Editing Gavel’s No-Setup Automated Legal Forms

Editing a workflow created by someone else can be tricky, but it's totally doable. On this page we'll walk you through a few things to keep in mind if this is the route you want to take.
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Best practices for Editing

Always duplicate the workflow before editing so that you have a clean version in case you run into issues. If you want to replace the original with your updated workflow, save the copy and then rename it with the original name so that it overrides the original workflow.

Deleting a variable

Any given variable in this questionnaire could be used to create a complex variable or set logic somewhere else in the questionnaire. If you delete a variable that will break the overall structure, Gavel will prevent you from making that change, unless you have removed all the logic that depends on that variable.

If you want to delete a variable,

• click through the pages of the workflow to see if it is used anywhere else in the workflow. It is possible that a variable is used to create a more complex variable. Or maybe the variable is used to set logic on a page, a question, or a document.
• Expand the toolbar on the left of the Builder view

• and use the funnel to search.

• Check the pages denoted with "IL" or the word "invisible logic" to see if the variable you want to delete is used to create another variable. If it is, you will need to delete any variables that reference this variable before you delete the original variable. There could be multiple places in the workflow that reference any given variable.
• It may be that the variable is used on another page to reference the answer. If it is, you'll see a set of curly brackets with a $ before it. If you delete a variable, you need to delete these, too.

• Once you find and delete all references to a variable in the workflow, you should be able to save the workflow.
• Then, go to Document Templates.
• Click "Details" on each document to confirm whether it is a PDF or a Word document.
• If it is a Word document, you can click the icon on the right download the Document. You will need to remove all references to any variables you deleted from your Word document.

Editing the Word Document

If you have not yet gotten the word add in, make sure to load the Microsoft Word Add-In here

When you have the document open, you can edit the text to match your jurisdiction. Take care not to delete any of the brackets or the syntax tags. If you would like to do extensive editing and would like assistance in how to do so, see our Gavel 101 Onboarding and our Gavel Crash Course.

Editing the Fillable PDF Document

If the document you want to edit is a fillable PDF, you can simply click on "tag" to adjust any of the tags.

For more information, see our Guide on Automating Fillable PDFs

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You can also reach out to help@gavel.io and we can help you get up to speed.

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