Automations: select email and PDF templates before sending

With a communication rule, you select a suitable email or participant PDF template before the intended dispatch. For example, a webinar receives a different confirmation or a specific course gets its own certificate layout. The rule replaces the template selection for this dispatch.

Prepare templates and access

Activate the Automations plugin and check the permissions for the rule area.
Create or edit the required template under Email templates or the PDF templates.
Maintain content, active languages, and suitable placeholders. Activate the completed template.
Prepare a suitable and an unsuitable example offer with a clearly distinguishable tag or feature.

Select the event immediately before dispatch

Open Settings → Automations → Rules → New Rule.
Assign a name, for example Webinar: suitable confirmation.
Select the event Before dispatch of the booking confirmation or Before dispatch of a certificate under When.
Check the context badges. For certificates, the specific participating person is additionally available in the context.

New booking and Before dispatch of the booking confirmation are different triggers. The template replacement belongs to the communication event. A subsequent rule change does not replace an already dispatched message.

Select conditions and template

Add, for example, the offer tag Webinar under Only if.
Add a language condition or another condition relevant to your workflow if needed. Use AND for conditions that must all be met and OR for alternatives.
Select the action Replace email template and a suitable active email template under Then.
For a participant document, add Replace PDF template and a compatible PDF template if necessary.
Save the rule as a draft initially.

An additional action Send email with template generates another message. It is not a replacement for the template selection in the dispatch that is taking place anyway and can otherwise cause a duplicate confirmation.

Which PDF template is usable

The replacement requires a PDF template suitable for a participant document. An invoice, cancellation invoice, payment reminder, or ticket uses different data and cannot simply be turned into a certificate PDF this way. Use one of the compatible templates offered and check the document actually generated.

If a stored selection is deleted, inactive, or incompatible, the dispatch may fall back to its standard template. An existing rule is therefore not yet proof that its layout was used. Check the template, language, permission, and result in the execution detail.

Order overlapping rules

Higher priorities are considered first. If there are multiple suitable replacements of the same type, the first selected permissible template wins; the selection is not composed from multiple templates. Email and PDF are decided separately.

For example, use priority 200 for the specific webinar rule and 100 for a general confirmation rule. Check both cases. If priorities are equal, the existing stable rule order remains decisive; for special requirements, do not rely on a tie that appears arbitrary.

Check simulation and actual dispatch

Simulate the saved draft with the intended example object.
Read the conditions and intended actions. The simulation does not send an email and does not change any data.
Repeat the check with a counter-example that should not receive the special template.
Activate the rule and trigger a controlled actual dispatch to an intended recipient.
Open Automations → Executions and check the selected template and any displaced actions.
Check the received message and the actually generated PDF in each required language. You additionally check the delivery in the outbox.

If the standard template still appears

Does the event match the actually executed confirmation or certificate dispatch?
Is the rule active and are its conditions met for this specific process?
Does a higher-priority rule displace the selection?
Is the target template active and compatible with the document type?
Does the execution detail show the stored selection or a fallback?

Pause a faulty rule for new events, correct the draft, and check again. An already dispatched message is not retracted by this. A current template preview shows today's content; the document dispatched at the time remains a different object of inspection.