Chapter 28

28. Template Library: Entry Templates, Note Templates and Default User Templates

User Guide (the Default User Templates section is for administrators). The Template Library is where you set what a new client entry and a new note start out with, and — if you are a global administrator — where you see and adjust those starting points for every user.

Source-CRM ancestry. This replaces three things in the source CRM's Setup ribbon: the Template Library ▾ drop-down and the Default Entry / Default Note buttons. TechieCRM uses its own words for all of them: the drop-down is Strategy Library, Project Plan Library (the source CRM calls those action plans), Automated / Traditional Marketing Templates and Quota Templates; the two buttons are Entry Template and Note Template. The templates themselves are the same records the source CRM uses — set one here and the source CRM's desktop client sees it too.

In this chapter

Opening the Template Library

From the ribbon, Setup tab:

Button What opens
File Management ▸ Template Library ▾ ▸ Template Library The Template Library window on your Entry Template.
Template Library ▾ ▸ Default User Templates The window on the administrators' page (falls back to your Entry Template if you are not an administrator).
Template Library ▾ ▸ Strategy Library / Project Plan Library The window on that library.
Template Library ▾ ▸ Automated / Traditional Marketing Templates, Quota Templates The Template Library window, open on that page — a status page saying these are planned (see Not yet available), reachable from the same navigator as the working pages instead of a stand-alone message.
Templates ▸ Entry Template The Entry Template for <you> dialog (OK · Cancel · Apply).
Templates ▸ Note Template The Note Template for <you> dialog (OK · Cancel · Apply).

Opening any of these changes nothing. A template is written only when you click OK, Apply or Save.

Entry Template

Your Entry Template holds the values a new client entry starts with — the company, city and country you usually enter, your phone-number descriptions, your account manager, and the mailing options. It is the source CRM's Default Entry for <user>, tab for tab.

Edit Basic Information

Field Notes
Mr/Ms, First name, Middle name Free text.
Last name Fixed to "Default Entry" and cannot be edited. That exact value is how the template row is kept out of every client list and search, so it is not yours to change.
Position, Salutation, Department, Division Free text (up to 80 characters each).
Company, Address 1 / 2, City/Town, St/Co/Prov, Zip/Postal, Country Free text (up to 80 characters each).
Phone numbers Four rows of description · number · extension (22 characters each).
Email descriptions The labels for Email 1–3 (16 characters each). The addresses themselves belong to each client entry, not to the template.
Account Manager Pick a user, or leave blank.

User-Defined Fields

The template's own UDF tree ("Fields for Default Entry"). Double-click a field to set the value new entries start with — exactly as on a client entry. The tab is empty until the template has been saved once (the values attach to the template row, which OK / Apply creates).

Administrators editing another user's template see this tab read-only — see Default User Templates for why.

Mailing Rules

  • Receives mail sent to Company and Use Company's name in mailing address — the two options for contacts of companies.
  • New Contact inherits user-defined fields.

To set your Entry Template

  1. Setup ▸ Templates ▸ Entry Template.
  2. Fill in the values you want new entries to start with.
  3. Apply to save and keep the dialog open, or OK to save and close. Cancel discards.

If a value is too long for its field you are told which field and the limit, and nothing is written.

Note Template

Your Note Template is the starting content, formatting and properties of a new note — the source CRM's Default Note. There is one per module: Clients, Service, Sales and Marketing notes (the Template Library window lets you switch between them; the ribbon button opens the Clients one).

Part What it is
The editor The full rich-text editor (font, size, bold/italic/underline, lists, colours). What you put here is what a new note opens with.
Creator You (read-only).
Source CRM font The font name/size the source CRM recorded for this template, if any (shown for reference; the font travels inside the note text).
Full access Public, or one user / security group.
Read access Public, or one user / security group.
Category Type a category or pick one that existing notes already use. Up to 20 characters.

To set your Note Template: Setup ▸ Templates ▸ Note Template, write the note, set the access and category, OK (or Apply).

The Template Library window

Setup ▸ File Management ▸ Template Library ▾ ▸ Template Library — a navigator down the left, one page per library on the right, Save (only on the two editable pages) and Close at the bottom. Closing with unsaved changes on the Entry or Note page asks whether to save them.

