Document templates

What templates control, how their placeholders relate to transaction data, and why thirty seconds at setup prevents a whole class of generation failure later.

Overview

A template is a Word document with placeholders, registered against the transaction types it can be used for. Templates are not written in the platform — your advisers author them, and you register them here.

The part worth your attention is the placeholders. Getting them right at setup prevents a class of failure that otherwise appears later, during document generation, disguised as a data problem.

What you'll learn

The three things that go into registering a template
What attributes are, and the two states that matter
Why an unrecognised placeholder fails every time rather than sometimes
Why the transaction types you register matter

Registering a template

Three things:

A Template Name.
One or more Transaction Types — at least one is required. This categorises which templates can be used for which transaction type.
The document itself, dragged in or browsed for. Accepted formats are .docx, .dotx and .pdf.

Attributes: the placeholders

A template's placeholders are its attributes, and the platform shows you which ones your document uses. The Used Attributes list gives each attribute's value, a short alias, and an example of what it will be filled with.

Two states in that list matter.

Unknown attribute. Your document contains a placeholder the platform does not recognise. Nothing maps to it, so it will never be filled. This is the state to catch here rather than later.

Signature attribute. A placeholder marking where a signature goes rather than data. These are what let the signature service place signature fields in the right position.

Why this is the cheap moment

When a document fails to generate, you are asked for the values the template needed and could not find. If those are already filled, the platform points upstream — to the shareholder's KYC, the transaction configuration, or the payment.

That is a template question wearing generation clothes. A template asking for data the platform never holds will fail every time it is used, for every transaction, in every subscription process — and at generation it looks like a data problem rather than a template one.

Reading the Used Attributes list when you register a template is the cheapest possible moment to catch it: once at setup, rather than once per transaction per subscription process.

Matching templates to transaction types

Registering the types a template applies to is what makes the right template offered for the right transaction. A transfer needs an ordre de mouvement; an issuance needs something else.

Get the types wrong and either the template is not offered where it should be, or it is offered where it makes no legal sense.

Practical guidance

Set templates up before you need them. Registering one mid-process under time pressure is when attribute mistakes get missed.
Read the Used Attributes list every time. It is the review step, and it takes seconds.
Resolve every Unknown attribute before relying on the template. Either the placeholder is misspelled, or it is asking for something the platform does not hold.
Check the examples. Each attribute shows an example value — the fastest way to confirm a placeholder means what you think it means.
Templates are your advisers' work. The wording is theirs; the placeholders are the interface between their wording and the platform's data. A change to either side needs the other checked.

Common problems

Generation fails on every transaction using one template. The template is the problem, not the data. Look at its attributes.

A placeholder stays empty in the generated document. It is probably an unknown attribute — nothing maps to it.

The right template is not offered for a transaction. Its registered transaction types do not include that type.

Signatures land in the wrong place. The signature attributes in the document are misplaced. That is a Word document fix, not a platform one.

A2.1 — Creating a project · where template setup sits in the sequence
A8.6 — Subscription process: generating and reviewing documents · where template mistakes surface
A8.7 — Subscription process: defining signers · how signature attributes are used