Edit the emails the platform sends

Every email the platform sends, such as an invoice, a reminder or a client report, comes from an e-mail template: its layout, its wording and the places where details like an invoice number are filled in when it goes out. You can edit those templates yourself, for everyone or for a single entity or client, and see exactly what a recipient will get before anything is sent.

You do not have to edit anything. A template nobody has edited follows the one that comes with the platform, which improves with each release.

Where to find it

Go to Global Settings > General > E-mail Templates. The list shows every email the platform sends, one row per template and language.

A single client’s templates are also on the client’s page, under the Email templates tab.

Which version is sent

A template can have a version at four levels. The platform uses the most specific level that has a published version of its own:

Level	Applies to
This client	One client only
This entity	Every client of that entity without a version of its own
Tenant default	Every entity without a version of its own
Platform default	Everyone who has not edited the template. It comes with the platform

A level with no published version of its own shows as Inherited and follows the level below it. That is the normal state.

Which level the list shows depends on the entity selected in the header: All entities shows the tenant default, and choosing an entity shows that entity. To see one client’s templates, pick the client under All filters.

Reading the list

Column	What it shows
Template, Area, Language	Which email this is, and in which language
Who gets this	The level whose version is sent today, or Not sent when the email is switched off
Status	Inherited, Draft, Published, or Published, draft pending at the level you are looking at
Subject	Set, or Needs a subject when the template has no subject line yet
Overrides	How many entities or clients have a version of their own. Hover to see which. They do not get changes made here
Last edited	When the template was last changed at this level

The chips above the table narrow the list: All; the templates with a version of their own at this level (Overrides the shipped default, This entity’s own or This client’s own); Needs a subject; and Not sent.

What makes the platform send each template is listed in When each email is sent.

Editing a template

Open a row. The E-mail settings panel at the top says which level you are editing and what it currently follows, and Sent from shows every level with the one sent today ticked.

Edit the template on one of three tabs:

• Design, a visual editor. One click selects a block so you can move, style or delete it. Double-click to put the cursor in the text and type.
• HTML, the whole document as source.
• Preview, the email as a recipient gets it.

A variable is written in capitals between two # signs, such as #CLIENT_NAME#, and is filled in when the email is sent. In the Design tab, variables are dragged in from the Variables blocks rather than typed, so they cannot be misspelled. The Variables panel above the editor lists every variable the template can use, grouped by what it describes, with its current value.

In the collection emails, the heading, body and legal text come from the collection profile settings, and the editor says so. What you change in the template is everything around them.

To add a picture, drag the Image block into the email and upload a JPG, PNG or GIF, or pick one uploaded before. Double-click an image in the email to change it. Uploaded images are stored with the entity and the email links to them, so they show in every email program. An image pasted into the HTML as embedded data (data:image/...) gets a warning: Gmail and Outlook strip those, so it shows as nothing in most inboxes.

The subject is edited under Subject line. Saving it saves a draft.

Saving and publishing

Editing happens in two steps, so nothing you are still working on is sent.

1. Save draft keeps your work. The version already being sent carries on being sent.

2. Publish makes your draft the version that is sent, from that moment, for every client that follows the level you are editing. Unsaved changes are saved first.

Discard changes, in the … menu, drops what you have not saved yet.

A template cannot be published without a subject line.

The compatibility check

Every template is checked against what email programs can display. The panel above the editor lists what it finds:

• Problems block publishing. For example a script, a stylesheet loaded from elsewhere, a variable this email is never given, or a document over 100 KB, where Gmail cuts the email off.
• Things that may not render as expected are warnings. You can publish anyway.

Every problem it can report is listed in Show, hide and repeat parts of an email.

Previewing and testing

The Preview tab renders the email with the real details for the level you are editing, and sample values for anything that is only known when an email is sent. Choose Most email apps or Outlook on Windows, which leaves out what Outlook ignores.

Under Preview values you can type over any value, for example a much longer client name, and switch the parts of the email that are shown only for some recipients. Click Apply to preview. Nothing there is saved.

Send test email sends what is in the editor, including unsaved changes, to an address you give. It uses sample data, and click and open tracking are off.

Settings per template

Under Distribution in the E-mail settings panel, each template has settings that apply as soon as you save them, without publishing:

Setting	Offered on	What it does
Send e-mail	Every template	Set to No, the email is not sent. An invoice, reminder or other distribution is recorded as skipped rather than failed, so it is not retried and no letter is sent instead
Attach the document	Client reports	Whether the report is attached
Attach the document for companies	Invoices, reminders and collection mail	Whether the document is attached when the debtor is a company
Attach the document for private individuals	Invoices, reminders and collection mail	Whether the document is attached when the debtor is a private individual

Each can be Yes, No, or left to follow the level below it, which the setting shows as Yes (inherited) or No (inherited). A client can be given Yes even when its entity has No.

Giving one client or entity its own version

Choose Save as from the … menu. It copies what is in the editor to another level and leaves what you are editing as it is:

Save it for	Result
All entities (the tenant default)	A draft of the tenant default
One entity	A draft for that entity
One client	A draft for that client
Every client in a client template	Published at once for every client in that client template

The copy is a draft at its new level, so open it there and publish it. If the level already has a version of its own, you are asked whether to replace it.

Pushing to a client template publishes straight away

Every client in a client template does not create drafts. Publish to publishes the template for every client in that client template immediately. It says first how many clients that is and how many already have a version of their own, and those are left alone unless you choose to replace them. Replacing a client’s own version also drops any draft it has; the version it replaces stays in its version history.

Once a client or entity has a version of its own, it stops following the level above. A change made to the shared template does not reach it. The Overrides column and the Sent from panel name who is affected, so you can make the same change there too.

Going back

Revert to inherited, in the … menu, removes the version at the level you are looking at, so it follows the level below again. Nothing is deleted: every version stays in the history.

Version history lists every version of the template at this level, with who saved and published it and when. Restore as draft copies an older version back into the draft, to publish again.

Change log, on the list page and in the … menu, shows who changed what across your templates: saved, published, reverted, restored, pushed to clients, and settings changed.

Showing, hiding and repeating parts of an email

A part of an email can be shown only for some recipients, for example the client’s own message, shown only when the client has written one. In the Design tab, select the part and choose when it is shown under Only when, in the settings for the selected element.

Templates that list items, such as the sync reports’ failed invoices, can repeat a part once for each item with Repeat for each.

Show, hide and repeat parts of an email describes the attributes these settings write, for editing them on the HTML tab.

What you need

Needs	For
The ReadEmailTemplate right	The list, a template, its history and the preview
The UpdateEmailTemplate right	Saving, publishing, reverting, restoring, copying, settings, images and test emails
The ReadEmailTemplateChangelog right	The change log
The Send module	Opening and changing a template

All three rights are on the SYSTEM role. Without the Send module the list is still visible, but no template can be opened. Contact Quiddly to have it enabled.

Editing is not sending, until it is switched on

Your templates are only used once sending from your own templates is switched on, which Quiddly does with you. It can be switched on for the whole tenant, or for one client first under the client’s Other settings (EMAIL_OWN_TEMPLATES_ENABLED). Until then, emails go out exactly as before, and everything you save here, settings included, is stored but not used. The editor says so.

Once it is on, an email whose template cannot be turned into an email is not sent the old way either. It counts as a failed email: a high-priority to-do is raised on the client so someone sees it, and an invoice or reminder moves on to its next distribution method the same way it does when an email cannot be delivered.