@jeff thanks for your detailed answer. So currently, the only way is to work in a team project, is to convert to local before Templaer, and then import the resulting project to a new team project. Brobably is not worth the mess, as a project becomes big enough to require a team project, this could be messy. We will try to find other ways of colaborating in big projects. thanks!

@jeff That was it! Thank you. I am trying out Templater 3 and so far so good.

@UncleMonty That’s quite odd. The OS of the machine running Templater typically shouldn’t make a difference when it comes to getting data from a Google Sheet. Can you give us some more information on the errors that you’re seeing? If you’d like, you can also email our support channel at support@dataclay.com. Let us know what you can, and we’ll take it from there. Thanks!

@amesdigital Thanks for getting in touch with us. The scenario that you’ve described should be possible using Templater. In fact, with the correct setup, you shouldn’t need to edit the AE file directly. Using a few of Templater’s basic features, you should be able to control the text content and the composition selection entirely from your data source. Swapping out the contents of a text field is one of the most basic and useful features of Templater. Once Templater is installed and connected to your data source of choice (Google Sheet, QUE Campaign, or local file), simply rename the layer to match the column/data point in question and apply the Templater Effect. Once that’s done, Templater should swap the text in the corresponding layer during the Preview or Render process. As far as swapping out a composition, Templater has a reserved column named target that can be used to designate which .aep file Templater should load for each set of data. This should allow you to swap out the project file on the fly to whichever the end-user desires. Finally, if you wanted to automate the process, you could always use Templater Bot to monitor your data source for new entries continuously. There’s another reserved column named render-status that Templater Bot searches for continuously. When a line of data is added with a render-status of “ready” Templater Bot will bring in the data and process the video. Those are the basics, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to let us know. Thanks!

@jeff Thanks!

Hi @jeff many thanks for the information - this is exactly how I ended up doing it after learning about the curly braces feature after 3 years of using Templater, incredible. Cheers!

@jeff I got it now. Thank you!

@surabhiv At the moment, Templater Bot can only be set up to automate either video production or Spot Checking, so if you’d like to have both actions automated, you’ll need to look into running two separate versions of Templater. There is a Reserved Column that Templater recognizes named bot that will allow you to designate which Bot should process each line of data in your data source. Using this feature, you should be able to route preview actions to one Bot to perform Spot Checks and render actions to another that can do render/replication actions.

Just some additional info: we’re using Templater 3, build 13978. I’m using Google Sheets as a data source.

@jon Thanks. The audio length will vary with each video. I’ll take a look at the link you posted.

@jeff AMAZING! Thank you for such a quick response! Got it working now. I was just able to pump out a list of 150 dealerships to Youtube ready MP4’s in just over 20 mins… Templater fricking rules. You can expect a new customer within a week or so!

@jeff Thanks jeff, everything works fine!

@junior What can you tell us about your system? Which operating system, version of After Effects, and version of Templater do you have installed? Have you run any updates to any software lately? Is your OS user account a full admin?

@mantas Thanks for getting in touch with us. The behavior you describe is generally caused by a layer that isn’t renamed before Templater swaps in the data. If you take a look at the Layer Name, when you add the asset to your Layer Stack, you’ll see that it’s surrounded in brackets. This indicates that the layer name is temporary, so when the asset gets swapped in, it renames the layer. To fix this, simply rename the layer before applying the Templater Effect to remove the brackets. This should keep the layer from being renamed when the asset is swapped. Hopefully, that helps, but if you have any more questions, please feel free to let us know. Thanks!

@jeff okay thanks

@tok_tok Let’s try moving the script to the “After layers update” event under “Layer Processing”. It’s possible that having it run at Data Retrieval may be too early to process the Work Area correctly. Give that a shot, and if you still run into problems, it might be easier if you could drop us a line directly at support@dataclay.com. Thanks!

@fg27 apologies for the long delay in responding. I’ve never seen that error in connection with Templater. Which version of AE and Templater are you using? What about any other 3rd party effects applied to layers? Are you replicating internally to the project to make new folders/comps within the existing project file, or are you replicating to individual AEP files for Media Encoder to render? We’d need to see more of a sample of the data and the full templater.log file. You can submit a support ticket with any relevant attachments.

@jeff Yes! This is it! Thanks, everyone.