How to generate proof of delivery documents on automation using Notion

Proof of delivery is a document that confirms the good being delivered have been duly received by the receiver as intended.

It helps serve as a protection against any disputes that might be created by recipients for any items not being received.

If you are maintaining delivery records in Notion and want to generate Proof of Delivery documents in an automated manner without manual copy paste, then this post is for you.

In this guide, we will look at how you can setup an automated Proof of Delivery documents generation workflow that can help produce PDFs within Notion Database.

Prerequisites for using PDFOutput

Here's 3 essential things required for using PDFOutput:

• Notion Databases interconnected with data for maintaining proof of delivery information.

Eg: A database to track delivery information, another database to track recipient details etc.

• Google Account that can help edit a Proof of Delivery template file which can come either in the form of Google Docs, Word File or PDF File.
• PDFOutput Account that will connect both template source and Notion Databases to produce Proof of Delivery PDFs on automation.

How to setup Notion Database for tracking Deliveries

In order to track deliveries, we need a setup which can manage everything within Notion.

Here's a quick setup which would help:

Delivery Information Fields

Name	Type	Used For
Delivery ID	Title	Unique ID for tracking
Date of delivery	Date	When delivery occurred
Time of delivery	Text	Time when delivered
Delivery Status	Select	Status of delivery
Name of Driver	Text	Who made delivery
Vehicle Number	Text	Delivery Vehicle
Products Delivered	Relation	Linked to Products Table

Recipient Details

Name	Type	Used For
Recipient Name	Title	Who receives goods
Company Name	Text	Name of business
Address	Text	Address of business
City	Text	City of Delivery
Postal Code	Text	ZIP Code of business
Phone	Phone	Contact number for delivery queries
Email ID	Email	To send POD documents

Products Delivered

Name	Type	Used for
Description	Title	Displays products delivered
Items Delivered	Relation	Products delivered
Quantity of Items	Number	Delivered units
Condition of Items	Select	Delivery condition of item
Delivery Details	Text	Details of delivery

How to create Proof of Delivery template file in PDFOutput

In order to create a Proof of Delivery template, here's the fields that we will use:

• Delivery and Recipient details
• Items Delivered Details
• Delivery Confirmation Fields

Here's a sample Proof of Delivery template which we will use for this setup:

!Sample Proof of Delivery Template

How to setup PDFOutput to create Proof of delivery documents on automation

In order to setup PDFOutput to initiate Proof of Delivery documents on automation we need the following key things setup:

1. Signin to PDFOutput

!Signin to PDFOutput

Signin to PDFOutput to set up an account. Once you signin you will be able to setup a new automation to get started.

2. Click on New Automation to create an automation

!Click New Automation

This will take us to the setup section, where we will connect Notion to add the databases.

3. Connect the Notion Databases for adding all linked databases

In this step we will add the following databases for setting up the workflow:

• Delivery Information Database (Primary Database)
• Recipient Details Database (Secondary Database)
• Products Delivered Database (Secondary Database)

Click on Connect Notion and it will take you to the database addition screen.

!Connect Notion to add databases

In order to add the database simply search for all the databases, eg: Delivery Information, Recipient Details and Products Delivered.

Select all the databases and then click on Allow Access to allow the access the databases.

!Allow Access to Notion Databases

Once you click on Allow Access the access to the above databases will be provided.

4. Connect the template source to create the Proof of Delivery document

First we are going to add a Proof of Delivery document to the setup.

!Add Template Source

A template can be added in 5 different ways:

• A blank document or
• Adding a Google Document or
• Adding a Word File or
• Adding a PDF File or
• Selecting from available templates

In this case, I am going to search for Proof of Delivery in the search bar and select that document.

Once it's selected click on Continue.

!Search and Select Proof of Delivery Template

!Proof of Delivery Template Selected

5. Mapping the Database Properties to generate PDFs

In this step we will map the Notion Database properties onto the template source (Proof of Delivery template added earlier).

• On the right side, you will be able to see Select Database.
• Click there and select "Proof of Delivery" from the list that shows the database names.
• Once selected it will load all the properties of the the Notion Database (i.e. Proof of Delivery Database) as well as other connected Database
• After that we simply need to click on Copy to copy the placeholdertext and Paste the same onto the template to map the placeholder.

This allows to generate the PDFs with the placeholder value being replaced with the Notion Database values.

!Mapping Database Properties onto Template

6. Create a Preview Document and Setup Automation

!Preview and Setup Automation

Once all the properties (fields) have been mapped and we are happy with the setup we can generate a preview document to test the output.

Clicking on the Preview Document will generate a preview output file for the document.

!Preview Output of Proof of Delivery Document

After this simply click on Setup Automation and it will create an automation that will generate the PDFs forever.

!Setup Automation Enabled

How to trigger PDF generation within Notion Database?

Once, automation is activated and setup correctly you will be able to see the active automation showing in the dashboard.

!Active Automation in Dashboard

Now head over to the Notion Database and follow the below points:

• GeneratePDF - Click on GeneratePDF property and set this as 'Ready to Generate' to create PDFs right inside the Notion Database.

