Email notification templates allow users to customise the information that is shown within an email notification sent to an email. Currently you can only edit the pay slip notification emails. The email notification templates can be found on the Payroll settings Email notification templates page. The page is only accessible to full-access users. The article will cover the following sections:

• Email notification template settings
• Previewing an email template
• Editing an email template
• What will be in the email the employee receives?

Email notification template settings

Previewing an email template

You can preview an email template by clicking on the Preview button to the far right of the template. Within the template preview, if an email address has been entered on the edit page, then the email address should appear on this page next to the From email address. If an email address has not been entered, then this should not show an email address; the space should be blank. Below is an example of the pay slip email template:

You can move to the Edit context panel from here by clicking the Edit button.

Editing an email template

You can preview an email template by clicking on the Edit button to the far right of the template, or from within the preview context panel. You can edit two separate functions, and these refer to the from email address, and the custom message. 

1. From email address: It allows you to specify the 'from address' that the email notifications are sent from. This is handy when employees want to reply with questions or queries. Due to the sensitive nature of payroll information that will‌ be sent from these email addresses and the likelihood of the emails being treated as spam, we have placed restrictions on the email domains we will allow and therefore what emails can be entered in this field. 
   
   
2. Custom message: It is the message that will appear in the actual notification emails, not the pay slips or employee self-setup themselves. For both the pay slip and email self-setup template, there is default text already provided. Once in Edit mode, you will then see all the available options you can use to customise this message. Below are more specific functions that allow customisation of the notification message. 
   •  Text options: The text area is fully editable and you can delete any or all of the default text to create your own custom message. There must be some text entered. The platform will not allow you to save the page if no text exists. The functionality also allows you to use the rich text editor for effects such as bold, italic, and to add links. 
   • Placeholder options: Where you see {{  }} in the template, this means that a “placeholder” has been selected and will populate the email with the relevant detail, depending on the placeholder name within. Within the text editor, it will look like this:
     
     
     
     To use the Placeholder feature you can click on the Add Placeholder button and you will see a drop-down menu with all the available choices. These have been listed in order of when they will likely be used in the template.

• First name: As shown on the employee details page.
• Last name: As shown on the employee details page.
• Preferred name: As shown on the employee details page 
• Business name: As shown on the business details page 
• Legal name: As shown on the business details page 
• Pay run paid date: The date the pay run will be paid
• Pay period start date: The first day of the pay period 
• Pay period end date: The last day of the pay period
• Today’s date: It will populate with the date the notification email is sent. For example  if the pay run is processed on the 23rd Sept, but the notifications are scheduled to be sent on 24th Sept, the {{TodaysDate}} field will populate with 24th Sept. 

If you would like to replace some text with a placeholder, or change the placeholder that is currently set, you will need to highlight the area that you wish to replace (if you are replacing an existing placeholder, you need to include the {{ }} brackets when you highlight the text).

Once the text is highlighted, click the Add Placeholder button and select the relevant option. For example, if you want to change the business name to show the legal name instead, you would highlight {{BusinessName}} within the text, and then select 'legal name' from the placeholder options. Once you do that, {{LegalName}} will replace the text.

Once the required changes have been made you can see a preview of what the email will look like by clicking on the ‘preview’ option. This does not save the template. You will need to click on the 'save' option if you wish to save the changes.

If you would like to reset the template back to the original, i.e. no custom message, you can use the Reset Default option. However, this will delete any custom text you have added and includes any existing messages that have carried over to the new template. 

What will be in the email the employee receives?

There are a couple of business and employee-level settings that will affect which links appear in the employee’s email notification. It applies only for pay slip email notifications and is in relation to the Download your pay slip now and ‘og in to the employee platform to view all your pay slips’ options. These settings include:

• Has the employee been granted employee self-service access?
• On the Payroll Settings Pay Slips page, specifically, employees must log in to download pay slips enabled or not‌. If this setting is enabled, they must log in to download their pay slips. They will not have the option to download the pay slip via ‌email. If the employee has employee self-service access, WorkZone links will appear in the email.
  If that setting is not enabled, employees will have the option to download their pay slips straight from the email.