Custom development at Dataclay means we help you get our software to fit your pipeline, and sometimes we build a piece that does not exist yet. Systems integration is the part where Templater, QUE, and Projector are connected to the other systems you already run, such as a database, a web form, a notification service, or a storage bucket. It is professional services, it is scoped around your project, and it is optional. Plenty of teams never need it.
We want to be precise about that last sentence, because it is the most honest thing we can say on the topic. The Dataclay Station suite is designed so that users can implement it on their own. Most of what people want from us they can do from the documentation and a free trial. This page is for the moment when that stops being true, and for the people who want to know what the help looks like before they ask for it.
What we actually offer
Our professional services page lists a handful of engagement types. Every engagement is quoted individually, so there is no price list to point you to, and we will not guess at one here. What we can do is describe each type and the situation it fits.
Support packages. These are the lightest-touch option, and we cover them in a separate article on what a support package includes. In short, standard support is included with your software purchase at no additional charge. Premium goes further into troubleshooting and reaches past our applications to the video, data, and other files you use. Ultimate includes everything in Premium plus support for remote JSON feeds and event scripting.
Implementation services. An implementation engagement can be small or large. At the small end, it might mean helping a single content creator set up a first customized video project. At the large end, it might mean consulting with a company’s developers on building integrations with our APIs. The thread running through both is that you reach your goal sooner than you would alone.
Consulting services. Our team comes from the production world, and we have seen the common pitfalls in project management and design. A consulting engagement lets you use that experience. We aim to build your skills so you can move past the engagement and work independently. If you would rather outsource all or part of a customized video project, we can connect you with a qualified freelancer who has experience with customized video.
Event scripting. Templater can be extended with shell scripts and ExtendScripts. Developers who are comfortable with those tools can write their own and integrate them into their Autografs, which are Templater-rigged compositions. They can also start from our GitHub repos, case studies, and event scripts documentation. For people who lack the experience, the time, or both, we offer scripting service engagements and can author complex scripts.
Feature enhancements. Any user is free to suggest a feature. We consider each request and add it to the roadmap if it fits. If a feature is vital to your business, you can also engage us to prioritize it. In that case the customer pays an engagement fee so that we can reallocate developer time, and the feature becomes part of the application it was built for. It may also be made available to other customers. That last detail matters, and we will come back to it.
What integration looks like in practice
The phrase “systems integration” can sound abstract, so here is a concrete picture of how these pieces fit. We will use the examples that our own services page names, because they are real engagements and not hypotheticals.
Imagine a team that produces personalized videos from customer records. The records live in a third-party database, and the database requires authentication before it will hand anything over. Templater, by itself, reads a data source and renders. It does not know how to log in to your database. An event script can. Event scripts listen for the events Templater broadcasts and hook into its processes, so a script can run before the data is extracted, authenticate, pull what is needed, and hand it over in a form Templater can use. Authenticating with a third-party database before extracting data is one of the examples from previous engagements that we list on our site.
A second example from the same list is transforming data into a different format. Your source system may produce exports that look nothing like the spreadsheet or JSON structure that a rigged template expects. A script that reshapes the data takes the burden off your designers, who should not be hand-editing columns. Templater can read a tab-separated file, a Google Sheet, a JSON file, or a JSON feed (our post on five tested data sources goes through them), so the target format is rarely mysterious. The work is in getting from where the data lives to where it needs to be.
A third example is sending an email or SMS notification when a render is complete. This one is easy to underrate. In an automated setup nobody sits and watches the progress bar. Someone in another department needs to know when the batch is done, or an editor needs a message when a file is ready for review. A small script that fires on a render-complete event turns a silent pipeline into one that tells people what is happening.
These three examples have something in common. None of them changes what Templater does at its core. Each one connects Templater to something on its edges. That is a fair definition of systems integration. You are not rebuilding the engine, you are running pipes to it and from it.
