Word Processing applications like Microsoft Word have for years enabled organizations to create documents. There’s no doubt that they are helpful but they're not without a pain point. Many businesses generate repetitive documents, like quotes, contracts, letters, and presentations. The problem is such documents are prone to error, take time to generate, and are not fun to create repeatedly.
Thankfully, low or no code document automation is a solution to these pain points. Application vendors have developed software that can automate parts of these documents so that business-critical documents can be quickly and easily created without errors.
However, is automation without its perils?
Not at all!
A lot of the software is heavily dependent on programming language, something that the ordinary user may not have the skill to utilize. This means, every time a user needs a different task performed, they need to call on the programmer to write a new code. Say if a law firm automates its contracts, it would again have to call the IT specialist to help make changes to the template if they want to automate non-disclosure agreements.
The modern business world cannot have technology that is heavily dependent on people with specialized skills to perform tasks like these. This process frustrates the whole idea behind automation. It will delay workflows and put extra demands on the programmers who should be left to attend to more technical concerns of the organization.
The solution to this challenge is low-code technology. Programmers are giving the power of automation to the user. Application vendors are designing user-friendly software like Windward’s document automation that doesn’t require programming language to use.
Simple drag and drop and tag features help users to design and populate documents with data exactly how they want. The intuitive features provided to the user are intended to give them the ability to customize templates for their unique business needs. Organizations can build their own applications that do exactly what they want. For example, they can determine what sources can be used to collect data needed to generate documents.
Gartner predicts that low-code use will account for 65% of app development by 2024. This is mainly due to the current push for software that is ready for use out of the box. With the lessons learned from the pandemic, more organizations need to do document automation in minutes and install it without the help of IT specialists and they would also need to use it with ease.
If you’re a business owner, there’s a high chance that your business depends on technology to meet the demands of modern customers. The problem though is that a lot of technology doesn’t give you the flexibility and speed you require and often, the technology is too complicated for the ordinary user and so IT professionals like programmers need to step in and that comes with a huge financial implication.
This is where the low code/no-code software comes in.
These application development platforms are hinged on drag-and-drop and point-and-click features which make it possible for anyone to execute. It can be compared to ready mix concrete. You do not need to know how much sand or cement to add, you simply add water and get started. The simplicity of these platforms however doesn’t stop them from having the potential to offer solutions to complex tech needs within a business.
Organizations that depend on low-code document automation software experience quicker results since they do not have to wait for IT teams to write code to create documents. They are also able to upskill their staff, giving them new technology to improve efficiency.
Along with the benefits of document automation, organizations realize that they spend less on technology since there is no need to outsource technology or hire experts to perform tasks that originally seemed complex.
Document automation like Windward has seen a huge development in how it is implemented within organizations and more people are happier with its performance. Know more about our low/no-code document generation solutions.
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Adds various capabilities such as inequalities,descending sort, joins, and other functions.
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SQL Select Debugger
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Added a Query tab as a field for typing or pasting in a select statement
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All tags using that Data source will be automatically updated with that name.
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New single interface to replace 2 separate dialog boxes
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Displays of all the tags in the template, structured as they are placed in the template. This provides a simple & intuitive way to see the structure of your template. Also provides the capability to go to any tag and/or see the properties of any tag.
If you've just discovered us, we're excited. Learn more about Windward document automation software now.
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The ability to integrate the Windward Engine into Google’s cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications dubbed Google Applications Engine (GAE).
If you've just discovered us, we're excited. Learn more about Windward document automation software now.
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If you've just discovered us, we're excited. Learn more about Windward document automation software now.
Try Windward with our 30-day free trial and start creating documents in quick time with our low/no code solutions.
This new integration will allow for processing of complex scripts and bi-directional text such as Arabic. Your PDF output will be much tighter and more closely match your template, and we’ll be able to respond rapidly to PDF requests and fixes.
If you've just discovered us, we're excited. Learn more about Windward document automation software now.
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Includes support for new ForEach and slide break handling, table header row repeat across slide breaks, and native Microsoft support for charts and images.
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Tags are color coded in the template by type, making it easy to visually identify them.
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Version 13’s core code has been reworked and optimized to offer a reduced memory footprint, faster PDF generation and full documentation of supported features and limitations in the specifications for DOCX, XLSX and PPTX.
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Documents can include advanced Word image properties such as shadows, borders, and styles.
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Windward has updated HTML output to reflect changing HTML standards.
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Windward now works with a slew of new datasources: MongoDB, JSON, Cassandra, OData, Salesforce.com
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The Generate Code tool in the designer allows you to open an existing template and, with a click of a button, automatically create a window with the code needed to run your current template with all data sources and variables. Simply copy this code and paste into your application's code in the appropriate place. You now have Windward integrated into your application.
You only need to do this once. You do not do this for each template. Instead, where it has explicit files for the template and output, change that to parameters you pass to this code. Same for the parameters passed to Windward. This example uses explicit values to show you what to substitute in where.
Any pivot tables in an XLSX template are carried over to the XLSX output. The ranges in the pivot ranges are adjusted to match the generated output. So your final XLSX will have pivot tables set as expected in the generated file.
This makes creating an XLSX workbook with pivot tables trivial.
In an imported sub-template, if its properties for a style (ex. Normal) differ from the parent template's properties for the style, the use in the sub-template can be set to either use the properties in the sub-template, or the properties in the parent.
You set to retain when you don't want the child template's styling to change when imported. You set to use the parent when you want the styling of the imported template to match the styling in the parent.
Any explicit styling is always retained. This only impacts styling set by styles.
Tags can be placed in text boxes. Including linked text boxes. This gives you the ability to set the text in a textbox from your data.
Tags can be placed in shapes & smart art. This gives you the ability to set the text in a shape from your data.
When generating HTML output, the engine can either write bitmaps as distinct files the generate HTML references, or it can embed the images in the HTML providing a single file for the output.
You can place tags in pretty much any part of a template, including in footnotes & endnotes.
Any parts of a DOCX or XLSX (PowerPoint does not support this) file that are locked in the template, will be locked the same in the output.
If a font used in the template does not exist on the server generating a report, the font to substitute can be specified.
In addition, if a glyph to be rendered does not exist in the font specified, you can specify the replacement font. This can be set distinctly for European, Bi-Directional, and Far East fonts.
If you need this - it's essential. And if you don't need it, it's irrelevant.
Windward enables you to build a document by applying multiple datasources to the template simultaneously. When Windward is merging the data into a template, it processes the template by handling each tag in order, and each tag pulls from different datasources. (As opposed to processing all of one datasource, then processing the next.)
This allows the select tag to use data from another datasource in its select. For example, if you are pulling customer information from one data source, you can then pull data from the sales datasource using the customer ID of the customer presently processing to pull the sales information for that customer. If you're interested in patching together your data from multiple datasources, read this post on our blog.
