Correspondence templates — milestone-typed, multilingual letter and email templates with merge fields used by the correspondence composer
Last updated: October 20, 2026 by Steve
Correspondence Templates
Correspondence templates are the reusable letters and emails your office sends to requestors and third parties. Each template is tagged with a milestone type (acknowledgement, fee estimate, final response, and so on), holds per-language subject and body content, and carries merge fields that are resolved against the live record whenever a coordinator sends or generates a communication. They are drawn on by the correspondence composer and by letter generation.
Where to find it
Open the Settings hub and choose Correspondence templates, in the Correspondence & templates group alongside Notification templates and Document templates.
Template types (milestones)
The type is the milestone the template belongs to. It controls where the template is offered in the app.
| Type | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Acknowledgement | First reply confirming the request was received |
| Clarification | Asking the requestor to narrow or clarify scope |
| Fee estimate | Communicating an estimated fee |
| Extension notice | Notifying the requestor of a time extension |
| Third-party notice | The statutory notice to a consulted third party |
| Third-party decision | The decision letter sent to a third party. Sending one starts the third party's review window, which a follow-up rule can count. The Canada federal, BC, Alberta, Ontario (FIPPA, MFIPPA) and Australia packs ship one |
| Conduct warning | A warning to a requestor about their conduct. Sending or generating it records a Warning in the requestor's conduct log |
| Interim response | A partial or interim release |
| Final response | The final decision letter |
| Response-package cover | The cover letter attached to an exported response package |
| General | Any other correspondence not tied to a milestone |
If you edited a third-party decision letter before upgrading, set its type to Third-party decision yourself: re-applying a jurisdiction pack keeps your edit. The letter's purpose (for example Third-party decision) is also what correspondence sign-off keys on.
Template fields
| Field | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Display name | The label shown in the composer's template picker |
| Description | Optional internal note |
| Type | The milestone taxonomy above |
| Enabled | Only enabled templates appear in the picker |
| Sort order | Position within the picker |
Each template also stores one content row per enabled language — a subject line and an HTML body, with one language marked as the default fallback.
Multilingual content
Author subject and body text for each enabled system language. The composer renders the template in the recipient's language and falls back to the default language when a translation is missing.
Merge fields
Merge fields are placeholders filled in when the letter is composed or generated — for example the request number and dates, requestor or third-party details, and the organization name ({InstitutionName}) from the Organization setting. Choosing a specific party re-merges so party merge fields reflect that recipient. Rich-formatting templates expose their HTML source for editing.
How it affects end-user behavior
- In the composer — reached from a request's Requestor tab (Send correspondence) or a consultation's Correspondence tab (Send notice…) — a coordinator picks a template; it fills the subject and body with merge fields resolved, ready to edit before sending.
- Send notice… pre-selects the Third-party notice template for the chosen party.
- The Generate letter action (Log correspondence) and the response package cover letter also render from these templates.
- A PII firewall runs on merge-field replacement, so a third-party notice never leaks the requestor's identity into a letter addressed to someone else.
- Disabled templates are hidden from the picker.
- A Conduct warning letter adds a Warning to the requestor's conduct log. The requestor's Chronology tab then shows, oldest first, every request received and closed, every letter and contact on them and every conduct entry, marking what came after the first warning.
Tips
- Keep exactly one enabled template per milestone type you rely on, so the picker offers an unambiguous default.
- Author every enabled language before turning a template on — recipients on a missing language fall back to the default.
- Use Sort order to float your most-used templates to the top of the picker.