Creating and managing email templates

You can use email templates to send notifications related to a record, such as updating or closing a ticket, sending customer survey link, and so on. By using business rules, you can automate the process of sending email notifications to users. You can also use email templates to customize the details included in an email. You can use fields and keywords to customize the text of an email message.

You can create email templates for the following containers:

• Workspace
• CMDB
• Knowledge Base
• Service Portfolio

If you want to create quick templates for your items, see Creating and managing Quick Templates.

Creating an email template

1. Open the container where you want to create a template, and perform the following steps:
   1. Click the Administration tab.

   2. In the Workspaces section, perform one of the following actions:

      • Click the workspace that you want to modify.
      • Click Manage to open the Workspace Administration page and then double-click the workspace.
2. In the left pane, click Email Templates.
3. In the Email Templates page, click New.
4. In the Properties section, perform the following actions:
   
   1. In the Name field, type a descriptive name for the template.
   2. (Optional) In the Description field, type a useful description of this template.
   3. (Optional) In the Item Type field, select the item for this template.

   4. (Optional) If you do not want attachments from the records included with the email generated by this template, clear the Include attachments from the item check box.

   5. In the Text Emails section, accept the default option to create text notifications from the HTML template or select the option to manually create your own.
      If you accept the default option, most browsers can process the generated text.
5. (Optional) To include fields and keywords in the email text, perform the following steps:
   1. In the left pane, click Fields and Keywords.
      This list presents keywords for all fields and their labels by workspace item.
   2. In the Character between Label-Field Pairs field, accept the default value (equals sign), select a colon (:) or is, or select Custom to define your own separator.
      Changing this setting affects separators for all pairs used in this template.

   3. In the list, select individual labels and fields or select pairs, drag them onto the Body section (in the right pane) and place them where you want them to appear in the email text.
      If you select a field (value), only the value in a field is displayed in your email. If you select a field (label), then the label appears. If you select the field (Pair), then both the label and the field value appear where you place the keyword in the email template.

      Important

      The [URL] keyword applies only to a template used in Send Survey Action and not to any other item. 

6. (Optional) In the right pane, in the Create a version in another language field, select additional languages to create copies of this template in those languages.
   The selected languages appear in the Languages applied field.

7. In the right pane, format your email, by performing the following actions:

   1. In the Subject field, type the text that you want to appear in the email subject. You can insert variables in this field.

      Important

      If you want to update tickets via email, you must include Ticket=[TICKET_NUMBER] in the Subject field to correctly process the reply.

   2. In the Body section, do either of the following:
      
      • On the HTML tab, type the text that you want to appear as the message.
        Drag fields and keywords as needed and use the HTML formatting tools to customize the appearance of your message.
      • If you selected the Text Email option to generate text from the HTML template, you do not need to create that text separately. If you want to manually create the plain text version of the HTML message, click the Text tab and type or paste the message text.
8. Click Save.
9. To implement your changes, in the breadcrumb trail, click the container link, and then click Save and Publish.

Editing, copying, or deleting an email template

If you have the required permissions, you can edit or delete an email template. You can also choose to copy an existing email template, make changes based on your requirements, and save it as a new template.

1. Open the container for which you want to modify an email template:
   1. Click the Administration tab.

   2. In the Workspaces section, perform one of the following actions:

      • Click the workspace that you want to modify.
      • Click Manage to open the Workspace Administration page and then double-click the workspace.
2. In the left pane, click Email Templates.

3. On the Email templates page, perform one of the following actions:

   To edit an email template	Select the template that you want to modify, and click Edit. Modify the fields as needed. For more information, see Creating an email template. Click Save.
   To copy an email template	Select an exisitng email template that you want to copy. Click Copy and an email template tab with the same name appended with the word Copy appears. For example, Ticket Change Copy. (Optional) In the Name field, modify the name of the new email template.  Make the other required modifications to the template. Click Save.
   To delete an email template	Select the template that you want to delete, and click Delete. In the Confirm dialog box, click Yes. Exisitng records that used this template will not be changed.

4. To implement your changes, in the breadcrumb trail, click the container link and then click Save and Publish.