Reference Attributes In BodyText of User Def Email Templates

RentProperty

Hi Guys,

So we are quoting to build a new system for a prospective client. He will be an end user and as such won't have access to the code to make changes etc. However he would like the capability to Setup custom email templates and have the ability to reference Certain attributes in the system.

Obviously the attributes available will depend on what context he will have when creating an email from a template. What I want to know if anyone has ever done something like this or if it is even possible to define Reference attributes in your email template.

So workflow wise will look like this:

1) User will create a new email template:
Category - Property
Subject - "This is a test mail"
Body Text - "Dear, <<Property.Owner.Name>>,

                       The balance on your account is <<Property.Owner.AccountBalance>>.
                      Please settle your account by <<Property.Owner.AccountDueDate>>.

                      Kind Regards
                      <<LoggedInAdministrator.Name>>

He would then be able to send a new mail to the property owner, Select this template, and then the system will Populate those fields before bringing up the Draft Mail for sending.

I know we can easily do this in the code but he wants the capability to define the emails as he pleases and change them without having to contact us.

Is there any way this can be achieved? I.e. that we give him the tags to reference in his templates and the the system will recognize those when Populating the draft email?

Any tips or advise on weather this is possible will be appreciated.

Kindest Regards & Have a great day! 🙂

Hein

RentProperty

HERE's An UPDATE!!! 🙂

I figured out a cool way to do this. 🙂 Here's my implementation idea in case someone ever needs something like this:

So you can decide which attributes you want to make available for the end user to use inside an email template that he sets up: Lets say- PropertyName, TenantName, OutstandingBalance, DueDate. Then you also create 2 Temp Attributes on a higher level object that the email template is also linked to for instance on Company... Create TempEmailSubject and TempEmailBody.

What you would then do is define how you want him to reference these attributes (Make sure it is that it can be detected very easily). Thus setup an html block in the Create form of the Email template Object that explains that he can use the following attributes inside his Subject or mail body template... For example: @#PropertyName#@, @#TenantName#@, @#OustandingBalance#@, @#DueDate#@.

Then When you compile an actual email and allow him to use an template he set up as input, you just check to see if the Subject or the body contains any of these Attribute References and then you use REPLACE_PATTERN to Find and replace these references such as @#PropertyName#@ within the Subject or body with the actual Value that you find by using the context from where you send the mail, and then set you TempEmailSubject and TempEmailBody equal to the TemplateBody with the References Replaced with Values.

From here you can do a EnterNew Email with Email.Subject=TempEmailSubject,Email.Body=TempEmailBody etc....
and then at the end of the process just clear the temp values so that it is ready for the next email. 🙂

Hope this can help someone down the line! I'm certainly going to use it EVERYWHERE now.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

tford

Very creative Hein. Thanks for sharing!

hpl123

Great stuff Hein 🙂.