Merge Mode

Spin out many copies of documents with different data for various entities (like employees, group companies, etc.).

Samuel Smolkin avatar
Written by Samuel Smolkin
Updated over a week ago

In Office & Dragons, a Merge-style turnsheet is used to spin out or duplicate suites of documents for several different entity types.

Parts of the turnsheet

Headings Row

The Headings Row is made up of each of the Column Headings in your turnsheet. When you created this workflow tab, Office & Dragons pulled out and pre-populated this Row with any square bracketed text you may have had in your documents.

Protip: square bracketed text in your document headings will still be extracted and updated by Office & Dragons, meaning you can easily rename your documents for each entity in your Entity Rows.

Column Headings

Each individual column has a Column Heading at the top of it. This is the text that Office & Dragons will find in your documents or document titles to replace with the information in each Entity Row. Note: your Column Headings are not restricted to text in square brackets. You can include words, sentences, or even full paragraphs and clauses when either adding a new column or by entering the Edit Column Screen

Clicking on the arrow beside each Column Heading will open the Column Heading menu.

From this menu, you can click Delete column to delete the entire column (including the Column Heading and any information under that Heading in the Entity Rows). Additionally, you can use the Add column button from any Column Heading menu to insert a new column. (Alternatively, you can scroll to the right end of the turnsheet and click the + button there to add a column.)

By default, the columns are placed at the end of your turnsheet, in order to move your column hover over the Column Heading until a hand appears and drag and drop it to your desired place.

Edit Column Screen

Within this screen, you are able to edit various parameters of each column heading. From here, you can edit the Field Name section to identify which text in your documents should be replaced with the information in the Entity Rows. You are not limited to using square bracketed text in these sections. You can add words, sentences, or even full clauses to the Field Name box.

You can learn more about the options in this box at Turnsheet Column Types, Automation, and Editing Options. Once you're happy with your column settings, click Update.

Entity Rows

An Entity Row is attributed to any entity that you want to produce a suite of documents. These might be assets, people, companies, or any other entity that you need to create a personalized suite of documents for.

Each row that you complete will result in another suite being generated.

If you need to add additional rows, you can click the + Add New button at the bottom of your turnsheet.

NB: Every row, including blank rows, will create a new suite of documents. The turnsheet has a default of 10 Entity Rows. If you have fewer than 10 entities to populate, you will need to delete the extra rows to avoid using your document allowance. This can be accomplished by Right-Clicking and selecting Remove Row.

Previews

To view your previews click the Documents button in your turnsheet toolbar to view your document previews and add or remove documents.

Once clicking the Documents button, you will be shown a list of all the documents you have uploaded to this workflow. Clicking on one of those documents will show you a preview of each of the Entity Rows you have created in your turnsheet.

Once choosing a preview to view, the Preview Pane will open. It will allow you to preview the changes that will be made to your documents as a Redline. You can use this to review your documents before producing any documents to ensure that you are making the correct updates.

NB: Office & Dragons will Keep the format and style of your document.

You can choose whether to show document previews with or without the tracked changes. This makes it easier to verify the document is correct without the tracked changes. Click the toggle beside the Update Preview button within the preview pane and choose Show tracked changes or Don't show tracked changes.

The controls within document previews, allowing you to navigate through previews seamlessly, without the need to close, press back, and select the next document every single time. Efficiently navigate between row-versions of a document.

To remove documents from the panel, click the 3-dot menu button on any of the documents in the panel and select either Remove from tab to remove it from the current workflow (but keep it in the matter) or Delete to delete it from the matter entirely.

Apply to Documents

After reviewing and confirming the documents click Save and open the Apply to Documents options.

You have flexibility in how you save your documents. New documents will be saved in a folder containing all the updated documents created by your turnsheet (one suite of documents for each Entity Row on your turnsheet). This will be in the File section of your File Manager.

By default, Snapshots are turned on. These contain New documents and Redlines. Additionally, you can also choose to save an Excel copy of your turnsheet as well as copies of your original documents.

Regardless of which option you choose, clicking Finish will then cause Office & Dragons to apply the instructions from your turnsheet.

NB Once you click Save, any documents created by Office & Dragons will count against your subscription total.

After clicking Save, you'll see a progress bar pop up in the Save Manager, where you can keep an eye on your save progress in real-time. The Save Manager will also keep a history of your previous saves, and clicking on any one of them will instantly take you to the file manager for that matter.

To learn more about turnsheets check out Turnsheets 101 next! Or, if you want to learn about a related workflow type for making consistent edits to an entire suite of existing documents all at once (rather than making new ones), check out Find & Replace.

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