Email Templates: Overview and Types

Almost every email Aeon sends is built from a template. When you cancel request #12345, confirm an appointment, or clear a new researcher, Aeon doesn't ask you to write the message from scratch — it loads the matching template, fills in the patron's name, the item title, the appointment time, and so on from the database, and presents the finished email. That substitution is what makes one template serve thousands of patrons with the right details every time.

Templates live in the Customization Manager under Integrations & Messaging > Email Templates. This page explains what templates are, the four types you can create, and how the type controls which database fields a template can pull in. For the step-by-step of building and editing one, see Creating and Editing Email Templates; for the full list of insertable fields, see Email Template Tags and Database Field Substitution.

When you'll work with templates

• You're setting up a new Aeon site and want to review or reword the messages patrons receive.
• A workflow needs a new notification (for example, a custom "Item ready for pickup" message) — you create a new template of the right type.
• You want a template to send automatically when a request reaches a particular queue — that's email routing, set on the template itself.
• A staff member picks a template by name when sending email from a request or user record — see Composing and Sending Email from a Request.

Who can manage templates

The Email Templates screen lives in the Customization Manager and is gated by the Integrations configuration permission. If your role includes it, you can open the screen and create, edit, rename, copy, and delete templates. If it doesn't, the Integrations & Messaging section is hidden from the Customization Manager and opening the page directly shows "You don't have permission to access this customization section." Sending email from a request using existing templates is a separate, day-to-day staff task — see Composing and Sending Email from a Request.

What a template defines

A single template carries everything needed to produce an email:

Part	Holds
Name	The unique identifier you (and the API) refer to the template by, e.g. ItemDelivered.
Type	Transaction, User, Activity, or Appointment — see below. This governs which fields the template can use.
Description	A short note about what the template is for.
Recipient (To name / To address)	Who the email goes to — usually a field tag like the patron's name and email address rather than a fixed address.
CC / BCC	Optional carbon-copy and blind-copy addresses.
From / Reply To	The sending and reply addresses.
Subject	The subject line, which can also contain field tags.
Body	The message text, with field tags for the substituted values.
Routing (Transaction templates only, optional)	A queue (and/or photoduplication queue) that makes Aeon send this template automatically when a request reaches that status — see Automatic sending below.

Every text part — recipient, subject, body, even the CC line — can mix static text with field tags. A tag such as the patron's first name is replaced with the real value when the email is generated.

The four template types

The type you give a template is the most important choice, because it decides which database tables — and therefore which field tags — are available to it. A template's type is set when you create it and, for your own templates, can be changed later.

Type	Sent in the context of	Field categories it can use
Transaction	A request (the most field-rich type)	System, User, Researcher, Request, Queue, Photoduplication Queue, Billing, Appointment
User	A user/patron record	System, User
Activity	An activity (class, group visit, event)	System, User, Activity
Appointment	A reading-room appointment	System, User, Appointment

A few notes on what those categories mean:

• System fields come from your site's Local Info (contact name, phone, address, and so on) and are available to every type — handy for a consistent signature or reply address.
• User fields are available to every type as well, so any template can address the patron by name.
• Researcher (Transaction type) is the same set of user fields, resolved to the request's researcher.
• Queue and Photoduplication Queue (Transaction type) let a request template reference the queue the request is in.
• Billing (Transaction type) exposes computed values — Invoice Total, Payments, and Balance Due — for invoice and payment emails.
• Appointment fields are available to Transaction templates as well as Appointment templates, and include reading-room details (reading room name and description, minimum and maximum appointment length) alongside the appointment's own fields.
• If you've defined custom fields, they show up as their own categories (User Custom Fields, Request Custom Fields, and so on) for the types that support them.

"Transaction" and "Order" are the same type

In the database, transaction-type templates have historically been stored with the value Order. Aeon treats Transaction and Order as the same type, so older sites' templates continue to work and appear under Transaction. You'll see "Transaction" throughout the interface.

System templates vs. your own templates

The Email Templates list separates system templates from custom templates.

• System templates ship with Aeon and back its built-in workflows — for example ItemDelivered, ItemCancellation, ItemInvoice, ClearUser, DisavowUser, MergeUser, NewUserRegistration, PasswordReset, the Appointment … family, and UserAddedToActivity. You can freely edit their content (wording, subject, addresses, body), but you cannot rename or delete them, because other parts of Aeon call them by name.
• Custom templates are the ones you create. You have full control: edit, rename, copy, or delete them as you like.

System templates can't be renamed or deleted

On a system template the Name field is locked and Delete is disabled (in both the Actions menu and the sidebar right-click menu), so there's nothing to undo by accident. The underlying rules are enforced by Aeon too: a rename is rejected with "System templates cannot be renamed." and a delete with "System templates cannot be deleted." To change what a built-in notification says, edit it in place rather than replacing it. If you need a different version for a specific situation, Copy it to a new custom template and select that manually when sending.

How a template becomes an email

There are two ways a template turns into an outgoing message:

1. A staff member chooses it. When you send email from a request or user record, you pick a template by name; Aeon loads it, substitutes the field tags for that record, and shows you the result to review and edit before sending. See Composing and Sending Email from a Request and Email Preview Before Sending.
2. Aeon sends it automatically (routing). A template can be tied to a queue status so it goes out on its own when a request lands in that queue — covered next.

Automatic sending (email routing)

A Transaction template can carry an optional Email Routing setting that links it to a queue. The routing controls appear in the editor only when the template's type is Transaction; for User, Activity, and Appointment templates the section is disabled. Two links are possible:

• Transaction Queue — a regular request queue. When a request is routed into that queue, Aeon sends this template automatically.
• Photoduplication Queue — a photoduplication queue, used the same way for copy-order workflows.

A template doesn't have to be routed. Leave both set to [Select a Queue] and the template is simply available for staff to pick manually; choose a queue for one (or both) and Aeon fires the template as part of the workflow whenever a request reaches that status. Routing is configured on the template in the editor — see Creating and Editing Email Templates. On system templates the routing fields are read-only.

Where to go next

• Creating and Editing Email Templates — the editor, saving, copying, and deleting.
• Email Template Tags and Database Field Substitution — the full picker of insertable field tags and how the tag syntax works.
• Email Preview Before Sending — how staff see the finished, substituted email before it goes out.

Editor review — remove this callout (and the HTML comment below it) before publishing

A couple of points for an SME to confirm:

• Default-template list: the system-template names in this page (ItemDelivered, ItemCancellation, etc.) are carried over from the V6 default-templates doc. Confirm the V7 seed includes the same set, with no additions/removals, before we present this as authoritative.
• Audience scope: this page is the conceptual "what/why" overview for customizers; the hands-on editor lives on the "Creating and Editing" page. Confirm that split matches the intended IA and there's no overlap to trim.
• Screenshots: inventory marks this page screenshot: false. Two would still help readers: (1) the Email Templates list showing the System / Custom split, and (2) a Transaction template's Email Routing section (with the Transaction Queue / Photoduplication Queue pickers). Confirm whether either is wanted before publish.

The full generation metadata — sources, files read, and verifications, i.e. the detail a tool like Claude would need to regenerate this page — is in the HTML comment directly below this callout. When this page has been reviewed and approved, delete both this callout and that comment; a page with no Editor-review callout is one that's done.