What is the relationship between stencils, templates, documents, and assets in Produce?

Produce Template Hierarchy and Terminology

Produce uses a simple hierarchy to take a controlled design framework and turn it into finished, on-brand assets.

Understanding how each level connects makes it easier to understand where designs are created, where users add their content, and how the final files are generated.

The hierarchy can be summarized as: Stencils → Templates → Documents → Assets

A single Stencil can be used to create multiple Templates, each Template can be used to create multiple Documents, and each Document can generate one or more final Assets.

Terminology

Stencils

Stencils are the foundation of Produce Templates. They contain the underlying design rules, functionality, and logic that determine what can be created (brand identity, guidelines, design and layout rules, and content management logic).

Stencils can range from fixed to flexible, depending on the intended use.

• Fixed Stencil: provides users with a highly controlled layout, strong guidance and limited customization, helping ensure consistency with minimal setup at the Template level.
• Flexible Stencil: can provide designers and admins with a wider selection of pages, components, layouts, and configuration options. This makes it possible to create multiple Templates and design variations from the same underlying Stencil while still maintaining essential brand rules.

Stencils require development by our implementation team and are based on customer design files and specifications.

Templates

Templates are the starting point for users creating content in Produce. They are built from Stencils and inherit the design rules, functionality, and available options defined within them.

Admins and designers can configure Templates for a particular use case, campaign, market, or type of marketing collateral. Depending on the available Stencil functionality, this can include customizing the layout or limiting which options are available to users.

Templates can also be configured with settings such as:

• Name and description
• User access and permissions
• Workflow and approval requirements
• Available design or content options

By combining the underlying controls of a Stencil with Template-specific configuration, organizations can provide users with an easy way to create large volumes of professional, on-brand content.

Documents

Documents are created by users from Templates.

A Document is the saved, editable version of the content a user has created in Produce. It contains their selected content, text, imagery, layout choices, and other available customizations.

You can think of a Document in a similar way to an Adobe InDesign (.indd) or Figma (.fig) working file: it contains the editable content and configuration used to create the finished output, rather than being the finished file itself.

Documents are stored within Papirfly rather than downloaded as editable working files.

Assets

Assets are the final outputs generated from Documents.

The available output formats depend on the type of Template being used. Examples include:

• Print: PDF
• Graphics: PNG, JPG, WEBP
• Video: MP4, GIF

These are the files users can download and distribute through the appropriate marketing channels.

If an approval workflow is enabled, downloading or generating the final Asset may depend on the Document reaching the required approval status, such as 'Ready'.