Let us make the picture more specific with a scenario that is hypothetical, built from the pieces above. A studio produces weekly recap videos for a client. The client’s numbers sit in a database behind a login. Today an assistant exports a spreadsheet by hand every Monday, fixes the column headings, and passes it to a designer who runs Templater Pro. The studio wants it to happen without the assistant. Here is how the problem divides. The login and extraction are a script job. The column fixing is a data transformation, also a script job. The rendering is already solved by Templater Bot watching for new data. The notification to the client is a small script on a render-complete event. Nothing in that list requires a new feature in the product. It requires four small, well-defined pieces of glue, and a person who can say what each one should do.
Not every integration needs a custom script, and it is worth knowing which pieces already exist. QUE is a cloud-based, JSON-based data tool that works as a data source for Templater, and it has an API. If you need to feed video jobs from other software, you can work with the QUE API or use its built-in integration with Zapier. Templater Bot supports command line control, so a developer can push data in from an existing system and trigger renders without anyone opening After Effects by hand. Projector handles rendering several videos at the same time and automating distribution, and it supports S3 storage buckets for archiving. Before you commission anything, check whether one of those already covers the gap. A good consulting conversation often ends with the answer that you do not need to build anything.
There is one more integration case worth naming, because it comes up constantly. Templater does not come with a front-end, web, or mobile application. We designed Templater Bot to be flexible, and we provide ample documentation so that developers can build the interface they need with Templater as the back end. If you want a customer to type a name into a page and receive a video, someone has to build that page. Teams with developers usually build it themselves. Teams without them can ask Dataclay for help, and that request is one of the clearest examples of custom development in our own FAQ.
Once a script exists, someone has to own it. This is general practice with any glue code, and it is the part teams forget to plan for. Scripts depend on the things they connect, a database schema, a credential, a file path, an After Effects version. When one of those changes, the script can fail quietly. Decide who watches it and who fixes it. We say this to our own customers because a clean handoff matters more than a clever script. When a registered event script fails to read its argument values, the most likely cause is that the arguments are not being sent correctly, and our troubleshooting articles on event scripts and on Templater walk through how to check. A person on your side who understands that is worth more than any amount of cleverness in the script itself.
It also helps to test the integration the way you test a template, with a small batch before a large one. Run three rows through the whole path, from the source system to the notification, and read the result at every stage. Templater’s spot check feature lets you export stills or short clips of chosen frames from data-merged compositions, and named timeline markers let you say exactly which frames. If the third row differs from the first two in a way you did not expect, you have found a data problem for the price of a coffee instead of a bad batch of a few hundred videos.
How to decide, and how to prepare
The honest way to decide whether you need custom work is to try the product first. We offer a 30-day free trial of Templater, and it is a fully featured version of Templater Bot, so you can try the automation features you would be paying for. If the trial gets you to a working pipeline, you saved the cost of an engagement. If it does not, you will have a much sharper question to bring to us than “can you help with video.”
The question changes the quality of the help. A vague request produces a vague scope. A specific one, such as “our records live behind a login and our designers keep hand-editing exports,” produces something you can budget and schedule. This is general practice for any services engagement, so here is a short list of what to bring.
Bring a description of where the data starts and what format it is in. Say who touches it on the way to Templater, and whether anyone is cleaning it by hand. This is usually where a script has the most to give.
Bring one finished video you consider correct. A target is easier to build toward than a description of one. If you have a rigged template, bring it. If you do not, say so, because rigging is a skill we can teach and a service we can provide.
Bring your constraints. Some teams must run everything on their own premises. Some work in cloud machines. Templater can run on Windows Server machines in a cloud environment (we also wrote about why on-premise matters for video automation), and Dataclay requires no special license for that, but After Effects must be installed and running there and Adobe’s standard license agreement does not allow After Effects on a server. If that applies to you, resolve it with Adobe early. We would rather you hear about it from us on day one than discover it in week six.
Bring a sense of what failure looks like. For a batch pipeline, that might be a row that renders incorrectly and goes unnoticed, or a job that stalls with nobody informed. Notification and logging requirements are cheap to design in at the start and annoying to add later. Templater already logs its activity, and you can inspect the log files, so a good integration builds on that instead of ignoring it.
