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Docassemble is an open-source expert system that requires technical knowledge. If you're looking to build document automation interviews, use Gavel instead, which will deploy your server for you and doesn't require you to learn to code.
Easy intake and document automation to auto-populate your templates.
Docassemble is a platform for creating mobile-friendly web applications --- called “interviews” --- that ask one question at a time in order to reach an “end point” --- the creation of a document, an agreement, a presentation, or something similar. One of the proven ways to increase productivity while avoiding the cost of new hires is document automation. Through automation, documents and workflows can be handled at great cost savings. This article briefly summarizes the Docassemble platform, which requires coding / developer knowledge and some technical computer skills, and the Gavel platform, which does not require any coding or developer experience.
Read Gavel's Legal Document Automation Guide here.
Docassemble is a free, open-source expert system built by Jonathan Pyle for building guided interviews, which are the foundation of document automation, document assembly, and work-flow productivity.
Based on Python, YAML, and Markdown, Docassemble is primarily used at this time by lawyers and legal professionals to create interviews in order to generate public facing documents. However, it can also be used by anyone who desires to automate template-based documents or process-oriented work. It is highly customizable through code, CSS, Javascript, and HTML. While you can run Docassemble on your desktop or laptop, its utility is most effective when set up in a cloud hosting service such as AWS.
In sum, Docassemble requires some programming and coding skills, and some technical knowledge, because it also requires configuring a web server to set up the platform on a service such as AWS.
Gavel is a no-code document automation platform. It's the easiest way for non-developers and non-coders to build document automation interviews and, in turn, automate documents and workflows. Among other things, Gavel helps with this by formatting your Word (.docx) documents with two no-code “syntaxes” known as Jinja and Mako. Once Gavel does this, you can quickly and easily customize and automate your legal documents and workflows. Another feature of Documate is that it allows you to automate both document creation and document assembly with a customized level of personal oversight.
In addition, Gavel sets up your AWS instance and subdomain for you.
Finally, Gavel also provides 7-day a week customer support to help you get up and running.
First, Gavel helps make it easy to create document automation interviews and create automated documents and workflows, without needing to use any code. Second, Gavel handles the technical aspects of setting up your instance and subdomain in AWS. Gavel’s no-code document automation platform and its absence of technical requirements for set up is appealing to many lawyers and professionals.
Because Docassemble is a web application, one of the hardest parts of getting started with Docassemble for most lawyers and professionals relates to the technical details of setting up your own server as part of correctly deploying Docassemble on the internet.
Gavel does not require this. Gavel will automatically spin up an AWS server for you so that you don't need to learn the technical details of setting up a Docker instance or hosting.
Gavel deploys a dedicated instance and database for you on AWS with the click of a button (it takes about 10 minutes for your server to be set up for you).
Gavel has no-code resources for non-developers who don’t want to touch a line of code. For example, our interview builder allows you to generate dynamic questionnaires without code, and our Word (.docx) add-in allows you to set up and choose complex logic functions, calculations, and loops --- all without any code.
If you prefer using code, we have the following resources below for Docassemble developers.
Jinja Guide Part I: Simple variables and conditional phrases
Jinja Guide Part II: Conditional paragraphs
Jinja Guide Part III: Performing calculations
Jinja Guide Part IV: Numerical calculations
Jinja Guide Part V: Formatting words
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