Creating online database apps can be a great way to easily collect information and organize it across your organization. With tools like Caspio, you can create forms , reports, and applications quickly without any programming.
Alongside all of this data you collect/organize, you often need that information in contracts, letters, reports and more. With Formstack Documents, you can take that data you have coming into Caspio and automatically populate PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and more.
In this example, we’re going to show you show to automatically generate a contract (and have it signed via DocuSign) for a customer when we add a new customer to our Caspio database app. With the help of Zapier, we’ll be able to automatically send that data from Caspio to Documents.
To get started, we’re going to setup the template for our contract using a Word document. Inside the Word document, we’re going to have our normal contract clauses, but we’re going to use merge fields where we want our customer’s information to go. There merge fields look like {$FirstName}, {$LastName}, etc.
Here’s what our contract template looks like:
Since we’ll be using DocuSign to collect a signature from our customer, we need to add one more tag to the document. This signature tag tells DocuSign where in the document to place the customer’s signature. The tag looks like this: \s1\
Once we have our template ready to go, it’s time to upload it to Documents. From the Documents page in Formstack Documents, click the New Document button. Enter a name for your document, then on the next step pick Office Document as the document type and pick the file from your computer.
After you’ve uploaded your template, you’re going to be taken to the Settings tab. Here you can update different options like the type of file that is generated and even the name of the file. For this example we’re going to generate a PDF and include the name of the customer in the file name.
Next, we’re going to setup the delivery to DocuSign so that our merged documents are automatically sent off for signature. Head on over to the Deliver tab, click the New Delivery button, then select DocuSign.
After you’ve logged into your DocuSign account, you’ll see the options for the Delivery. You’ll need to give a subject for the email that the customer receives and then define the signer’s name and email address.
That finishes up the setup within Documents! Now we’re ready to setup the integration with Caspio using Zapier. Inside Zapier, we’re going to create a new Zap. For the Trigger service, we’re going to pick Caspio and then New Record as the trigger.
Zapier will have you authenticate your Caspio account and then you can pick the table in your database that you want to monitor.
Next, we’re going to setup the integration with Documents. For the Action, pick Formstack Documents as the service and then Create Document Merge as the action.
After you’ve authenticated your Documents account, Zapier will load a list of the documents in your account. Go ahead and pick the contract document that you just setup and then Zapier will load a list of all the merge fields that are in your document.
For each of the merge fields, you need to choose the corresponding fields from your Caspio database. Click the icon on the right of the box to find the Caspio fields.
Once you have all of the merge fields mapped, go ahead and save the Zap then turn it on. It’s time to do a test! Go into Caspio and enter a new record in your database, then Zapier will take that information and send it over to Documents. Your contract will be generated and sent over to DocuSign for signing.
Here’s what our contract looked like ready for signature:
Congrats, you’re all done! You can now generate all kinds of documents from your Caspio database. Can you think of any other ways that you could use Formstack Documents to simplify your paperwork process?