Customising the email header, footer, css and signoff

Many information delivery organisations like their email templates to reflect their corporate identity.

Header, footer and css customisation

If you want correspondence that goes outside your organisation to include a corporate header and footer, you simply need to provide the appropriate content between the body tags of the Header.htm and footer.htm files in the email template /common directory. The {emailheader} and {emailfooter} variables are already inserted in the master client and third party email templates, so to add a header (or footer), just add your content between the body tags of these files and it will appear in all the email that go outside your organisation from RefTracker.

Should you want to change the css used in your email templates, add the new css you want to use to the email.local.css file as !important. To change the email .local.css file go to System>Utilities>Administration utilities>File upload/download and select the include/css directory. You’ll be able to download the file, add your changes, and upload it again, from that screen. You do not need to replace all the standard RefTracker css, just put your changes in this file. The css you add to email.local.css will change both the emails that go externally, and the emails that go to staff. The colours used in email templates are provided by the colours set at System>Utilities>Administration utilities>Colour scheme editor, unless you override those colours in your email.local.css file.

Staff signoff customisation

Some organisations want their RefTracker responses personalised by adding their staff’s name and contact details to the end of all client correspondence that they generate in RefTracker.

Staff can do this by creating QuickText to be inserted, but this means the signoff becomes part of the response (and may need to be removed for the purposes of the Knowledge base, for example). It also means that staff have to remember to add in the personal signoff

If it is library policy that signoffs must be used, then a much better way of doing it is to change the signoff.htm file that provides the signoff text for all client emails.

Importantly, you can also use this signoff to include a corporate message, information about your RefTracker New question email importing address, or in fact any other information that you want added to every client email where the signoff variable has been included.

Every master client email template includes the following variable that will insert the contents of the signoff.htm file

{emailsignoff}

To create a custom signoff that meets your needs, you only need to make a change in one place – the signoff.htm file.

To change the signoff.htm file, go to System>Utilities>Administration utilities>Template editor (email) and choose the Common group.

In the master directory on the left you will find two signoff files:

signoff.htm – the standard signoff that just provides the RefTracker service name (if one has been provided in parameter1.1) and your organisation’s name. It produces a signoff like this:

signoffpersonal.htm – provides a signoff that includes the contact details for the allocated staff member, if the question is allocated to a staff member. If the question is not allocated, the coding of this signoffpersonal file ensures that the signoff will just show the RefTracker service name (if one has been provided in parameter 1.1) and your organisation’s name. If your organisation wants all client correspondence to include the name of the staff member providing the response, this is the file you should choose:

1. If you want include a link to the teams chat capability include this (you can choose to make a call once Teams opens):

    <!--$rvb$--><a href="https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?users={staff_email}">Click here to contact me via Teams</a> <br />
    <!--$rve$-->

If you want to include a link directly to the Teams call functionality, include this:

    <!--$rvb$--><a href="https://teams.microsoft.com/l/call/0/0?users={staff_email}">Click here to contact me via Teams</a> <br />
    <!--$rve$-->

2. If you want to make any changes to the layout of the signoff you have selected, select the copied file in the Local box, and click the Edit button so you can make any changes that you want to make (or download the file for editing outside RefTracker and re-uploading).

3. When you have finished making any changes, ensure that your modified signoff file in the local directory is called signoff.htm (right click it to change its name). This will ensure that RefTracker starts picking up this new file as the signoff for client correspondence.

When editing your signoff.htm file, you can use any of the {staff_*} variables defined in System>Data dictionary menu>System tables>Staff to show attributes of the staff member assigned this question.

{staff_name}
{staff_email}
$rvb${staff_phone}$rve$
$rvb${staff_title}$rve$

Alternatively you can use the {CurrentUser*} variables to show attributes of the currently logged on user.

{CurrentUserName}
{CurrentUserEmail}
$rvb${CurrentUserPhone}$rve$
$rvb${CurrentUserTitle}$rve$

If you want to include images in your signoff, load the images at Systems>Utilities>Administration utilities>File Upload/Download, and choose the include/images/local directory to upload the files into. Alternatively you can link directly to images provided by your corporate web site. However, please note that, if you include a link to an image, and at some later time the image at that link is no longer available, the copies of emails that included that image, in the RefTracker History screen, will (of course) no longer be able to display that image.

Here’s an example of the code to include an image loaded in that way, in your signoff (note that it specifies the image in the include/images/local directory). Relative directories cannot be used in this scenario so you need to use the full URL for the image, as shown here if using an images stored in RefTracker: