title: Customization of Email messages with HTML content

Email messages sent out to VCL users can be customized under the Site Configuration part of the site. However, HTML content is not allowed to be entered via the web form for security reasons. VCL 2.5.1 introduced a method of including HTML content in the email messages using a command line script run from a management node. The script is in the bin directory of the management node code. The same substitution available in plain text messages can be used in the HTML messages.

Usage:

vclmessages.pl --getmessagenames
vclmessages.pl --dumpmessage '<name of message>'
vclmessages.pl --setmessage '<name of message>' --htmlfile <filename> --subject <message subject>
vclmessages.pl --resetmessage '<name of message>'

vclmessages.pl --help|-?

Where

--getmessagenames displays a list of all available names that can be used
--dumpmessage displays the current value of a message
--setmessage sets the value of a message to the contents of the specified file
--resetmessage sets the value of a message back to the original value as distributed with VCL

<name of message> = the name of the message from the database (enclose in single quotes)
(use --getmessagenames to get a list of message names)

<filename> = filename (including path) of file containing html contents for email message

<message subject> = subject for email message (enclose in single quotes)

So, use --getmessagenames to get a list of all of the messages that can be set. Use --dumpmessage to see the current contents of a message.

To set a new message, create a file containing the HTML that you would like used as the message. Then, use --setmessage to set the contents of the message, specifying both a message subject and the file containing the contents of the HTML message. To reset a message back to the stock message supplied at VCL installation, use --resetmessage. Only the “Global” messages can be reset.

To set a new message for a specific affiliation, an affiliation specific message, plain text message needs to be created through the web UI first. Then, that message can be converted to HTML using the script.