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Creating custom content for email notifications

You can add custom content to your email notifications. Specifically, you can:

When creating or editing your notification, you can specify custom content in the Email Contents portion of the Create Notification screen. In the Message Type menu, select Custom message. Note that if your custom message will contain some HTML, you'll need to select HTML next to Message Format, otherwise the raw HTML markup will appear in your plain text email.

Styling your message

You can style your message using the rich text toolbar. Add visual styling to your notifications to create messages that are actionable, look more professional, and are less likely to be missed in a busy inbox.

Additionally, you can style your message by editing the HTML of its content. To do this, click Source.

Single record and multiple record notifications

With a custom message, you can create notifications that are sent when:

  • A single record changes (configured using the Single Record Version tab)

  • Multiple records changed at one time, as a result of a grid edit or a search and replace operation

If you want to be notified of both kinds of changes, compose two custom messages. Within the Single Record Version tab, create the email that is sent when a single record changes. Likewise, within the Multiple Record Version tab, compose the message that reports changes to multiple records.

Tip: If you've created custom forms, you can select one to use to display your record in the Single Record Version of the notification email. Within the Single Record Version tab, click the Data Form menu and select the name of the form you want to use.

Limitations on multiple record notifications

  • You cannot specify a custom form to display changes to multiple records in a single notification.

  • If you create an Open notification, and choose to send a notification to email addresses that appear in your data in an email address type field (as described in step 4 of To create a record change notification:, it works only when a SINGLE record changes. It does NOT work as expected when multiple records change at that same time. Email with all the changed records is sent to all email addresses that appear in every changed record.

Inserting field references

For some kinds of notifications, you can insert field references. Field references act like variables in your email message. For instance, if you want your email to let recipients know who's made the change they're learning about, you can insert a field reference which draws values from the "Last Modified By" field.

Note: For multi-record notifications, do not include field references because Quickbase will display the field ID and not the value of the field when it sends the notification email. This happens because Quickbase sends one email to notify users of the multi-record change, and the value of the field varies per record.

A field marker is simply the field name enclosed by square brackets ([Last Modified By], for instance.) When you click inside either the Subject or Custom Message box, you'll see a list of valid field references you can use. You can also type these in manually, if you know the field names. but keep in mind, depending on the type of message you're composing, and the insertion point (Subject or Custom Message), certain field markers are not valid.

For example, the sample message just discussed would look something like this: [Last Modified By] has changed Invoice Number [Invoice ID].

You can also use field references to capture the original value from a field (before it was changed) and display it in an email.

To do so, type old. in front of the field name, as in [old.status] or [old.description] for example. For example, say you've inserted the following custom text in your notification:

The city changed from [old.city] to [city].

If a user were to change the value in the city field from Boston to Paris, this line would display in an email as:

The city changed from Boston to Paris.

Inserting markers

You can insert markers into your custom email notification that let you include details about or links to the app. When you click in the Custon Message or Subject fields, the Choose Markers menu appears. Choose a marker in this menu to insert it.

Not all markers are valid for every type of message. For Recipient type notifications, you can insert markers that link back to the app. Since Quickbase knows that all recipients of the notification have access to the app, the link is all you need.

When you send an Open notification, the recipient probably doesn't have access to your app. In these cases, you can embed a copy of the record(s) in the message itself and include %RepeatOn% and %RepeatOff% markers (LINK GOES HERE).

Note: Do not use open notifications to send sensitive information. Because open notifications can be sent to individuals who aren't users of your app, Quickbase doesn't check permissions or hide any information from recipients (even if one or more recipients are users of your app). The only way to control what fields display in an open notification is to specify a custom form for the notification (read about forms) or craft a custom notification.

The markers and fields you can insert also depend upon whether you're composing the single or multiple record change message. For example, a recipient notification for multiple record changes won't let you insert any field codes. Markers include:

 

Marker

What it does...

Appears as...

Recipient
Single Record

Recipient Multiple Record

Open
Single Record

Open
Multiple Record

 

 

 

SUBJECT

BODY

SUBJECT

BODY

SUBJECT

BODY

SUBJECT

BODY

The name of this application

Inserts the full name of the app

%appName%

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

A link to this application

Inserts a link to the app's Home page.

%appLink%

-

Y

Y

Y

 

Y

Y

Y

The name of this table

Inserts the name of the table and app in which you saved the notification.

%dbName%

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

The ID of this table

Behind the scenes, Quickbase assigns an ID number to each table. This marker inserts that number.

%dbid%

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

A copy of the changed record

Inserts an image of the changed record in the email body.

%recData%

-

Y

-

-

-

Y

-

-

A link to the changed record

Inserts a link that opens the record.

%recLink%

-

Y

-

-

-

Y

-

-

The label of the changed record

Inserts the value from the record's key field.

%recLabel%

Y

Y

-

-

Y

Y

-

-

The ID of the changed record

Inserts the Record ID number that Quickbase automatically assigns to each record.

%recID%

Y

Y

Y

-

Y

Y

-

-

A summary of the records that changed

Inserts a link to a report containing only the changed records.  For a deleted record notification, this marker returns no results.

%summaryView%

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Y

Begin marker(s) for each record change

In multi-record change messages, use this marker to precede a snippet of text that will appear for each record that changed. (see next section).

%RepeatOn%

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Y

End marker(s) each record change

In multi-record change messages, use this marker to precede text that you want to appear once, as a header or footer. (see next section).

%RepeatOff%

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Y

Using %RepeatOn% and %RepeatOff% in OPEN multi-record messages

The %RepeatOn% and %RepeatOff% markers give you more flexibility when constructing multi-record messages with the Open Permission Type. See the table above for definitions of these markers. These markers appear as the following in the Choose Markers menu:

  • %RepeatOn% - Begin marker(s) for each record change

  • %RepeatOff% - End marker(s) for each record change

Important: Field references and markers won't work properly in multi-record messages unless you insert them after a %RepeatOn% marker.

Additional options

If you insert field references in your custom messages, and a field happens to be empty, recipients may be perplexed. Avoid confusion by inserting the word empty when this occurs. To do so, within the Custom Message Options section, beside When a field is blank, insert the word "empty": select Yes.

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