Use variants of email templates
- 7 Min.
How can you use email templates to send variations of messages and attachments to some groups of customers?
What variations of email templates can you set up for different recipients?
Many companies have groups of customers and vendors that need differentiated email messages and attachments. These types of differentiated templates are managed in Document Output when you create and enable variant email template lines, rather than creating completely separate email templates for the same document type. This is because each document type can connect to only one email template.
Scenario
In the scenario video, Ester sets up two variant email template lines to cater for different customer needs.
Ester needs to work on these tasks:
- Attach a different terms and conditions document to sales invoices for the customer group: large
- Set up a different report format on the sales quote email template for one customer only
Variant email template lines can differentiate by:
- Language codes
- Dimensions values, such as Customer Group or Salesperson
- Field values, such as Customer Disc. Group or VAT Country/Region
Variant email template lines can differentiate from the default email template in many ways, including:
- Additional or different merged PDFs, such as a price list with different discounts applied
- Text in the email body, for example in a different language
- Report format, for example Word or Excel instead of the default PDF
- PDF passwords
In the example image of the sales shipment email template, you can see:
- line 2 set up for German language customers
- line 3 set up for Customer Group: Large
Each email template line can combine multiple elements for variants, for instance to allow for a variant email to customers who are both Customer Group: Medium, and also have language code: Spanish. If separate variant template lines are enabled for the two elements, but not for this combination, the customer would be sent the email template matching the dimension code, rather than the email template matching the language code.
For documents that include none of the triggers, the default email template line will be applied. This is why it’s important to always enable at least the top line of the email template, so that all customers or vendors have an email template available for sending the associated document.
Hinweis
The first email template line operates like a default line. This should always be left without a selection for language field and without one of the dimension codes, so that documents not covered by a variant template will still be sent with the main version of the email template.
Use dimensions for variant template lines
The trigger for a variant email line could be based on a dimension code such as customer group or salesperson. You can see the available dimensions on the dimensions list. Each customer and vendor card includes a FactBox which displays their value for these dimensions.
Use language codes for variant template lines
The language code listed on the customer or vendor card can be used as the trigger for a variant template line. Document Output can help you quickly set up email template lines for different language codes, with templates that can be downloaded from the Email Templates list, in the Continia Online menu. Downloading these language templates will create a new language code variant line on your selected email templates, including a new language version HTML email template and a translated file name for the attachment.
Use document fields for variant template lines
As well as managing variants with dimensions or language code, it’s also possible to create template variant lines based on the fields used in the associated document.
For example, when you use the reminder email template, it can be useful to create a different template variant according to the reminder level for each document. The effect would be that reminders are sent with different email messages if they are only just overdue, or overdue by a longer time.
- In the General FastTab, at the Variant field No. option, select Reminder Level. (You might need to click Show more at the top of the General FastTab.)
- Create Email Template Lines for each Reminder Level, and enter appropriate file names.
- Select from the options at Attach Open Documents Filter to attach and combine reminder documents that correspond to the different reminder levels.
Other resources
More learning resources for this topic include:
- Working with Email Templates (Continia Docs article)