Email Templates
Customize the emails that Deckyard sends to users.
Overview
Section titled “Overview”Deckyard sends its account and sharing emails from templates. You can change their wording, per template and per language.
Where to Find It
Section titled “Where to Find It”Templates are edited per instance, by an admin:
- Go to Settings > Email (a tab only admins see)
- Open the Admin: Email Templates panel
The same tab holds the switch for comment notification emails. The sender name and address are set separately, under Email Sender Identity in the Admin tab.
Available Templates
Section titled “Available Templates”These are the templates an admin can customize:
| Template | Sent when |
|---|---|
| User Invitation | An admin adds a user, or a member is invited to an organization |
| Activation Reminder | An admin resends the invitation to a user who has not activated their account yet |
| Collaborator Invitation | Someone shares a presentation with a collaborator |
| Guest Invitation | Someone invites a guest to view a presentation |
| Password Reset | A user asks to reset their password |
| Magic Link | A user signs in without a password |
| Comment Notification | Someone comments on, replies to or mentions someone in a presentation |
| Guest Verification | A guest verifies their email address before commenting |
The weekly digest emails, the export-ready notice and the test email use fixed templates.
Customizing Templates
Section titled “Customizing Templates”Template Fields
Section titled “Template Fields”Each template has five fields:
- Subject - Email subject line
- Greeting - Opening line
- Body - Main text
- Button Label - Text on the action button
- Footer - Closing text
An empty field shows the built-in default as placeholder text, with the hint “Using default (type to customize)”. A template with overrides is marked Customized in the template list.
Editing a Template
Section titled “Editing a Template”- Pick a template under Template:
- Choose the language tab
- Edit any of the five fields
- Click Preview to see the email with sample data, including unsaved edits
- Click Send Test to send it to your own address, with
[TEST]in the subject - Click Save
Reset to Default removes all customizations of that template for the selected language. Saving a field empty removes the override for that field.
Send Test needs email sending to be configured; see Email Configuration.
Overrides and Defaults
Section titled “Overrides and Defaults”Customizations are stored as overrides per template and language, for the whole instance. A field you leave untouched uses the built-in default. Deckyard resolves each field in this order:
- Your override for the email’s language
- The built-in default for that language
- The built-in English default
Once a template has any override for a language, the email is built from the five fields alone. Extras in some built-in emails, such as the quoted comment in Comment Notification or the “safe to ignore” line in Magic Link, are then left out.
Layout and HTML
Section titled “Layout and HTML”The layout of every email is fixed: greeting, body, one button, footer, and a fallback link below it. There are no options for a logo, colors or fonts.
Only Body accepts HTML, and it is placed inside a paragraph, so keep to inline tags such as <strong> and <a>. The other fields are plain text; any HTML in them is shown as literal text. For the plain-text version of the email, tags are stripped from the body.
Template Placeholders
Section titled “Template Placeholders”Placeholders are written in single braces, such as {name}, and are replaced when the email is sent. An unknown placeholder is left as it is. In the body, placeholder values are HTML-escaped. The panel lists the placeholders for the selected template under Available Placeholders.
| Template | Placeholders |
|---|---|
| User Invitation | {name}, {inviter} |
| Activation Reminder | {name}, {inviter} |
| Collaborator Invitation | {name}, {inviter}, {presTitle}, {permission}, {accessLevel} |
| Guest Invitation | {name}, {inviter}, {presTitle} |
| Password Reset | {name} |
| Magic Link | none |
| Comment Notification | {commenterName}, {presTitle}, {commentBody} |
| Guest Verification | {name}, {presTitle} |
Languages
Section titled “Languages”Supported Languages
Section titled “Supported Languages”Email templates come in the languages the server ships: English (en) and Dutch (nl). Each has its own tab in the panel. Adding a language means adding a locale file to Deckyard itself; it cannot be done from the panel.
Which Language an Email Uses
Section titled “Which Language an Email Uses”Every system email picks its language the same way:
- The language the recipient chose under Settings > Preferences, when the server ships texts for that language.
- Otherwise the instance default, set under Default language for mail to people without a language preference: at the top of the panel. This setting saves as soon as you change it. Until an administrator sets it, the default is English.
This covers Password Reset, Magic Link, User Invitation, Activation Reminder, Collaborator Invitation, Guest Invitation, Guest Verification, Comment Notification and Export Ready, and the weekly digests as well. The instance default applies to everyone without a usable preference of their own: a guest without an account, a newly invited user who has not chosen a language yet, and someone whose preferred language has no email texts. So it reaches guests too, not only invitations.
A custom template override for a language is used whenever the chain above picks that language.