Csv  Word docx document(s)

Overview

What's this workflow for?

This workflow is for extracting rows of data from a csv file normally created by Microsoft Excel, or a 3rd party interface. Each row of data represents the data to populate a docx file.

This workflow allows you to quickly create batches of documents from the 1 csv data source.

You can also add multiple word docx template documents to the project allowing for batch creation of multiple document layouts from a single csv file

This workflow suits many requirements. In this example below, this workflow is creats a PDR (Professional Development Review) document for each employee within a company from a single word document.

The problem with doing this process manually is the sheer bulk of documents to edit, making it hard to achieve 100% accuracy and thus making manual editing time consuming and error prone.

A note about downloads in this workflow

Because this workflow has the ability to create multiplef documents from the 1 docx template document, the download output will always be a zip file.

Tutorial: Create PDR (Professional Development Review) documents for each employee of your company

Read the steps below to gain an understanding on how this functions.

Prepare your input csv document

Think about what text needs to change in your docx document. In this example, we have decided that the PDR document is the same from person to person except for 4 things.

  • Name
  • Persons strengths
  • Personal traits which can be improved
  • Salary adjustment
So an example csv file can look like this: 


    employee, strengths, improvements, salary                    
    "Emily Johnson", "adaptable,communication,creative","punctuality,negative",$1000
    "William Brown","dependable,flexibile,initiative","defensive,honesty,accountability,time management",$2000
    "Olivia Davis","leadership,problem-solving,teamwork","dependable,flexibile,initiative",$3500
    "Ethan Smith","adaptable,communication,creative","negative,work quality,teamwork",$8000
    "Charlotte Wilson","dependable,flexibile,initiative","defensive,honesty,accountability,time management",$1200
    "Michael Lee","leadership,problem-solving,teamwork,time management","punctuality,communication,resistance to change",$3400
    "Sophia Anderson","adaptable,communication,creative","negative,work quality,teamwork",$4500
    "Jacob Taylor","dependable,flexibile,initiative","defensive,honesty,accountability,time management",$1100
    "Emma Martinez","leadership,problem-solving,teamwork,time management","punctuality,communication,resistance to change",$3000
    "Benjamin Clark","adaptable,communication,creative","negative,work quality,teamwork",$1000

The first line 

employee, strengths, improvements, salary
is what maps the column data in the csv to the tag in the word docx file. So for example, when the workflow finds the tag that equates to the employee name, the column which maps to this data is substituted into the word document. In this case column 1 will be substituted to the employee tag in the docx document. This will be illustrated later.

A word about the csv file

The first line MUST be the header row, and this row contains the field names for each column in the csv file. This workflow 100% requires this line is present.

CSV (comma separated variables) use a comma to separate columns on a line. If you have data that has a comma in it, like the strengths column above, you MUST enclose that column in double quotes. If you don't do this, the line will be skipped from the process as it will designate this line as incorrectly formatted.

Prepare your output word docx document(s)

Think about what text needs to change in your docx document with each line in the csv file. Remember that the word document is a template, which contains tags which will signify to Docuword which text to place into the document. Tags should be unique and meaningful.

In this example, the tags will have the same name as the csv field description name, with brackets to ensure these tags are unique within the document. Tags are highlighted in green

Now we have a foundation on how to prepare the documents, it's time to create the project.

Create a new project

Click the New Project button to create a new project.

Add the project details

Give the project a name and optional description.

Add the csv file

Click the browse button and add the csv file.

Add the Word docx file

Click the browse button and add the word document(s).

Configure the mappings
A note about mappings

Mapping data is case sensitive.

Here is where you map the columns in the csv file to the tags in the Microsoft word docx document.

Name is the column name in the csv file, which is described on the first line in the csv file.

Docx tag is the tag in the Microsoft Word file in which the data in the csv file is inserted into the docx document.

Save your project

Save the project by clicking the Save button.

You will be taken back to the projects list.

Run the Workflow

Click the play button, which will run the task which executes the workflow. Once the task is finished, a download button will appear next to each document for you to download. In this workflow, it will be a zip file as there will most likely be multiple documents created from 1 word document.

Download the processed documents

Click the download button to download the zip associated with each output document.

View the results

Open a document and verify the data has been merged into each word docx document.

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