Now back to the feature enhancement detail from earlier, because it changes how you should think about custom development with us. When you fund a feature, it does not become a private fork. It becomes part of the application, and it may be offered to other customers. If you need something that must stay exclusive to your company, say so before the engagement, because that is a different kind of conversation. If you are glad to see your idea benefit others, the model is a good deal for everyone.
There are also things that custom development is not for. It is not a substitute for learning the product at the basic level. If a team has never rigged a template, an integration engagement is premature, and consulting or implementation help will serve them better. It is not the answer to a missing creative skill, either. We can show you the techniques and connect you with a freelancer, but a pipeline will not design the video for you. And it is not a quick fix for a pipeline that is poorly defined. Automating a confusing process produces confusion at higher speed.
One more caution. Our load balancing story is limited today. QUE does not load balance jobs between satellites, so you assign jobs to specific satellites yourself, and you are responsible for confirming that every required asset, font, and plugin is available on the satellite you choose. If your plan assumes automatic balancing, tell us at the start so we can help you design around it.
The bottom line is this. Custom development and systems integration are the way to bridge the distance between our software and your systems when documentation and a trial are not enough. They come in five forms, each quoted individually, and the smallest one you need is usually the right one. Start with the Templater page and the trial. Look at the QUE page if your data is the hard part. If you reach the edge of what you can build alone, that is the time to talk to us.
We covered a lot of ground there. These are the questions that come up most when a team is deciding whether to ask us for help.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a custom development engagement cost?
We do not publish a price list, because all professional services engagements are quoted individually. Every customer is unique and data-driven projects come in all shapes and sizes, so the scope drives the quote. The most useful thing you can do is describe where your data starts, what a correct finished video looks like, and where the process hurts. That gives us something specific to quote against. Support packages are the exception in that they have their own page, which you can find under Support packages.
Can you write event scripts for me?
Yes. Templater can be extended with shell scripts and ExtendScripts, and developers can write their own. For people who lack the experience, the time, or both, Dataclay offers scripting service engagements and can author complex scripts. Examples from previous engagements include authenticating with a third-party database before extracting data, transforming data into a different format, and sending an email or SMS notification when a render is complete.
Will a feature you build for me stay private to my company?
Not by default. When a customer pays an engagement fee for us to prioritize a feature, the feature becomes part of the application it was developed for, and it may be made available to other customers. If you need something to remain exclusive, raise that before the engagement starts so we can discuss it as a separate matter. Any user can also suggest a feature at no cost, and we add requests to the roadmap if appropriate.
Does Templater come with a front end I can give my customers?
No. Templater does not come with a front-end, web, or mobile application out of the box. We built Templater Bot to be flexible and we provide ample documentation so developers can build whatever interface they need with Templater as the back end. If you do not have the staff or skills to build front-end interfaces, Dataclay can help. This is one of the most common reasons teams ask us about custom work.
Can you do the whole video project for me?
Our consulting services aim to build your skills so you can work independently after the engagement. If you want to outsource all or part of a customized video project, we can connect you with a qualified freelancer experienced in customized video. Our team comes from the production world and can advise on project management, design, and other parts of customized video production, but the consulting goal is your confidence to fly solo.
Can I try Templater before I talk to you about custom work?
Yes, and we encourage it. The 30-day free trial gives you a fully featured version of Templater Bot, so you can test the automation features before deciding anything. If you buy a license afterward and find Templater does not work for you, contact us for a refund within 30 days. Trying it first also helps you describe your needs more precisely if you do come to us for help.
Do I need custom development to connect QUE to other software?
Often you do not. QUE has an API, and you can use its built-in integration with Zapier to connect it to other software. Templater Bot also supports command line control for pushing data in from an existing system. If neither covers your case, for example because of authentication in front of your data, an event script or an implementation engagement is the next step. Check the built-in options before you commission anything.
