Create, edit, and delete communication notification templates

Notification templates are emails, text messages, meeting requests, and Citizen Access announcements, that Civic Platform sends to public users upon a triggering event or action.

Accela provides stock, predefined system-level templates, available out of the box with Civic Platform. For a list of predefined templates, see System-level notification templates list.

Administrators can create new notification templates and customize:

  • The content of the message

  • Which notification type (email or text message) Civic Platform sends when an action occurs that triggers communication

  • Delayed sending options

Note: You can add parameters to the subject and body of the message. You must declare and assign parameter values in the EMSE scripts. When the specified event or a batch job occurs, the email notification generates and the parameters populate with the matching value passed from the scripts. Parameters are not case-sensitive, but you must enclose them in a pair of double-dollar signs “$$” such as, $$ExaminationID$$. See Embed links to record detail page for more information.

You can create templates for outgoing emails, meeting requests, SMS text messages, and Citizen Access notification emails.

To create notification templates

  1. From the Civic Platform Administration menu, select Communication manager > Notification templates.

  2. Select New.

  3. Select the General details tab.

  4. Complete the following fields as required:

    Field Action
    Template name Enter a name for the template.
    Description Enter a description of the template’s purpose.
    Delay time and delay unit

    Enter the number of minutes, hours, or days you want to delay sending the message and choose a time interval (minutes, hours, or days) in the Delay Unit field.

    Example: If you want to send inspection results after 14 days, enter a delay time of 14, and then specify “days” as the delay unit in the next field.

  5. Select Submit.

  6. After the template is created, select either the Email content tab or the SMS content tab and complete the necessary fields.

    Email content fields

    Field Action
    From

    Choose a “from” value indicating who the email is from.

    Note: This name displays to the message recipient. Administrators configure the values that display here when setting up the email account; see Configure communication manager account settings for more information.
    To, Cc, and Bcc

    Enter specific email addresses or enter EMSE parameters such as $$contacts$$ or $$recordcontactemail$$.

    Notes:

    • You must define the EMSE values in the EMSE scripts that initiate the communication.

    • In the Cc and Bcc fields, you can enter an agency email address. This is useful for saving all communications sent to or from a particular department-wide email alias that you set up to retrieve all emails from the server.

    • Another use case is to configure a script that attaches all emails sent to a Cc or Bcc to records in Civic Platform.
    Title

    Enter an email subject or enter an EMSE parameter.

    Note: To use parameters you must define the values in the EMSE scripts that initiate the communication. For complete details about working with EMSE, refer to the Accela Civic Platform Scripting Guide.
    Importance Select an importance: Low, Normal, or High. Normal is the default.
    Content

    Enter the content of the message. In addition to standard message text, you can:

    • Include variables in the message body. See Communication variables for a full list of variables.

    • Use HTML code to format the content.

    • Add parameters and embed a hyperlink to the Record Detail page in the message body. You must define the parameters and URL in EMSE scripts.

    For information on how to define parameter and embed a hyperlink, see Embed links to record detail page.

    Display in ACA

    Select this option to display the notification as an announcement in Citizen Access.

    Note: Only templates related to examinations and EDR (Electronic Document Recognition) have the Display in ACA field.

    For complete details on how to set up announcements in ACA, see Announcement setting.

    Display as alert Select this option to display an alert informing agency users that they successfully configured the communication.
    Save as attachment Select this option to enable the attachments settings that define whether and how Civic Platform attaches notifications to records or email recipients.
    Attach to
    Note: This setting is only available for system-level templates and becomes available when you select the Save as attachment option.

    Select Record in the list menu to save the email notification as an attachment to associated records.

    Select Recipient in the list menu, Civic Platform saves a notification as an attachment to the recipients of the notification under the following conditions:

    • The event that triggers when Civic Platform sends the notification contains script that calls the EMSE method attachEmailToEntity to attach the email to specific recipient(s);

    • The recipient email address specified in the email content is identical with one of the record-associated contacts or licensed professionals.
    Document group/category
    Note: This setting is only available for system-level templates and becomes available when you select the Save as attachment option.

    Categorize the attachment by first selecting a value from the Document group list menu, then a value from the Document category list menu.

    Note: It is important to select the Document group first, because the Document category list menu is customized based on which document group you choose.
    EDMS name
    Note: This setting is only available for system-level templates and becomes available when you select the Save as attachment option.

    Select the Electronic document management system (EDMS) to which you want to save the notification.

    7. SMS content fields

    Field Action
    From

    Choose a “from” value indicating who the text message is from.

    Note: This name displays to the message recipient. Administrators configure the values that display here when setting up the email account (see Configure communication manager account settings for more information).
    To

    Enter cellular phone number(s). You can also enter parameters such as $$contacts$$.

    Note: You must define these values in the EMSE scripts that initiate the communication.
    Content

    Enter the content of the text message.

    Note: This should be a very brief message and can include agency-defined variables, such as record ID, workflow task name and due date, and scheduled inspection time.

  7. Select Save.

  1. From the Civic Platform Administration menu, select Communication manager > Notification templates.

  2. Select Search.

  3. Enter your search criteria into one or more fields.

  4. Select Submit.

  1. From the Civic Platform Administration menu, select Communication manager > Notification templates.

  2. Select the template name that you want to edit.

    Note: To search for the message you want to edit, select Search on the top of the list and enter your search criteria.

  3. Update the fields as necessary:

    For descriptions of the fields in the General details, Email content, and/or SMS content tabs, seeCreate notification templates.

  4. Select Submit.

When a notification template becomes outdated, you can delete it from your system.

Note: If a batch job uses the deleted notification template, you cannot delete the template. You also cannot delete system templates that come standard with the Accela solutions.

To delete a notification template

  1. From the Civic Platform Administration menu, select Communication manager > Notification templates.

  2. Select the check box next to the template(s) to delete.

  3. Select Delete.

  4. Select OK to confirm the deletion.

Related Topics Link IconSee also