Creating Email Templates

Aspera Shares comes with preconfigured notification templates, which you can access from the Templates link. To view a template, click the link for its name.



To modify a template, create a new template by copying one of the preconfigured templates and editing it. You cannot modify or delete the preconfigured templates. When editing a new template, you can configure both an HTML and plain-text version, and you can use Aspera Shares built-in variables and variables you create.

  1. To create a template, determine the type of template you want, and click Copy.
  2. To select your template as the default to be used for sending test email, click Default. This also enables activation. The Delivered check box is inactive when checked,. It only indicates that a template is the original version delivered with Shares.
  3. To edit the new template, click the link that is the template’s name:

    The page that appears includes three sections for modifying the email template:

    Details
    Lets you change the name of the template and set the email subject line.
    HTML Template
    Lets you edit an HTML-formatted version of the template.
    Plain Template
    Lets you edit a plain-text version of the template.

    Email notifications always include the HTML and plain-text versions of the message. Therefore, you might want to modify both templates.

    Tip: It might be convenient to make changes in the plain-text template, then copy and paste the text to the equivalent location in the HTML template. The edit box for both versions can be open at the same time
  4. To use variables in a template, click Template Substitution Variables at the bottom of the page. This opens the Substitution Variables dialog showing a list of variables that are available for this template. To see descriptions of each variable, click Show More:


    This dialog displays only those variables that you can enter in the type of template you are using, in this case, the SendTestEmail type.

    When you click or select text in a template edit box, the Add links in the variables list become active. Clicking Add for a variable inserts it or replaces the selected text in the edit box. For example:

    Select text in the edit box for the plain template, in this example, the word “User”:



    To replace “User” with the full name of the user who performed the action that triggers this notification, click Add for the by_full_name variable in the Substitution Variables dialog:



    “User” is replaced with the by_full_name variable. In the results box, the variable is displayed as “First Last” because the by_full_name variable cannot be fully interpreted until the notification has been triggered by the action or event associated with a user. Similarly, “aspera_username” is not a variable, but a display string that represents the variable by_username: