We currently analyzing and trying out templates' mechanism and we have found certain behaviors that are kind of strange that I would like to raise and ask about here.
We have setup MS Word template for specific document type using specific calculated properties as template's placeholders. On our server, we have installation of Apache Open Office, our clients are actually using MS Office (we are using MS Office 2019).
When testing directly on server (we have installed client there too), we can see in preview mode that all properties' placeholders are correctly filled with correct values, for our calculated values and also for fixed properties we take from document or through object type hierarchy. So far so good.
When testing with real case scenario (using installed client on separate machine having MS Office 2019 installed with M-Files add-on), we experience following behavior:
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- User create new document with template but in a preview mode he/she still sees placeholders instead of real values replaced. Same test on server shows real values instead of placeholders after document creation (please assume that for this user does not need to check out document at all.)
- When on client machines, user check-out document and open it in MS Word 2019, placeholders get calculated and replaced as expected. When user saves and check-in document, those values can be seen in a preview mode too as expected.
- When user changes some of properties and save it, and then make preview those changes are not reflected in the document. User must check-out document so that placeholders are re-calculated and populated. This happens with both calculated and properties existing on the metadata card. Obviously versioning of metadata card content and document are not really bound together. I can understand that this is kind of performance optimization but I am wondering if you could track if certain properties are used in template and in that case check-out document and apply changes in placeholders as you obviously do during document creation (well at least on server and with Apache Open Office).
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As described above, due to this behavior, we experience that we usually need to create 1-2 more versions per document which again affects storage management and performance. Could you optimize this behavior?
More problematic for us is, that for some documents user just trust system and to populate placeholders based on rules and send it further for signing, so people usually do not check it out in those case but just move document through set of workflow step. In those cases, users do not get those placeholders populated. As I mentioned, this work very well on server with Apache Open Office preview mode. This is really strange behavior and i would assume it as a bug.
Thank you for your feedback and details about those behaviors and also potential fixes.
Dejan
