Word Templates

Filevine Word templates allow users to download a Microsoft Word template, make formatting changes including MergeField formatting, and upload the template to a report so that every file exported adheres to the configured template. With a Word template, report data can be transformed into a series of paragraphs, pages, or even an easily readable list or table.

Templated reports are useful for formatting commonly used reports, like Auto-Reporting. With Collection Exports, users can even produce templated documents containing data from a Collections Section.

Filevine Fusion makes use of the same templating system, with a few changes to accommodate templating several reports simultaneously. See “Configuring for Filevine Fusion.” 

Filevine report Word templates for normal reports, Collection Sections, and Filevine Fusion require a deep understanding of several Filevine features as well as Microsoft Word. Please make sure to read the articles on the Customs Editor, Report Builder, Collections Exports, and Filevine Fusion and consult Microsoft’s Word help center.

Note: Filevine officially recommends and supports Microsoft Office 2016 or later and Office 365. 

How to Set Up a Report Export

1. Begin in the “Save Report” page of the Report Builder. Build and run a report, then click the “Save Export/Report” button to get to the “Save Report” page.
   
2. Save your report. Save your report to bring up the “Export Options” button.
   
3. Download the default template. Click on the “Export Options” button. In the “Export Options” window, click the “Word” button under step 1. This will generate a default Word template link that you can download, edit, and upload to use for this report. Click the generated link to download the template.
   
4. Edit and upload. Make any changes, save the Word document, and then click the “Upload Template” button in step 3 of the “Export Options” window and upload your saved Word document. Filevine will verify your template, so uploading may take some time.

Word templates for Filevine Fusion are downloaded, edited, and re-attached in the “Template” tab of the Filevine Fusion Advanced tool. To navigate to the tool, click the main menu and select "Advanced" from the dropdown. Then select "ReportFusions" from the left-hand side menu. 

Configuring Word Templates

Word templates for reports are similar to a typical MailMerge in Microsoft Word. The main difference is that a Filevine report is used as the mail merge data source in place of a separate Excel file or an on-site database.

Filevine’s default Word template contains pre-formatted MergeField fields, one for each column in your report, as shown below. The MergeField field names correspond to the section selectors of the custom fields. To toggle the display of MergeField parts and other Word fields, use the keyboard shortcut ALT-F9. 

The special merge codes “start:ReportName{{Report ID}}” and “end:ReportName{{Report ID}}” dictate the beginning and end of a repeating range. In your export, the formatting and arrangement of the fields within the repeating range will be applied to every row in the source report. Specific formatting switch codes for MergeField fields can be found in the article on MergeField Formatting.

MergeFields can be repeated within the repeating ranges. These repeating ranges can take many forms, primarily paragraphs, pages, and tables. MergeFields outside the repeating range will be populated with data from the first row of the source report.

Repeating Paragraphs

The MergeField fields can be repeated and rearranged in line with other text, allowing for repeating paragraphs per report row, as shown below:

Repeating Pages

The repeating range of MergeField fields can also be extended to take up an entire page, so that the generated file includes a page per row in your source report. To set up repeating pages, place the start MergeField before all content at the top of your document, and place the end MergeField in the document footer.

Word Tables

The report data can also populate a table. In the first row of a table (after any headers), cut and paste the start MergeField before the first data MergeField in the leftmost top cell, and cut and paste the end MergeField after the last data MergeField in the rightmost bottom cell.

Referencing Data Outside the Repeating Range

MergeField fields can be placed outside the repeating range. These fields will be populated with data from the first row of the source report. This technique is especially useful for inputting data from your report that repeats for every row, like for an OrgName column, or an amount total from a collections export.

To reference a field outside the repeating range, use the following syntax:

{{reportID::fieldSelector}}

This technique can be useful for a totaled field in collections as it saves you the trouble of having to make calculations. For instance, if you wanted to add a table of medical providers, amounts, and a total, you would use a template like this:

Note that you should not use a merge field for data outside the repeating ranges; use plain text.

Configuring for Filevine Fusion

Filevine Fusion extends normal Word report templates by allowing for multiple repeating ranges to be output to a single exported document. This ability allows your firm to quickly assemble Word documents that include data across project Sections, project types, or even Orgs. To begin, download the default Word template from the template tab in the Filevine Fusion Advanced tool.

The default template for Filevine Fusion is similar to a basic Word report template, except that the fusion template includes a group of MergeField fields, with start and end codes for each report included in the fusion—one per page. The repeating ranges and the data MergeField inside them can be formatted like a basic Word template report—just make sure not to overlap the ranges.

Nesting Reports

Filevine Fusion can generate documents that have repeating data nested within a repeating range for a List of Projects report. For example, you could produce a document with one page per project that includes a table of all notes created in each project. Any report where each row is associated with a project is eligible for nesting:

• List of Contacts
• List of Notes
• List of Tasks
• List of Docs
• Deadlines
• Calendar Events
• List of [Collection] Items

When configuring a fusion for nesting, the "parent" project report must be listed above any "child" report in the Filevine Fusion tool. If you misorder the reports, you will need to delete that fusion and recreate a new one in order for the nesting function to work.

To configure the fusion template for nesting, cut and paste the repeating ranges with MergeFields of the child within the start/end codes of the parent report with your desired formatting. The Start and End codes of the child report must be edited to include the report ID of the parent report, along with a dash, like so:

Fusion and Word Overview

Watch the video below to hear one of our Filevine experts explain when to choose word templates, MERGEfield behavior, and how to use conditional formatting.