized by report dates. For example, if you wish to pull Invoice Images via an action item, a dynamic tag can be used to indicate the month and year.

• The proper format for a dynamic tag is [~ReportDate:XXXX~] where XXXX includes the specific info for the date.
  For example, if the file path is:   Documents/Bank Statements/2018/09/
  the dynamic file path would be:  Documents/Bank Statements/[~ReportDate:yyyy/MM~]/
• Syntax for a Year:
  • yyyy = Full Year (example: 2018)
  • yy = Two Digit Year (example: 18)
• Syntax for a Month:
  • MMMM = Full Name of the Month (example: January)
  • MMM = Abbreviation of the Month (example: Jan)
  • MM = Two Digit Month (example: 01)
  • M = Single Digit Month (example: 1)

Real-Use Example #1:

A New Owner Setup Action Item needs to generate a Welcome Letter and include several forms and documents for the new owner.

• The Welcome Letter step on the Action Item will include the Welcome Letter Template under the Letter Setup
• The same step would include a Document Setup with the File Path of "Documents/Welcome Packet/". We are not selecting the "Output" checkbox and we will include a "/" at the end of the file name to make sure that we get ALL documents in the folder.
  
• When the attachment is generated on this step, it will first show the Welcome Letter and then include all documents from the Welcome Packet folder in the Document Library

Real-Use Example #2

A Financial Delivery Action Item needs to post an approved financial packet to the Financials folder in the Association Document Library.

• An approval step on the action item will have a Document Setup with a file path of "Documents/Financials/[~ReportDate:yyyy/MMMM~] Financials.pdf"
  
• We use the "Output" box to indicate that we want to post the documents to the Document Library
• We are naming the document in the Document Library with the Year and Month. In this example, if we are working with our August 2018 financials, the actual file path would be: Documents/Financials/2018/August Financials.pdf