In a perfect world, we’d have our documents all neatly organized in a centralized location. In reality, that’s rarely the case. We have documents, PDF files, emails, forms, and more… all scattered across different apps. You probably feel like you spend half your life copying and pasting information and files from one location to another.
What if, instead, these tasks happened automatically in the background? That’s what document automation does: it moves information and files around for you, saving you time. Plus, when you automate your processes, you remove the risk of human error (like forgetting to move a file to its proper location on your Google Drive). Here’s how to use Zaps—Zapier’s automated workflows—to streamline your document management.
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What is document automation?
With document automation, you use workflows and processes to create and/or manage electronic documents without human intervention.
For example, you might want to automatically create a new document (such as a Google doc) with pre-filled information every time a client fills out a form. Or maybe you want to automatically organize files within folders based on specific criteria.
When you automate your document workflows, you can also trigger events each time you create a new document. For instance, you might want to automatically send an email or chat message every time you create a new client contract.
Zapier connects with thousands of apps, so you can customize your workflows to include all of your business-critical tools. This allows you to scale virtually any process that involves document apps.
Document workflow automation ideas
To automate your document processes, you need to identify two things: what is the task that “starts” the process and what needs to happen next?
Here are a few document workflow automation examples to get your wheels turning so you can streamline and scale your processes.
To get started with a Zap template—what we call our pre-made workflows—just click on the button. It only takes a few minutes to set up. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.
Create documents from completed forms
If you’re using any online forms, you may want the form results to populate a document. You may use the document to collaborate with other people internally or as a launching point for a new client. You might even use completed forms to populate a contract.
With document automation, you don’t need to copy information from the completed form into a document manually, which risks human error. Instead, you can automatically create a document based on the submitted form or populate a document template with one of these Zaps.
Send Google Sheets data to a Google Doc
Spreadsheets are good for organizing data—not so good for collaboration or adding additional context.
If you’re collecting data in a Google Sheet, you can easily use it to populate a Google Doc, Google Template, or document in another platform like PandaDoc. Try one of these workflows to get started.
Pro Tip: When you create a new Google Doc in your Google Drive, you can specify the folder. So you could create documents in one folder for one Google Sheet, use a different folder for responses from another Google Sheet, and so on.
Send notifications for new documents
Sometimes, documents contain information that needs immediate action from someone else on your team—like a new contract being signed. In that case, you can streamline your process by using documents to trigger notifications.
In some apps, you can also trigger based on the status of a document. In PandaDoc, for example, you can trigger based on the Status of a document, rather than the completion of a signed document. That way, you can keep your team and clients informed of a document’s progress.
You should send notifications using the communication channel that makes the most sense for your team, whether it’s Slack or email. You can include multiple email recipients, select a specific Slack channel, and also tag specific users in Slack (if appropriate).
Track projects and sales deals
Projects and a sales pipeline can often be fragmented across multiple apps. Once you sign a contract, several things need to happen immediately. You should add the contract to your Google Drive and update the deal in your CRM to indicate that it’s “Won.” Then, you may need to create a project in your project management tool or add the deal to a spreadsheet with information for someone to take the next step.
Use a document completion status to either complete a project or create the next steps in another app.
Pro tip: Using multi-step Zaps, you can connect multiple workflows together into one Zap. For example, you could upload a file to Google Drive and send a notification to your team, all within one workflow.
Automatically create blog posts or presentations
If you draft long-form content, like blog posts, in Google Drive, you can save yourself some time copying and pasting that content over to your CMS with an automated workflow. You can also use document automation to populate your draft content in other apps like Google Slides. Try one of the Zaps below to get started.
Note: Since these Zaps trigger on a new document, you’ll want to make sure your workflow is set up correctly so it doesn’t trigger from a blank document before you’ve had a chance to write anything. If you’re drafting content, you’ll likely create the document, write the draft over several hours or several days, and then send the draft to another app.
To make this automation work, you’ll want to move the document into another folder when it’s completely done (such as a “Done” or “Ready” folder) and use that folder in your Zap, not your original document location. That way, Zapier knows that a new document in that specific folder is ready for your CMS, Google Slides, or another app.
Pro Tip: If you write directly in your CMS, you can also run this automation in reverse and create a document in Google Docs based on the published post. That way, you will have a copy of it in your Google Drive.
Use webhooks for customized integration
If you’re using an app that doesn’t yet have a Zapier integration, you can still use webhooks to automate your document workflows. With webhooks, online tools can “talk” to each other through standardized messaging. The app sends data to a unique URL, and Zapier can “catch” the data in the webhook.
Once that data is caught, it can be used to populate a document in Google Docs, PandaDoc, Formstack, and more.
Keep your documents organized and standardized
Document automation has nearly limitless possibilities with document creation, organization, and notifications. While we’ve listed just a few here, you can create nearly any workflow to mimic what’s happening to your electronic files in your day-to-day processes.
One of the best benefits of document automation—aside from the time savings—is the organization and standardization it brings. You can ensure that Google Docs are always created in the right folder or that document templates are properly filled out with the right information. When these things happen manually, there’s a huge risk of putting documents in the wrong folder or miskeying information from a completed form.
Don’t let your documents languish in your Google Drive. With document automation, you can begin to tame the chaos.
Don’t see the apps you use in the examples above? Check out our app directory to find your document app and start automating.
This article was originally published in July 2021, written by Dorna Moini. It was most recently updated in October 2024 by Anna Burgess Yang.