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Gavel 101: Onboarding

Welcome! You've joined thousands of attorneys who are elevating their legal practices through seamless document automation.

Let's take a few minutes to learn how to automate a document.

This is your dashboard, which you can access by selecting "Workflows" from the left navigation bar. From here, you can edit any of your existing workflows or create a new one.

Your Dashboard

Let's start by creating a new workflow.

A workflow is a set of questions that you or your clients will answer to generate one or more documents.

Click New Workflow to start building. Then, choose start from scratch.

Click "New Workflow" > Select "Start from Scratch"

Be sure to name your workflow so you remember what document it is going to generate when you reference it.

Congrats! You've created your first workflow. 

Remember to Name Your Workflow > Name Your Section > Name Your Page

Next, name your first section and page.

Questions will appear to users on pages, and pages can be grouped into sections.

Let's name this section "Basic Information."

Now, name the page.

Change the page name to "Information about you."

Name your first section and page

Next, click add question.

Then you can choose the type of question you'd like to add. First, let's add a text question. Each question has a:

1. Question Title, which is the prompt your users will see when they complete this questionnaire
2. Variable Name, which is the key you'll use to insert this question's answer in your documents and to set logic

and

3. Question Type, which sets the format of answers this question will accept
Select the Text question type under the Add Question dropdown

Enter "What is your full name?" in the question title field.

Next, add a variable name.

The variable name is the key you'll use to tie this question's answer to your documents and to any logic you set in your workflow.

Your users won't see this, but you'll want this name to make sense to you.

Enter the variable name "full_name."

You've added a question to your workflow!

Next, add your question title, variable name, and question type

Now that your question has a title, variable name, and type, let's see what it will look like to your users.

Click save to save your changes.

Then, click Run to run your workflow. Lastly, you can answer your questions!

What you see after you "Save" your workflow and click "Run" > Next, Answer Your questions

Once you've added documents templates, you can run your workflow to generate those documents.

Next, set up your document templates!

Once you've created your questions, you can add your variables to your document templates. Go back to your add questions view and click on the Document Templates tab to start.

You can add add documents in .docx or .pdf format.

The Document Templates view where you can upload a PDF or a Word document.

Continue Here for Word Documents (if you'd like to generate a PDF, scroll down)

Let's set up your first Word template!

You'll insert variables into your Word document templates using Gavel's Microsoft Word add-in.

To do this, you'll first head to your Dashboard > Settings > API Keys to set up an API key that you'll use this to log into the Word add-in.

Once you've added variables to your document, you'll return to the Document Templates page to upload your document template.

Name your API key "Word Add-In"

Name the key "Word add-in," then click Create a Key. This name is just for your reference. Enter "Word add-in" here, then click Create a Key.

Click Copy API Key and paste this key into the Gavel Word add-in to log in. You'll also need your subdomain to log in - as a reminder, you named your subdomain in the signup process (it's the part of the url that comes before "gavel.io."

Click "Create a Key" and then be sure to "Copy API Key" before closing this pop-up

Once you've copied your key, click the Word Add-In link under Document Templates view in your workflow to launch Microsoft Word and install the Gavel Word add-in.

Add your API key to the sidebar as well as your subdomain under "Client Name" to sign in

Once you've logged in to the Word add-in, return to edit your workflow. Guidance will continue there.

In the Word add-in, add the full_name variable to your document.

Select your workflow in progress at the top > select "full_name" variable from the dropdown > click "Insert variable"

Once you've added this variable to your document and saved it, go back to your workflow view under Document Templates and click the Attach template to workflow button or drag and drop your document to upload it.

Then run the workflow again to generate your document. You will need to answer your question and review it to generate the document.

Add your full name to the question and click "Continue"
Review your answer and hit "Continue"
Download "DOCX" version of your file to see the automated .docx with your full_name variable inserted

Congrats! Now that you've attached an document template to your workflow, you can run the workflow to answer your questions and generate that document.

While not a real example, you can see that the highlighted "full_name" variable above now displays the name you typed in the taker form

For more assistance, please contact our support team at help@gavel.io or schedule a support call here.

Continue Here for PDF Documents (if you'd like to generate a .docx, scroll up)

First, upload your PDF to the Document Templates tab of your workflow.


Your PDF will appear as a large rectangle with the name under "Document" and a button on the right that says "Tag." Next, click on the word "Tag" to open the PDF Tagger.

Here, you can see your PDF and click on any of the fields you want to be filled out as you answer questions in your workflow.

Next, click on the first field that you want to fill out. Choose "Insert Variable" from the dropdown on the right.

When you select "Insert variable" a list of all the variables (questions) in your workflow will appear. If you don't have any questions in your workflow yet, close out of here and create some questions that represent the fields that need to be filled in this PDF. Select the variable you want to fill this field.

Do this for all the fields that want to fill in. When you are ready to test how this looks, click "Save."

Now you can click "Run" on the workflow, answer the questions in the workflow, and see how they populate into the PDF.

For more assistance, please contact our support team at help@gavel.io or schedule a support call here.