Document Assembly

Learn by Video – What is Document Assembly?

Amicus Attorney help you generate and keep track of the many documents you need to produce in the course of your work. This section describes how to generate a document and attach it to your Amicus records, and how to create, edit, and manage your Merge Templates. You may also use a Merge Template for generating an e-mail message to one or more of your Amicus Contacts.

What is Document Assembly?

Document Assembly is a phrase used to describe the automatic assembly of documents or e-mails. This process uses document templates, which contain both unchanging text and Merge Variables. These variables are placeholders for the text that is automatically supplied from your Amicus Files, People, Calendar, and Time Entry records when you generate a particular document or e-mail. Several sample templates are provided to get you started.

Merge Templates are defined as Amicus Template records that facilitate organization, set various attributes, allow for the selection of Extended Fields from Files, permit the use of a Map to translate Amicus data to variables created with another application, and so on. Each Amicus Template record references a corresponding template file (.DOT, . WPD, etc.).

The program that combines the standard and variable text into a finished document can be a word processor (Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect), and can involve integration with a document automation product (such as HotDocs and HotDocs Advance).

HotDocs and HotDocs Advance makes it easy to edit and publish templates using Amicus Attorney variables (including custom fields). When generating e-mails, Word must be used.

For a detailed list of the Merge Variables you can use in documents, see the "Merge Variables Guide", available from your Amicus Help Center or from the Amicus Attorney Technical Resource Guides/Updates section of our website.

Set up your word processor and preferences

For Document Assembly to function properly you must first perform some setup with your word processors, and configure your preferences:

Specify your default document assembly program (e.g. Word), the location of your word processing and document automation programs, whether you want the Merge Variables in your document templates to be automatically replaced by Amicus data when you generate a document, and the location of the document templates. For more information, see Document Assembly preferences.
Install the Amicus Merge Toolbar in your word processor, including macros that will be used during the assembly of Word and WordPerfect documents, and the creation and editing of document templates. For more information, see Document Assembly preferences.

Merging People and People On The File information

Document templates may contain two kinds of variables relating to those People associated with your Amicus File. "People" variables are used to address letters, envelopes, etc., whereas "People On The File" variables are used to list or group information relating to all or a selected group of Persons assigned to the File. The manner in which these variable types are merged depends on where you initiate your document assembly session from. For more information on how these variables are handled see Understanding People and People On The File variables.