# Customize notification message templates

The wording of every email and internal message the system sends — templates with insertable codes for document values, the Email-versus-Internal type choice that decides delivery, and the visibility setting that controls who can use each one.

Product: content-central · Versions: 7.x · Audience: catalog-administrator · Time: 25 minutes · Last verified: 2026-09-05

Canonical: https://help.ademero.com/content-central/administration/customize-notification-message-templates

**At the end of this guide the messages your system sends say what you want, carry the document's own values — "Invoice {!Field:Invoice;} from {!Field:Vendor;} needs your approval" — and exist as templates that workflow, approvals, and people all reuse.**

## Where they live

**Administration** > **Manage Message Templates** — every template in one list, filterable by type and catalog. One filter to know on day one: **Hide system records** is on by default, tucking away the built-in system templates (approval deadline notices and kin); un-tick it when the message you're hunting isn't yours.

## Create or edit a template

Click **Add Template** (or open one). The choices, in the order they matter:

1. **Message Type** — **Email** or **Internal Message**. This is delivery, not tone: an Internal template appears in users' in-product messages and **will never produce an email**. When "the notification isn't arriving" and the mail settings check out, this select is the culprit surprisingly often.

2. **Visibility** — who can use the template: **User Access** (manual sends by people), **Workflow Access** (email actions in rules), **User & Workflow Access**, **Approval Process**, or **Signature**. Scoping keeps the picker in each feature short and relevant.

3. **From / To / CC** (Email type) — addresses separated by semicolons; the From tooltip states the useful default: "Leave sender blank for system value. User access will always use user's e-mail address." Internal type gets **Users** and **Groups** pickers instead.

4. **Subject** and **Body** — the wording itself, with the feature that earns this page its place:

*[Screenshot: A template using insert codes: the Insert Code menu supplies them, and the preview underneath renders the message as a recipient will read it.]*

The **Insert Code** menu drops placeholders that resolve per message, grouped by what they describe: the document (`{!DocName;}`, `{!Catalog;}`, `{!DocType;}`, `{!DocVersion;}`…), its creator and the acting user (`{!ActingUserFirstName;}`…), the approval context (`{!APName;}`, `{!APNote;}`…), packets — and the workhorse, **`{!Field:FieldName;}`**, which is a *pattern*: replace `FieldName` with your field's actual name to pull its value into the message. A live **Preview** under each box renders the result.

5. **Allow users to customize recipients, subject, and body during manual send.** — for User-Access templates: template as starting point versus template as fixed form.

## Templates in the wild

Wherever a message gets configured — a workflow rule's email action, an approval process's notifications, a signature request — a **Message Template** picker offers the templates whose visibility matches. Change the template once; every consumer sends the new wording.

Two rules the editor enforces once a template is in use: **Message Type and Visibility lock** (consumers depend on them — to change course, duplicate the template and retire the old one), and a template a workflow action uses can't be deleted until the action lets go.

**Success check:** build a test Email template with `{!DocName;}` and `{!Field:...;}` codes, point a test workflow rule's email action at it, trigger it, and read the arrived message — real values where the codes were. If it *didn't* arrive, [the email pipeline article](/content-central/administration/notification-emails-arent-sending) walks the layers; if it arrived as an in-product message instead, revisit step 1.

## What's next

- [Configure outgoing email](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/administration/configure-outgoing-email)
- [Notification emails aren't sending](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/administration/notification-emails-arent-sending)