Customizing email notification templates

API Connect includes a set of email templates for invitations and other notification emails. You can preview the templates and customize the text if required. You can also style the notifications to match your business theme.

1. In the Cloud Manager, click Settings.
2. In the Settings navigation list, click Notifications.

   On the Notifications page, templates display in a list, sorted by scope. When selecting a template to modify, be sure to select the version that applies to the appropriate scope.

3. To preview the text for a template, select Preview from the actions menu next to the template name.
4. To edit the text for the template, either click the template name, or select Edit in the action menu.

   When a template is opened, an attempt is made to get the language from the browser setting, but if this isn't possible the template defaults to English.

   The text includes variables; for example, {{catalog}}. The notification text is based on Handlebars syntax. Most variables are enclosed in double curly braces {{ }}, but can be enclosed in triple curly braces {{{ }}} to disable HTML escaping, when the variable is a URL link for example. For more information on Handlebars, see https://handlebarsjs.com/.

   To obtain the complete list of variables that are available for a particular notification template, complete the following steps:

   1. Log in to the management server from the command line as a member of the cloud administration organization; for details, see Logging in to a management server. You can use the same management server URL, user name, and password in the login command that you use to log in to the Cloud Manager user interface.
   2. Enter the following command:

      apic notification-templates:get template_name --server mgmt_endpoint_url --scope cloud --subcollection template_scope --fields variables --output -

      where:

      • template_name is the name of the required notification template, as displayed in the Template column in the user interface.
      • template_scope is the scope name displayed in the Scope column alongside that template.
      For example:

      apic notification-templates:get member-invitation --server https://myserver.com --scope cloud --subcollection catalog --fields variables --output -

      The variables that are available for the template are displayed, for example:

      variables:
        - org
        - catalog
        - activationLink
        - expiresAt
        - originator
        - originatorFirstName
        - originatorLastName
        - originatorEmail
        - username
        - email
        - firstName
        - lastName

      The --output - parameter causes the command output to be written to the command line. You can specify --output filepath to have the output written to a .yaml file at the specified location, or omit it altogether to have a file written to the current folder.

5. To view and edit the notification template in a different language, select one of the following supported languages from the View template in drop-down list:
   • Chinese (Simplified)
   • Chinese (Traditional)
   • Czech
   • Dutch
   • English (US English)
   • French
   • German
   • Italian
   • Japanese
   • Korean
   • Polish
   • Portuguese
   • Russian
   • Spanish
   • Turkish
6. Edit the Subject as required.
7. Select the Content type that you want to use for the template, from HTML, PlainText, or Both. The default content type is PlainText.
   An edit window for the selected content type is displayed, or both edit windows are displayed if Both is selected.
8. Edit the body of the template as required.
   For HTML content, only the tags and their attributes that are shown in the following table are allowed.

   Table 2. List of allowed HTML tags and their attributes

   HTML tag	Attribute
   <a>	"class", "href", "hreflang", "style"
   <em>	"class", "style"
   <strong>	"class", "style"
   <cite>	"class", "style"
   <blockquote>	"class", "cite", "style"
   <code>	"class", "style"
   <ul>	"class", "type", "style"
   <ol>	"class", "start", "type", "style"
   <li>	"class", "style"
   <dl>	"class", "style"
   <dt>	"class", "style"
   <dd>	"class", "style"
   <h1>	"class", "id", "style"
   <h2>	"class", "id", "style"
   <h3>	"class", "id", "style"
   <h4>	"class", "id", "style"
   <h5>	"class", "id", "style"
   <h6>	"class", "id", "style"
   <p>	"class", "style"
   <div>	"class", "style"
   <br>	"class", "style"
   <span>	"class", "style"
   <img>	"class", "src", "alt", "data-entity-type", "data-entity-uuid", "data-align", "data-caption", "width", "height", "style"
   <table>	"class", "id", "style"
   <tr>	"class", "id", "style"
   <td>	"class", "id", "style"

   If an HTML tag that is not allowed is used in a notification, the tag and its contents are displayed in the email as plain text.

   Images can be used by adding a <img src="https://path/to/image.png"/> tag in the template. The src attribute for the image must be a fully qualified web URL, and must be externally accessible so that the email recipients can access the image. It's not possible to reference local images, they must be fully qualified URLs. It's also not possible to embed or attach images or other files in the emails.

9. Click Save when done.
   Note: Edits made to a template are saved only for the specific language version that is edited.