From install to your first generated PDF,
in minutes.
Obsign turns a monday item into a PDF using a Word template you already send to customers, and can route that PDF for approval. Setup is a one-time job per template. Here is the whole path, step by step.
- 1. A board whose items are the things you write documents about, with columns holding the values you want merged (names, amounts, dates)
- 2. A .docx template with placeholders in curly braces, for example {client_name}. It can be a file you already send to customers
- 3. Permission to install apps on your monday account (a one-time authorization)
- STEP 01Install the app
Open the monday apps marketplace, find Obsign: Documents, and click Install. Choose the account you want to install it on and confirm.
- STEP 02Add the view to your item
Open an item on the board you picked. At the top of the item, click + Add view, pick Apps, and select Obsign: Documents. The panel opens as a tab on that item. There are no columns to set up and no automations to build.
- STEP 03Connect your monday account
The first time you open the panel you will see a Connect account banner. Click it and authorize the app. Generating a document reads that item's values and, if you ask for it, writes the finished PDF back, which needs a one-time authorization.
- STEP 04Upload your template
Click Upload template and pick your .docx. Obsign reads the placeholders out of the file and lists them. A placeholder is text in curly braces, like {client_name} or {total}.
If your document contains curly braces that are not placeholders, for example a code sample, remove them first: Obsign will otherwise read them as fields to map.
- STEP 05Map placeholders to columns
For each placeholder, choose the board column that holds its value, then save. If your template has a repeating table, map its columns to your subitem columns and each subitem becomes a row. Mapping is per template and you only do it once.
- STEP 06Generate
Open any item on that board, pick the template, and click Generate. The PDF is built from that item's current values. From here you can attach it to a file column, post it to the item's updates, or just download it. Those write-backs are off until you turn them on.
- STEP 07Optional: approvals and drift
Give a template an approval policy and name the approvers in order. Generating then creates a version that goes to the first approver instead of straight to the board, and monday notifies each approver in turn.
Once approved, the PDF is sealed: it is the exact file that was reviewed. Later, open that version and click Check board drift to see whether the board has changed since it was approved, field by field.
Every placeholder has to be mapped before an item can be generated. The most common cause is curly braces in your document that were never meant to be fields, for example a code sample, which Obsign reads as placeholders. Remove those braces from the .docx and upload it again.
It never changes your existing column values and it never creates columns. Writing back is explicit: it can attach the PDF to a file column you pick, post it to the item's updates, or deliver it on approval, and each of those is off until you turn it on.
Rendering runs server-side through LibreOffice rather than rebuilding your document as HTML, so the layout you set in Word is the layout you get. That conversion is the one step that happens outside monday, and our privacy policy describes it.
No. The approved PDF is the exact file that was reviewed and it is never re-rendered on delivery. If the board moves on, the document does not follow it. Check board drift is how you find out that the board changed, field by field, without touching the sealed file.
A draft PDF, and the board values captured with it, expire 24 hours after rendering. An approved version is kept for as long as you keep it and goes when it goes.
No. Obsign uses no automation or integration recipes, so it consumes none of your monthly action quota.