Building a template from an existing form with AI

If you already have a form on paper or in a PDF, you don’t have to rebuild it field by field.

Build with AI reads the document and drafts the template for you — sections, questions and field types — so you start from something close to finished and spend your time checking rather than typing.

It works for Form, Sub Form and Audit templates.

Nothing is saved until you save it:

The AI creates a draft of your template and highlights any fields that may need your review. You can review the generated fields and the AI notes, then select Continue to form builder to make any changes before saving. If you don’t want to use the draft, select Discard draft and nothing will be saved.

Drafting a template

Go to System Administration → Templates and choose the kind of template you want along the top: Form, Sub Form or Audit.
Click New. You’ll be asked how you want to start — choose Build with AI. (Start from scratch opens the empty builder exactly as before.)
Upload your form. Drag it onto the box or click Click to upload. You can also add a short note telling the AI anything it should know — for example “ignore the office-use-only box at the bottom”.
Click Generate template and wait. Most documents take under a minute; a long one takes a little longer.
Read the draft on the review screen (below), then click Continue to builder.
You’re now in the normal template builder with everything filled in. Give the template a name, set the user group who can use it, change anything you want, and click Save.

What you can upload

File type	Limit
PDF	Up to 10 MB and 10 pages
Word document (.docx)	Up to 10 MB and 10 pages
Photos (JPG or PNG)	Up to 6 photos, each up to 10 MB

Photos of a paper form work — hold the camera square to the page and make sure the text is in focus and evenly lit. If a document is longer than 10 pages, split it and draft the parts separately.

Checking the draft

The review screen shows your document on one side and the drafted fields on the other. Click any field to jump the document to the page it came from. Three things are worth your attention:

What you see	What it means
Sections and Items	How many sections and fields the AI found. A quick sanity check against your document.
Need a look	Fields the AI wants you to confirm — for example a company name it has mapped to your External Parties list, or a question worded so that “Yes” means a problem. Each one says why.
Notes from the AI	Things it deliberately left out and why — a header block the record already captures, or a table Teammate handles elsewhere.

Always read it against your original:

The AI is good, not perfect. Open your document beside the draft and check the field types and the wording before you save — particularly anything under Need a look.

Things it does not do yet

On your form	What the draft does
A block that repeats — witness 1, 2, 3, 4, or twenty blank rows for entries	Captures the block once and tells you it repeats. Add more copies in the builder if you need them.
Yes / No / N/A answer columns on an audit	Uses your organisation’s own score options instead, and says so in the notes.
An action plan or corrective-action table	Left out — Teammate raises corrective actions against the audit findings itself.

Common questions

It draws on the same monthly AI allowance as the Teammate AI Assistant, and there is a daily limit on how many templates you can draft. If you run out, the screen tells you — email support@teammateapp.com if you need more.

The feature is switched on per company. If the option isn’t there, email support@teammateapp.com and we’ll enable it for you. Everything else on the Templates page works exactly as before.

Change them. The draft hands over to the ordinary template builder, so every field can be edited, retyped, re-typed as a different field type, reordered or deleted before you save — just as if you had built it yourself.

Not yet — it always creates a new template. To change an existing one, open it from the Templates register and edit it as usual.

Check the file is under 10 MB and 10 pages, and that it’s a PDF, a Word .docx, or JPG/PNG photos. A photo that’s blurry, dim or taken at an angle is the usual cause — retake it square to the page in good light and try again.

Walkthrough video

Every step above, performed once in a demo organisation.

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