Documents and templates
"Document" and "template" are overloaded in ema on purpose — they're the right everyday words for four genuinely different systems. Landing in the wrong one wastes time: forking a contract template won't fix your invoice layout, and uploading a file to the document library doesn't make it a reusable badge design. This page is a map, not a how-to — each system has its own reference doc for that.
The four systems
| System | What it's for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Documents | A file library — store, organize, and share arbitrary files | Document Management |
| Templates | A visual canvas for anything printed or exported with live data bound in — badges, certificates, invoices, and the rest of the financial paperwork | Templates |
| Contract Templates | Signable agreements for exhibitors, sponsors, and speakers | Contract Templates |
| Content Templates & AI Authoring | AI-assisted drafting of written content — emails and other project copy | Content Templates & AI Authoring |
ema's own Templates page says it directly: it is "not the same as Contract Templates... or Content Templates." All three tools share a name pattern and a project sidebar section, but there's no shared editor, shared data model, or shared file underneath them — treat them as three separate products that happen to rhyme.
Documents: the file library
The document library is where arbitrary files live — contracts you've already signed, floor plan PDFs, speaker photos, anything your team needs to store and share. Files sit in folders, each with its own visibility (internal, organization, project, or specific individuals), and can optionally sync two-way with a connected SharePoint library. This is storage and sharing, not design — nothing here is bound to live event data or rendered from a layout.
What a client organisation's contacts see: shared files, without the folder-management controls.
Templates: the canvas designer
Templates is the visual editor for anything ema prints or exports with real event data dropped in automatically — badges, certificates, invoices, receipts, credit notes, and the rest of the financial document set. Every document type uses the same canvas and the same data-binding mechanism; only the fields available to bind change with the type you're designing.
Every template resolves at one of three scopes — project first, then your organization, then the system default — so every project always has a working template for every document type even before anyone customizes anything. Fork a system or organization template to start editing, or build one from a blank canvas.
Design badges, certificates, and financial documents on the canvas, and understand template resolution order.
Contract Templates: signable agreements
A contract template defines a reusable agreement — content, signing mode, expiry timing, and reminder cadence — for exhibitor, sponsor, or speaker contracts. This is a document-signing workflow (who signs, what fields they complete, what happens when they don't), not a print layout — it has nothing to do with the Templates canvas or the file library.
Build reusable agreements and configure signing.
Content Templates & AI Authoring: drafting written copy
This is where structured templates plus project context help your team draft written content faster — emails and other project copy, not print layouts or files. Platform-provided templates are read-only until you fork them to your organization; reference documents can be attached so the AI has real examples to draw from for a given content type.
Draft content faster with structured templates and AI assistance.
Where uploads inside other features land
A file uploaded through a form's file field, or through a task's file-upload completion type, physically lands in the same underlying file storage as the document library — it isn't a separate system. What keeps it out of your way is that ema tags it to the record it was uploaded against (the task, the submission) and filters it out of the browsable Documents folder tree and AI search by default, rather than storing it somewhere else entirely. Don't expect to find a task attachment or a form upload by browsing Documents — look on the record it belongs to instead — but don't assume it's isolated from the document system either; it's the same storage with narrower visibility.
File-upload and form-submission completion types, and where their attachments live.