Workfront

AlgernonB · 12/15/20

Hi Community,

Just wondering if anyone has any luck being able to pull custom form fields into an email template. Was working on building a notification system triggered by the closing of a task. Followed instructions according to the site https://one.workfront.com/s/document-item?bundleId=workfront-classic&topicId=Content%2FAdministratio... and it just does not work fully. The notification note pulls some standard fields but none of the custom data on the attached custom form. Filed a bug with my ASE and they cannot replicate. Hoping that the wisdom of the community can prevail! Or if anybody else has faced a similar issue.

Thanks,

Al

kynabaker16 · 12/18/20

Hey Algernon,

When you say that your ASE can't replicate the issue you're facing, do you mean that for them it is pulling in the custom form fields into an email template? Or that they also can't get it to work? I'm assuming it's the later.

I'm tagging @Anthony Imgrund‚ and @Skye Hansen‚ because I know they are both wizards and might have some ideas for you!

Thanks,

Kyna

AnthonyIm · 12/21/20

I have never really messed around with custom email templates. We looked at it 7 years ago when we got on, but I haven't since.

SarahNa · 12/21/20

We are experiencing issues with email templates as well. Original ticket was opene

<html>

$$assignedTo:firstName$$

You are assigned to work on <a href="https://dominium.my.workfront.com/task/view?ID=$$ID$$">$$name$$</a>, which is due on $$plannedCompletionDate$$.

<tr>

</tr>

d back in June, that was closed out without resolution, new tickets have been open since October. We have this in our email template:

<td>Project Name:</td>

<td>$$project:name$$</td>

</tr>

</table>

</html>

However, this is what we are getting:

I can't even get a link back to the task to show up. Our ASE reached out to the product manager and he said that the text works fine for him. Not sure what we are doing wrong - any help would be appreciated!!

Thanks,

CalvinFold · 12/29/20

A completely off-the-wall suggestion:

Other areas of Workfront like Text Mode are very sensitive to gremlins*‚Ä¶did you happen to copy-n-paste the HTML from another application like Notepad, Word, TextEdit, etc.?

It's possible you have a Gremlin in there somewhere lousing things up. It's a long shot, but‚Ä¶possible?

*Gremlin = Invisible control characters like end-of-line, carriage return, tabs, etc. Unfortunately I only know a couple ways to root them out easily: one requires BBEdit (Mac, using Zap Gremlins feature) and the other requires software like InDesign which will "show invisible characters."

AlgernonB · 1/4/21

Thank you all for the replies here! I got a reply back from my ASE after the dev team had a chance to look at it. It turns out it's a bug! They will be fixing it! I don't know when but this is definitely good news and great to know it was not something I missed!

@Sarah Nau‚ - My specific issue had to do with pulling custom form fields into the email template and Dev team said it was a bug. Fields like project name, project owner, assigned to (task) - were showing up correctly but anything that was referencing a custom form was not. I would give it another go, start from scratch. I had to make a few attempts at a template and make sure all my html tags were closed.

Thanks,

Al

AlgernonB · 1/4/21

More follow up - they think it was not a bug. I will be testing this and will update the string when I have more info! If this does work, I think this should also be added to the site documentation! Posting info here as well.

After debugging the code for a while, we found out that this was a configuration error rather than an issue. The correct way to link custom fields in the template is to specify the parent object of the field. For example: if users want to link a custom field called Link to IDT_DEV folder or Server Paths, they need to know what parent object this field belongs to (eg: Project, Task, Issue, etc.). Let's suppose this belongs to a project. Then in the template, specify the parent object by doing this $$DE:project:Link to IDT_DEV folder or Server Paths$$. If this belongs to a task, then $$DE:task:Link to IDT_DEV folder or Server Paths$$.

kynabaker16 · 1/4/21

Hi Algernon!

Thank you so much for following up and sharing the solution you found. I'm going to make sure our documentation team sees this (and I'm sure the support team is also doing so!).

Out of curiosity, what type of emails do you send with this data? Emails to customers?

I hope you had a wonderful New Year. Excited to see what 2021 has in store for us.

Kyna

AlgernonB · 1/4/21

I am testing out a way to make a "launch notifications" feature triggered from a launch task in the project timeline. Basically Ams/Pms wanted a way to have an automated note to a stakeholder with certain bits of information once a task completes. Helping them to save hours by eliminating a manual step for them. Once it's up and running the plan is to go out to internal stakeholders but external stakeholders was a thought as well.

Thanks,

Al

kynabaker16 · 1/4/21

I like it - sending stakeholders who aren't involved in the project work the relevant details once it's the right time. Interesting! Would you also link back to the project/task in Workfront to allow them to ask questions, and thus keep all the work in Workfront? I think this is a super interesting idea - especially for executives.

AlgernonB · 1/4/21

Yep! I thought it was interesting as well. In this situation, nobody would need to ask any questions to post back to the task or the project - no direct linkback was needed. Once the note is received, it's just a trigger for another action. This email is trying to replace an email that our account team has to create and send out manually. I am sure this will change and evolve once it launches and people request changes!

kynabaker16 · 1/4/21

Nice! I love automating things and taking something manual out of the process. Makes it so much less likely to have something slip!

AlgernonB · 1/6/21

Just to circle back here! It's looking a lot better. I am just modifying it further to include everything I need but, happy to report that my original issue has been resolved. Hopefully there's an adjustment to have this custom field email section updated on the Workfront site - I will be sure to remind my ASE to see if he can get this over to the team who is in charge of updating this. Thanks for the tips and support community!!

kynabaker16 · 1/6/21

That's great news! I can confirm that the documentation team is working with the support team to get the documentation updated! I checked with them myself.

I'm so glad this is working out for you.

Workfront

Email templates not pulling in custom form data

Learn

Documentation

Community

Support

Resources

Adobe account

Adobe