Setting up Your Data Source for Multiple Bots

You have the choice to use one or more Bots to process your data source into video. Using multiple Bots to process the same data source allows you to process video faster. Follow these steps to set up multiple Bots:

  1. Create a new column in your spreadsheet, and name it render-status. Values in this column should only contain reserved terms or remain empty.
  2. In the Templater panel, click Preferences to launch Templater Preferences.
  3. In the Templater Preferences dialog, in Bot Settings, give a unique name to your Bot by entering it into the Bot Name field. Do this for each Bot that will read from and write to the same data source. Only enter names to identify your Bots if you enable more than one Bot.
  4. In your spreadsheet, create another column, and name it bot. Assign a row of data to a specific Bot by entering its name into this column. Values should match the values entered in the Bot Name field in the Templater Preferences dialog.
  5. Enter ready into the render-status column to signify that data in a spreadsheet row should be processed by Templater.

TIP Because it is fully automated, The Bot will overwrite existing files if it is set to render to the same output file name. Make sure your id or output column provides unique ids for each row to avoid overwriting output.

WARNING  When using a URL feed, The Bot cannot update the value of the "render-status" key because the data source is specific to the user's system. Therefore, users should register custom scripts to update "render-status" values at appropriate events to avoid re-rendering "ready" data. As of version 2.1.10, the Post Job, Post Batch, and On Bot Disable events are broadcast.

Table showing all reserved terms, where they are input from, and their meaning

Reserved render-status terms Input source Meaning
ready User or Front-end Application Data in the spreadsheet row is marked as ready for processing by Templater.
queued Templater Data row is queued for processing by Templater.
processing Templater Data row is currently being processed by Templater.
done Templater Templater has finished processing the data row into a customized video.
ERR::MEDIA Templater Templaterencountered an issue with locating or importing a media asset. In many cases, the output video may have been rendered, but it may contain a media issue within the rendered output.
ERR::AFXHOST Templater Templater's host application, Adobe After Effects, encountered an error. Learn more about the error by viewing After Effects on the machine that is running Templater. When you see this error, After Effects will likely have stopped operating normally.