Abtrac Job Templates are also known as Proposals, Fee Estimates, and Mail Merge Documents.
They allow you to create editable documents that contain information from Abtrac such as client contacts, job, project and task details. This information can be intertwined with other details such as terms of engagement etc.
How it works is you create the different report types that you use i.e. proposal, letter of engagement etc., and within those reports, you add different sections with the required information.
Creating your different proposal report types
To create a report type, navigate to Administration > Settings > System Settings.
Under Clients and Jobs/Projects select the Default Job Template Button
Edit the report name to represent the type of report template you are creating using the pencil on the left and then click on the name of the newly created report to edit the layout.
After clicking on the name you’ll see the following screen where you’ll customise your template.
The left-hand side options are items you can place on the screen.
The right-hand side has your data source, and your properties (font sizes, label names etc.) you can apply to the items on the screen.
Video: Creating Project Template Documents
Creating different proposal template sections
Each template can have up to 20 different template sections.
To create a section go to Administration > Settings > System Settings.
Under Clients and Jobs/Projects select the Job/Project “Document Sections”
Manage Document Sections (Default Job Templates)
When the manage document sections screen is open, click on the plus at the top to create the different template sections or blocks that sit within your template.
Section Name and Numbers
Give the template section a name and give it a section number (the number has to be unique and is required when creating the actual report).
Section Text
You can either copy and paste the content from a Word Document or write it and style it using the design buttons at the top, or using the HTML window at the bottom.
To add data-related fields from Abtrac, place your cursor where you want the field to appear and then click on the button on the left-hand side to give you the list of available fields
Once your template sections are created then you can move on to designing the report and using this information.
Linking Document Sections to your Proposal Reports
To add the template sections you created in the first step of this process drag a rich text box onto the screen from the left-hand side (item shown in blue above).
To bind the rich text to your sections, select the rich text and on the right-hand side switch to the properties tab using the “cog wheel” icon and edit the HTML Expression by clicking the ellipsis button to include the section number you set up in the earlier step.
This is where the section number comes from in Manage Document Sections, and why it’s important to be unique
Creating Proposals for a Project
Load any job/project and go to the print section.
Then select the template report you want to produce and click print.
The above template that was created will finally look like this through all the steps.
Sections for Documents
Report Document Template
Example of proposal letter for a selected project
Abtrac KB# 2110