Page What it is
Entry Template Your entry template — the same editor as the dialog above.
Note Template Your note templates, with a Template for: switch (Clients / Service / Sales / Marketing).
Default User Templates Administrators only — see below. Not shown to other users.
Strategy Library The source CRM's sales strategies: pick a strategy to see its description, cost, duration and effort, and the steps / success factors / roles that make it up, in order. Read-only in this release (the type codes are shown as numbers).
Project Plan Library The source CRM's action-plan templates — TechieCRM's Project Plans — with each template's activities (Activity · From start date · Assigned to). Open Project Plans… jumps to the Project Plans window, where Add / Copy / Modify / Delete live.
Automated Marketing Templates, Traditional Marketing Templates, Quota Templates Status pages — planned; see Not yet available.

Default User Templates (administrators)

Who sees it: the MASTER login, or any login whose source-CRM rights allow managing users (the same right that gates Manage Users). Everyone else does not get the page.

One table, one row per login, pulled straight from the source CRM's database:

Column Meaning
User, Login The user. Logins with no template yet still appear (so you can create one); template rows whose login no longer exists appear as <id> (login not found).
Entry Template The template's company / city / province / country, or — when the user has none.
Clients / Service / Sales / Marketing note The first line of that note template, or —.
Button What it does
Modify Entry Template… Opens Entry Template for <user> (administrator edit) — the same dialog the user would see, with a banner saying whose template you are editing.
Modify Note Template… Likewise for the note templates (switch the module with Template for:).
Change History… The audit log for the selected user (or everyone when nothing is selected), with Undo.
Refresh Re-read the table.

What makes an administrator edit safe

Editing another user's template is a change to their data, so it is never silent:

  1. It asks first. Clicking OK / Apply in an administrator edit shows Change another user's template — the user's name, and that the change will be recorded and can be undone. No writes nothing.
  2. It is attributable. The template row's Updated by is you; its owner stays the user. The Change History records who, whose, when, and on behalf = yes.
  3. It is reversible. The history keeps what the template looked like before, and Undo puts it back. A template you created for a user is removed by Undo.
  4. It cannot happen unrecorded. If the audit table is missing on this database (it is created automatically at first connect by a login that can create tables), an on-behalf save is refused with an explanation. Your own template can still be saved.
  5. UDF values are read-only in an administrator edit. They are written field by field with no before-image, so they could not be undone; the user sets those themselves.

Change History and Undo

Default User Templates ▸ Change History… lists every change made through the Template Library, newest first: number, when, which template, whose, changed by, on behalf, action (create / update / undo) and status (current, undone …, or undo of #n). Select a row to see a summary of the values before and after.

Undo selected change restores the template to what it was before that change:

  • Only the latest un-reverted change to a template can be undone; undo later ones first.
  • An undo is itself recorded, and cannot be undone — make the change again instead.
  • Undoing a change to someone else's template needs administrator rights; a user may undo a change to their own.

Where the templates are stored

For administrators and support. TechieCRM reads and writes the source CRM's own template rows — there is no second copy:

Template Source-CRM row
A user's Entry Template AMGR_Client_Tbl — Client_Id = '@' + login, Contact_Number = 0, Record_Type = '5', Name = 'Default Entry'; its UDF values in AMGR_User_Fields_Tbl under the same Client_Id.
A user's Note Template AMGR_Notes_Tbl — Client_Id = '@' + login + '/ABNOTE' (Clients), /CSNOTE (Service), /OPPNOTE (Sales), /CMPNOTE (Marketing), Contact_Number = 0.
The change history TechieCRM's own TCRM_TemplateAudit (see docs/db/templates/01_schema.sql).

These key rules were taken from the source CRM's own data layer, not inferred from data.

Not yet available

  • Applying the templates automatically when you create a client entry or a note. The templates are stored where the source CRM reads them (so its desktop client applies them); TechieCRM's own Add Client and Add Note dialogs do not pre-fill from them yet.
  • Automated / Traditional Marketing Templates and Quota Templates — the source CRM's storage for these is not verified for this release; the ribbon items say so.
  • Editing strategies — the Strategy Library is read-only.
  • Email addresses and website on the Entry Template (the descriptions are there; the addresses are per-entry fields).
  • The source CRM's Preferred Partner mailing options, and a full/read access picker on the entry template itself.
  • Writing the source CRM's note font setting (it is shown when present; the font you choose in the editor is saved inside the note text).