A Statement of Results notification, a missing-documents request, an assessment outcome letter — these are regulated correspondence. If five staff members each keep their own version in their drafts folder, nobody can answer the question a panel actually asks: what were learners told, and who agreed to that wording?
Mail → Templates answers it.
The states, and what each one means
draft ──submit──▶ review ──approve──▶ approved ──publish──▶ published
▲ │ │
└────send back─────┘ retire │
▼
retired- Draft — editable. This is the only state you can edit in.
- Review — submitted, waiting for someone else.
- Approved — the wording has been agreed. Frozen from here on.
- Published — the version ordinary staff can actually send. There is never more than one.
- Retired — superseded, and kept, so the record of what was sent stays readable.
Why an approved version cannot be edited
Because editing it would change what people agreed to after they agreed to it — and after it had already gone to learners. A correction creates a new version, and the old one is retired rather than overwritten. The version history is then a truthful account of what your institution said and when.
This is the same one-way door as an approved QMS document and a locked FISA pack, for the same reason.
Who may do what
| Act | Who |
|---|---|
| Write a draft, create a new version | anyone with template management |
| Submit for review | the author |
| Approve | someone other than the author |
| Publish, retire | an approver |
| Send the published version | any staff member who may send mail |
Approval by the author is refused, with no administrator exemption. A capability check cannot tell whose wording it is, so the check is made per record.
Variables
Templates use {{dotted.path}} placeholders:
Dear {{learner.first_name}},
Your result for {{programme.title}} (SAQA ID {{programme.saqa_id}}) is available.
Sign in at {{portal_link}} to view your Statement of Results.
{{tenant.name}} — SDP {{tenant.accreditation_number}}If the data supplied at send time does not fill every variable, the message is refused, and the composer tells you which ones are missing. A learner receiving Dear {{learner.first_name}} from an accredited provider is worse than a delay — and silently substituting an empty string produces “Dear ,” which nobody notices until a learner does.
The editor lists every variable the platform supplies; you can also pass your own.
Restricting a template to certain roles
A template can name the roles permitted to send it. Use it for the messages where the sender matters as much as the wording — a certification notice or a final demand should not be reachable by everyone with a mailbox.
Signatures
Your institution’s signature is applied at send time. An administrator can force fields into it — accreditation number, confidentiality footer, contact details — and an individual staff member cannot edit those away.