How do I use custom templates for client batch exports?

For clinical documents included in client batch exports, you have the option to create and upload your own templates for certain document types to use in the PDF batch instead of the AlayaCare standard templates that are used by default. You can manage custom clinical templates from the Document Templates tab under Settings.

You can use custom templates for the following sections of client batch exports:

• Care plan
• Visit attachments
• Daily summary
• Cover page
• Service task details
• NEW: Medication Administration Record 

⚠️ Please note that custom clinical templates only apply to PDF documents generated as part of client batch exports. Clinical documentation printed from other areas of the application will continue to use AlayaCare standard templates.

Feature flags

To use this feature, the Custom Form Templates feature flag was be enabled in Settings>Features.

Roles and permissions

To manage templates for client batch exports, employees must be in a role with the following ACLs enabled:

• Workflow>Upload custom form templates: allows employees to access the Document Templates tab and view and download templates. This permission is also used for custom form templates.
• Customer>View/edit custom document templates: allows employees to upload and delete custom document templates for client batch exports.

Creating the custom templates

Before uploading a custom template to use with client batch exports, you will need to design the template to determine what the final output will look like and ensure that data can be mapped from AlayaCare to the correct template fields.

AlayaCare uses Docmosis as its document generation software. To create a custom template for client batch exports, you will need to follow Docmosis syntax and conventions to map the data from AlayaCare to the template fields (similar to the process of creating custom form templates). For the best results, AlayaCare recommends that Docmosis templates are designed using the open-source word processor LibreOffice (.odt format). However, it is also possible to create the templates using Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx format).

After you have designed your template in LibreOffice or Microsoft Word, you must enter the proper Docmosis syntax for different entity types into the template in all places where you expect data from AlayaCare to populate. For more information about creating Docmosis templates as well as a complete list of the correct Docmosis syntax for the AlayaCare entities available in clinical templates, please refer to guide attached to this article.

If you wish to make changes to an existing AlayaCare default template and avoid having to insert all of the Docmosis syntax yourself,  you can download default templates, make formatting changes or delete sections as necessary, and then save a new version to upload as the new default template. 

For example, if you did not want all of the information included in the AlayaCare standard care plan template to be included on your care plan template, you could simply remove the sections that you did not want, save it as a new version, and upload the new template to set as the default for care plans. 

See the next section for details on how to download a template. 

Managing custom templates in AlayaCare

To manage templates for clinical documents in AlayaCare, go to Settings>Document Templates. From here, you can upload custom templates for different types of clinical documents included in the client batch exports generated from Clients>Client Charts.

In this screen, you will see a list of all the AlayaCare standard templates that are used for the various sections of client batch exports. Before your organization adds your own templates, the standard templates will be set as the default for each document category. 

You will see default templates for the cover page, care plan, visit attachments, daily summary, and service task details, and the NEW medication administration record sections of client batch exports. Default templates are also available for visit signatures and plan of treatment. However, these sections are not yet available as part of client batch exports.

You can filter the list of templates by Name or Category.

To add a new template, click +Add template.

Next, click Upload file to select a file in .doc, .docx, or .odt format to upload and select a Document category (Cover page, Daily summary, Care plan, Plan of treatment, Service task details, Visit attachments, or the NEW Medication Administration Record).

Use the checkbox if you wish to make this template the default template for the document category you selected. Then click Save.

After uploading a custom template, you will be able to see the name, document category, and default status of the uploaded template as well as the name of the user who uploaded the template and the date and time of the upload.

Once you have more than one template available for a document category, you can change the default by clicking Remove default on the current default template or Make default on the template you wish to set as the new default.

For all custom or standard templates, you can click Download to download a copy of the template.

Any custom templates that you upload can be removed from the list by selecting Remove. AlayaCare standard templates cannot be removed from the list.

After setting up a custom template, when you generate and download a new batch export of client documents in Clients>Client Charts, the PDF documents in the zip folder will use the new template set as the default for their document category.

Multi-office considerations: custom clinical templates stored in Document Settings are multi-office aware, meaning that you can choose to set different templates as the default for document categories at the individual branch level.