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I am building a proposal (job quotation) system which is linked to a Clients list which contains a bunch of data. Proposals are issued to clients via email, and need to be Word documents. For this I thought to use Document Libraries and Workflows. Out of the box SharePoint Online's Document Libraries have a New Document button which when clicked, opens the document in template form in Word Online. I would like to be able to force the user to fill out the required properties (basically enter the client name as a dropdown) before the document opens in Word, so that a workflow fires and populates all the required fields. Is there any way this can be done with a Document Library or custom list?

At the moment I am working around by having a Proposals list and a Get Proposals Document Library, with a Workflow in Proposals that creates a list item in Get Proposals. But this is clunky and may not suit some of the less IT-savvy people in my company.

My thinking so far:

1) Somehow use InfoPath to design a custom form for the Document Library, and replace the New Document link with a link to this custom form.

2) Perhaps it's possible to add a Document column to an ordinary list and in doing so partly replicate the functionality of a Document Library in an ordinary list?

3) Somehow remove the New Document list and have a Quick Action that points to a Workflow with a custom InfoPath form where I would have the Clients dropdown and a Make Document button. The Workflow then runs and creates a new List item in my Document Library with the requisite information filled out.

Thoughts please?

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  • In the past I have used info path forms and workflows to automatically create/fill out a word document. I am not 100% sure if this what you are looking for, but the below link shows you how to do it. I did this in 2010 on prem but I dont see why it wouldn't work with SharePoint online. blogs.technet.microsoft.com/brenclarke/2009/04/15/… May 26, 2016 at 15:52
  • This is essentially what I am doing now (List>Workflow>Document Library) but the issue is that it's quite clunky and columns in document library can't really update the original list columns. I'm looking to get rid of the two-step approach and unify the functionality of my list and my document library in one. If that makes sense. May 26, 2016 at 16:00

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I think there is a solution that might be helpful to look at...Using a custom word template and quick parts. http://www.netwoven.com/2015/04/how-to-dynamically-create-and-populate-word-document-in-a-document-library-from-custom-list/

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