Creating and using email templates

Email templates serve two main functions for incoming and outgoing messages:

• For incoming messages (email that users send to an incoming mailbox), users can include templates in their emails that contain specially formatted instructions. These instructions use combinations of field labels and their values, usually referred to as label/value pairs. The Email Engine parses (that is, translates) these instructions into commands to the AR System server to perform a query, submit or modify an entry, or complete any other such action.
• For outgoing messages (sent by the Email Engine by using an outgoing mailbox), templates can provide formatting of content in messages that include the results of queries or various other requests.

Labels are keywords unique in the Email Engine, and values are their data. Label/value pairs can be included in templates and used to instruct the Email Engine to interact with your AR System server.

Templates used for incoming and outgoing messages can be formatted by using plain text, HTML, or XML. Templates are defined and stored in forms on the AR System server and can be retrieved for use by the Email Engine when called upon by incoming or outgoing mail.

This section provides information and instructions about creating and using templates for outgoing and incoming email. Topics include:

• Types of email templates
• Creating and exporting mail templates
• Customizing the template
• Using label-value pairs in templates
• Using variables in email templates
• Storing templates in the AR System Email Templates form
• Adding and modifying attachments in HTML templates
• Sending incoming email with user instructions
• Email template examples
• Preparing email templates after an upgrade

You might find the following tips helpful when using email templates:

• Diary fields and character fields with a maximum length of over 50 characters can use multiple lines of text.
• Values can be entered anywhere after the delimiting character. Leading and trailing blanks are ignored when the Email Engine reads a value.
• Comments are optional. Because the Email Engine ignores any lines that do not contain a valid label/value pair, you do not have to add a # symbol in front of comments.
• If the user does not enter a value into a field that has a default value defined, then the default value is loaded. If the user does not enter a value into a required field and there is no default value defined for it, an error will result.
• Inline images in an email are not visible if you send an email using the email template that uses an attachment that has a name different than the name of the image file attachment. Therefore, you must ensure that the attachment name and image file name are the same for inline images.