templator update problems: mixing two job if no new value is recieved

[chefsache]

Hey guys,

First of all, I would like to say that I have been testing your products intensively for several days now and find it truly amazing what you have achieved – they are really great products!

I am a designer and technically an amateur. I am encountering the following problem and hope you can help me with it:

Jotform -> ZAP-> Que

Job_01 has an image and text that is rendered correctly.
However, Job_02 has no new content for these two dynamic elements (the field was left blank in Jotform and no new image was uploaded), so AE simply renders the old version (+ new changed content from Job_02).
So instead of leaving text fields blank or replacing the image with ‘missing content’, Job_02 renders a mix of the old and new versions.

These fields do not appear in Que at all, as they come from Jotform without content…

I followed your recommendations from the documentation and blog: clearing the cache (secret preference + purge after job + disable disk cache) – but this did not solve the problem.

What am I doing wrong?
I look forward to hearing from you!

[Jeff]

@chefsache

We’re so happy that you’ve decided to give Templater a try. From the description of your workflow, it sounds like QUE and Zapier are the perfect drivers for your project. As far as the question about forms with no data, it sounds like a logic issue with how Templater deals with a lack of information in your Data Source.

Typically, Templater will swap out assets and media for any layer that has the Templater Settings Effect applied with a corresponding entry in the Data Source. However, if there is no corresponding data, Templater skips the layer in question, just as you’ve described. What we probably need, to get things working correctly, would be to add a step in Zapier that replaces fields with no data with either a “blank”, placeholder, or flag value.

The easiest way would probably be to use a feature of Templater known as Flags. In this scenario, we’d replace the missing value with {{off}} or [[off]]. Those special values would instruct Templater to turn off the visibility of the layer, hiding it from the output. You can find more information about flags on this web page from our support website.

Another option would be to add a “blank” or placeholder value. This could be a single space in the case of text layers or a blank PNG file for images. This would let Templater swap the assets, but for something that wouldn’t be visible in the final output.

Finally, we could also just pass through a blank value. Once that was done, we could go to the Templater Preferences > Footage and check the “Consider empty cells or null values as faulty” box. Then we could choose what we want to happen using the options in that window. This can allow you to instruct Templater on how to deal with any missing or faulty values that get passed along.

As for the Zapier side of things goes, there are a few ways to accomplish this, but you’ll probably want to add what’s called a “Formatter” between the data collection from Jotform and the upload to QUE. You might have to do some experimentation, but I believe that this “Formatter” step can be used to set a “Default Value” so even if no data is entered, a value will still be passed along to QUE.

Hopefully, that all makes sense, but if you have any other questions, let us know, and we’ll be more than happy to help out.

Happy Rendering!

Jeff