Previewing and rendering an email template
Before an email template reaches recipients, preview it. MobilityManager renders your subject and body with realistic sample data so you can catch broken placeholders and markup errors safely. This article explains the two preview modes and how to read the result.
Required permission
Previewing requires email-templates:view — the same permission that lets you open a template. You do not need manage rights to preview, so reviewers can check wording without being able to change it.
Two ways to preview
Preview a saved template
- Open the template at
/admin/email-templates. - Choose Preview.
- The platform loads the template, builds a sample context from its context entity type, and returns the rendered subject and body.
Preview unsaved content
You can also preview a draft you have not saved yet by supplying a subject, an HTML body, and a context entity type. This "raw" preview renders exactly what you typed against sample data, which is ideal while you are still editing.
How sample data is generated
The preview does not use real records. Instead, it generates a placeholder value for each field based on its data type:
| Data type | Sample value |
|---|---|
string / enum | The field's display name in brackets, e.g. [License Plate] |
number | 42 |
decimal | 99.99 |
boolean | true |
date | Today's date in ISO form |
guid | A fixed sample identifier |
Seeing [License Plate] in the output confirms the placeholder resolved to a real field. If a placeholder renders empty instead, the path likely does not exist on that context entity.
Note: Because sample values are synthetic, use preview to verify structure and placeholder resolution, not final numbers. Exact amounts and dates come from live records when the email is actually sent.
Reading render errors
The renderer parses the subject and body separately. If either has a syntax problem, the preview returns a failure with a message that names where the error is:
- Subject parse error — the subject template could not be parsed.
- Body parse error — the HTML body template could not be parsed.
Common causes are an unclosed {{ }} expression or a malformed loop. Fix the reported section and preview again.
Tip: Preview both the DE and EN variants of the same message. They are separate templates, so a fix in one language does not carry over to the other.
Warning: Never activate a template you have not previewed. A parse error blocks rendering entirely, and an unresolved placeholder produces a blank in the recipient's inbox.
Related
- Managing email templates
- Email template placeholders and the placeholder catalog
- System configuration overview and access
