Send a template from an automation

The bridge between Email Studio (where templates are designed) and Automation Rules (where sends are triggered). Once a template exists in Email Studio, you can pick it as an action in any rule, whatever its category. There is no publish step.

Before you start

• The template exists in Settings → Email Studio (create one)
• A working automation rule, or willingness to create one (see Create your first automation)
• Admin permissions on Automation Rules

Steps

1. Open the rule in Settings → Automation rules.
2. Under Then, click Add step.
3. Pick Send email template.
4. Configure the action:
   Template — pick the template by name from the dropdown. Every Email Studio template in your workspace appears.
   A second dropdown, for the language, appears once a template is picked. Choose one:
   Match the customer — the language the customer writes in, then the inbox’s own language, then English. If the template has no version in that language, the template’s default language is sent, then English. This is the right default for customer-facing emails.
   A language code (e.g. EN, NO) — one of the template’s languages, shown in capitals. Use when you need a deterministic language regardless of the customer.
5. Click Save changes (or Create rule for a new rule).

Important: There is no draft or publish step for templates, and the action has no version to pin. Saving a change to the template’s subject or body in Email Studio affects the next email this action sends.

You can also ask the assistant, for example “Send the Case Received template when a new email conversation starts.” Click Test on recent conversations to see which conversations the rule would have sent it on.

How merge tags resolve

The action runs in the conversation context that triggered the rule. So:

• {{contact.name}} resolves to the conversation’s contact’s name
• {{conversation.id}} resolves to the triggering conversation’s ID
• {{custom.<key>}} resolves to the custom field with that key — the conversation’s value if set, otherwise the contact’s

If a merge tag references something that’s not in scope (e.g. a case field on a conversation-triggered rule), the merge tag renders empty.

The X-Email-Template header

Every email sent via this action carries an X-Email-Template header containing the template’s ID. Useful for:

• Diagnostics — when investigating “which rule sent this email?”, grep the delivery logs by template ID
• Filtering at the customer’s mail provider — if you want to surface a specific category of email
• Analytics on email performance — counting sends per template

What this action is good for

• Confirmation emails (see the recipe)
• Follow-ups some time after a conversation closes
• Escalation notifications when an SLA is at risk
• Digest emails summarizing case state to internal stakeholders

What this action is NOT for

• Marketing emails. Atender’s email send is for transactional / support content. Marketing belongs in a marketing tool with proper unsubscribe management.
• One-off agent replies. If an agent is composing a personalized response to a single conversation, they should write inline, not invoke a template. Templates are for repeatable, predictable sends.

Verify it worked

1. Build the rule with the action set up.
2. Trigger the rule deliberately on a test conversation.
3. Check the conversation timeline — the outbound message should appear with the rendered template content.
4. Open Run history in Settings → Automation rules. The run for the rule should show Success, with the Send email template action listed.
5. Open the recipient’s inbox (your test inbox). The email should have arrived in the customer’s language, or in the email channel’s configured language when the conversation has no customer language.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Template doesn’t appear in the picker. Fix: The picker lists every template in your workspace, whatever its category. Check that the template still exists in Settings → Email Studio of the same workspace; a deleted template no longer appears.
• Symptom: Email goes out in English even though the inbox is configured for another language. Fix: Match the customer puts the customer’s language before the inbox’s, so a customer writing in English gets English. Otherwise, either the template doesn’t have a translation for that language (it falls back to the template’s default language, then English), or the channel’s language attribute is unset. Both are configurable.
• Symptom: Merge tags appear as literal {{...}} in the delivered email. Fix: Path is wrong, or the merge tag references a field that’s not in the trigger’s context. See Use merge tags for personalization.

See also

• Confirmation email recipe
• What are Automations?
• Confirmation emails recipe (Automations)