How cool – creating word documents using a workflow

I just came across this feature the other day, using a pre-built action to generate a word document via a workflow. There are actually 100s of actions that you can explore in workflows that might actually remove some development.

So how do you generate a word document from a workflow, it’s really simple, just follow these simple steps. In my example I will use the OOB account summary template as an example.

1. Navigate to Settings->Processes
2. Create a new process of type workflow, give it a name “Generate Document” etc
3. For my example I am going to make the workflow On Demand, jus to demonstrate the functionality, but think of these examples:
   1. Creating an opportunity summary at the develop stage of an opportunity
   2. Creating a campaign summary at the end of the campaign
   3. Creating a Case report
4. At the end of the day this is a workflow so all workflow logic applies
5. So for my example all I need to do is select Perform Action
6. 
7. Scroll down the many actions and select SetWordTemplate
8. 
9. Leave the Entity as None
10. Click on Set Properties
11. Select the template from the dropdown list
12. Select Account
    1. NOTE: if you are using a custom entity, the entity is required to be enabled for Business Process Flows to be able to be added
13. 
14. Save and Close
15. Activate

That’s it, simple. Now when you go to an account record and select to run an on demand workflow, the Generate document will display.

The document is stored as a note attachment against the record.

At the moment this solution does not attach to SharePoint, but I am sure clever people could expand this capability!