The moment you select the record as Ready to Generate it will process the record and create a PDF file for the same.

• PDFFiles - This is the field where the automated PDFs generated are stored which can be viewed.
• google_drive_file - This is where files stored in a Google Drive folder is selected earlier under Additional Settings.

So in order to generate pdf just mark your record as "Ready to Generate" and a branded PDF will be ready and available in the Notion Database.

Other ways to generate PDFs in the Notion Database

There are several ways to generate PDFs on automation in PDFOutput from a Notion Database:

1. Using a Button Automation (Recommended Method)

This is the most recommended way to start generating the PDFs directly inside the Notion Database.

Simply by clicking a button a PDF can be generated directly inside the database.

Here's the steps to follow to setup the button automation inside Notion Database (one-time setup):

Click on the 3-dots for the automation that is visible on the dashboard (as shown below)

!Click 3-dots for Button Automation

Click on Button Automation and it will reveal the steps to follow further.

!Button Automation Steps

Follow the step-by-step guide as displayed in the steps and setup the button automation inside the Notion Database (in this case its Delivery Information database).

Once the setup is done correctly, clicking on the button will allow generating PDFs directly within the Notion Database.

2. Using GeneratePDF property in Notion Database

!GeneratePDF Property in Notion Database

This is the default method to generate PDFs.

When a connection is setup successfully PDFOutput automatically creates a new property by the name of GeneratePDF.

In this property, there's an option to click on "Ready to Generate".

When that's clicked the PDFs start generating automatically inside the Notion Database.

Follow the steps mentioned below to start generating PDFs directly inside the Notion Database:

Click on the GeneratePDF property for the specific record you want to generate as PDFs.

!Click GeneratePDF Property

Select the option Ready to Generate to convert the selected record as a PDF file.

!Select Ready to Generate

This will change the status of the record from Ready to Generate → Processing… → Completed to mark the status of completion

The PDFs generated will be stored in the PDFFiles (default property) field in the Notion Database.

This takes a while to produce the PDF but once the automation is setup and activated it works swiftly to produce the PDF files right inside the Notion Database.

3. Using Batch PDFs option

PDFOutput also allows users to process batches of 100 PDFs at a time.

For this to happen, follow the steps mentioned below:

Click on the 3-dots for the automation setup in the dashboard (as shown below)

!Click 3-dots for Batch PDFs

Click on the Batch PDFs option to start generating the PDFs in batches (100 PDFs at a time) processing it directly inside the Notion Database.

!Batch PDFs Option

This helps to generate the PDFs directly within the database and works in batches of 100 PDFs at a time.

Common Issues while generating PDFs using PDFOutput and ways to fix the issues

Some of the most common problems that arise with generating PDFs in PDFOutput includes:

1. Placeholders don't generate correctly onto the document used

Issue : The placeholders that are used in the template source file don't replace with the values mapped from the datasource.

Solution : This is quite a common problem and happens because the field that is mapped isn't exactly the field that is added to the template source file.

Eg: If the field name that is available in the database is "Delivery_ID" and the placeholdertext that is mapped onto the template source is "Del_Id" then it will not replace the placeholdertext used correctly as expected.

So, make sure to use the exact placeholder as expected to be able to map the correct properties from the database while generating the required PDFs.

Notice that while using the placeholders make sure to use the correct syntax as well such as capitalisation or underscores as this can also cause inconsistency with the output.

So, always follow the practice to Copy and Paste the placeholder values exactly onto the template file to ensure that the placeholders text which are used are correctly added onto the template source file and are properly replaced as well.

2. Line Items added to the template don't generate dynamically with placeholders in the output

Issue : Line Items that are added from Products Delivered Database don't fetch and generate the correct values as expected from the secondary databases connected dynamically in the output.

Solution : This problem mainly happens when the line items database (secondary databases), in this case Products Delivered are not connected with PDFOutput tool.

While adding the placeholders onto the template, always ensure to check upon the Line Items Database used (secondary database) and ensure that the database is connected with PDFOutput or not.

Here's how to resolve the issue:

First of all head over to the secondary database used, i.e. Items Delivered and Delivery Confirmation fields and click on the 3-dots on the top right.

Scroll down and click on Connections option.

Check to see if PDFOutput is showing up in the list of Connections being shown.

If PDFOutput doesn't show in the connections list yet, then it means PDFOutput is not connected yet to the secondary database as expected.

Search for PDFOutput in the list of available connections and add the same.

Note: Try to connect your notion Database once again to be able to establish the connection with the Notion Database once again.

3. PDF File is not created as per correct desired format

Issue : The pdf file that is generated doesn't preserve the desired formatting of the document as expected in the output.

Solution : This can happen only if the template file that is being used has a complex layout for the document and it includes the elements that are not supported natively on the Google Document.

So, always make sure to use simplistic elements which are natively supported by Google Document that will help to avoid any design related issues which might come up during the generation of the PDF files.