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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Create and Publish Docs Templates

Create and Publish Docs Templates

Security: These domains in the System functional area:
  • Drive
  • Docs
  • Document Library
This task applies only to business processes that Workday Docs supports.
The publish feature enables you to work on content at a draft level for as long as you need to, preventing those changes from being incorporated when the associated business process runs. As soon as you publish the content, the business process uses the latest content. Workday constantly auto-saves your changes, but those changes aren't effective in the template until you publish.
Keep these considerations in mind when creating and publishing templates:
  • Docs doesn't support automated conversion of templates based on text blocks into the Docs template format.
  • Docs doesn't support reusable content between templates. Example: If the same content is in two templates, you need to update it in both.
  • If you want to automatically share a Docs template with a set of users, you can share a folder in Drive with individual users or with a security group, and place the new template into that folder.
  • Docs doesn't support automatically publishing on a future date. If you want to hold your changes back until a specified date, you need to manually publish on that date.
  • Docs doesn't support concurrent editing or publishing of templates by more than 1 user.
  • Docs doesn't support right-to-left (RTL) language formatting.
  • When you create a new template, the new template will be available to configure to the business process even if you haven't published it yet. Until you publish it, the document generated from it will be blank. We recommend not configuring a template to a BP until after you publish it.
  • If you upload a previously downloaded template file, make sure you publish it before configuring it to the business process.
  1. From Drive, select
    Add New
     >
    Document Template
     and name the template.
    For DocuSign, you must use a name that is fewer than 100 characters. For Adobe Sign, names can't contain special characters such as the ampersand (&).
    Where applicable, Workday Docs automatically sets the Resulting Document Expiration Offset to 10 years; currently this value isn't editable.
  2. Select a source.
    The Source is the business process type that uses the Generate Document step for the document. Example: The Offer business process type can be a Source.
  3. Select a category.
    Document categories organize and manage different types of documents that are associated with workers or other objects in Workday. You can use segment-based security groups to restrict the document categories displayed in the prompt.
  4. (Optional) Change the base language of the template by clicking
    Language
    Add Language
    , then select the new base language.
    When you initially create the template, Workday Docs sets the base language to English; any new language instances will copy the English content as a starting point for your translated template.
    As soon as you save the change to the base language, any new language instances that you create from the base language template will copy the new base language content.
    Existing template language instances retain the same content.
    We recommend doing any base language change as a separate action in the Languages dialog from adding new language instances. If you open the Languages dialog, change the base language, add languages, and then save, the new languages will inherit content from the previous base language and not the one you just selected.
  5. Configure the layout, such as headers and footers, and the content of the template.
    The template initially is in an unpublished state.
    A
    Published
     (green) or
    Unpublished Changes
     (orange) indicator displays at the top of the template to indicate the status of the content. It doesn't identify individual changes, but the overall status of the template.
  6. (Optional) Add language instances for the template by clicking
    Language
    Add Language
    .
    When you create a language instance, Docs copies the existing content from the base language into the new instance. Then you use that content as a guide and manually replace it with the content in the desired language.
    You create and manage translated content in headers and footers in the same way as the template content. Each language has separate headers and footers.
    Language instances don't have any specific language requirements; the language name is simply an identifier that helps you track the different language instances in the template.
    If a generated document is sent to a user whose preferred language doesn't match any of the defined language instances, Workday sends that user the base language document.
  7. Click
    Publish
     to make the current content active in the template.
    As soon as you publish the template, business processes start using the updated template when generating documents.
    When you click
    Publish
    , if any errors exist in the template:
    • A red dot displays next to a language in the text editor drop-down list and the headers/footers drop-down list if the language instance contains one or more errors in data fields, condition rules, or images.
    • A red border displays around the text editor drop-down list and the headers/footers drop-down list if any language has an error. The red border displays until you fix all errors in all the language instances.
    • A red banner and check box display in the condition rule or data field panel, enabling you to display only the rules or fields with errors.
  8. Make additional changes to the template as needed. As soon as you make a change, its state changes to Unpublished, and the orange
    Unpublished Changes
     indicator displays at the top of the template. Your template changes aren't used in the business process until you click
    Publish
     to activate those changes.