Managing email templates

Change the wording, branding, and timing of any email CoverGuard sends — and create brand-new emails that fire automatically on a platform event — all from the admin console, with no code change or redeploy.

Who this is for: CoverGuard admins. Where: the Admin console → Invitations & email → the Email templates tab (/admin/invitations?tab=templates). Time: ~5 min.

This is an internal, admin-only surface. It sits behind the same super-admin gate as the rest of the Admin console.

What you can do here

Every transactional email — welcome, invitations, quote confirmations, carrier and renewal alerts, digital-agent briefings, and more — is listed in one place, split into two groups:

• Built-in templates — the emails the platform already sends on real triggers. You can rewrite the safe "experience" fields (subject, eyebrow, heading, preview text, intro copy, button label, footer note) without touching the brand shell or the live data each email includes. The button's destination stays fixed (it's a functional link — an invite token, a property deep link), so you edit the label, not the link.
• Custom templates — brand-new emails you author here. Give one a subject and body, then either send it on demand or wire it to a platform event so it fires automatically.

Editing a built-in email

1. Open Admin → Invitations & email → Email templates and click Edit on the template you want to change.
2. Update any field. Type {{variables}} where you want live values dropped in — click a variable chip to insert it at your cursor. For example, the welcome email offers {{firstName}}.
3. Watch the live preview on the right update as you type.
4. Click Send test to email yourself the current draft and confirm it looks right in a real inbox.
5. Save changes. The new wording takes effect on the next email of that type — usually within a minute.

To undo your changes, open the template and click Reset to default — it returns to the original wording that ships with the platform.

Creating a custom template

1. Click New template.
2. Give it a name, a subject, and body copy. Use {{variables}} for anything dynamic.
3. Choose how it fires under Fires on event:

• Manual / test only — the template exists and can be test-sent, but doesn't send on its own. It's static copy (no variables).
• A platform event (for example, New user signs up or Quote request submitted) — the email is sent automatically to the relevant person every time that event happens, in addition to the built-in email for that moment.

1. When you pick an event, its variables (like {{firstName}} or {{carrierName}}) become available to use in your copy — click a chip to insert one. Those are the values the email receives when it actually sends, so what you see in the preview is what recipients get.
2. Save, then Send test to confirm delivery and wording.

Setting when an email sends (delivery cadence)

Every template also controls when its email goes out once something triggers it. Open a template and find Delivery cadence under the content fields:

1. Pick how it sends:

• Immediately — the moment it's triggered. This is the default for every email.
• After a delay — hold it for a set number of minutes, hours, or days (up to 7 days), then send.
• On a schedule — hold it until the next chosen day at a set local time, in the timezone you pick. Trigger it on a Saturday with a weekdays-only schedule and it goes out Monday morning.

1. Optionally set a frequency cap: at most one of this email per recipient every N hours. Leave it at 0 for no limit.
2. The grey line underneath always states what will actually happen ("Weekdays at 09:00 America/New_York · at most once per recipient every 2 days").
3. Save changes. The cadence applies to the next email of that type.

A held email is queued the moment it's triggered — the wording and details are already locked in — and delivered when its slot arrives. The template card shows how many are currently waiting.

A few emails always send immediately and can't be delayed. The email-delivery test (its whole purpose is to prove sending works right now) and the brokerage quote intake (it's the hand-off that marks a quote request as sent). Those show a short note instead of the cadence controls.

What it means

• Your wording is always on-brand and safe. Edits fill the shared CoverGuard email frame (masthead, card, button, footer). Text is always escaped, so a value can never break the layout or inject anything unexpected.
• The preview is the real email, with sample data. It renders exactly what recipients get — including the dynamic parts (property details, dates, references) — using placeholder values. Live emails drop in each recipient's actual values in those spots.
• Custom event templates are additive. Wiring a custom template to an event never changes or replaces the built-in email for that moment — it sends alongside it.
• A cadence is real, not a preference. A delayed or scheduled email is genuinely held and released later; a capped one is genuinely not sent. Nothing is quietly delivered early or twice.
• A frequency cap drops the extra email — it doesn't queue it. The one that was skipped is recorded in Email delivery as capped by cadence, so you can always see what didn't go out and why.

Tips

• Always send a test before relying on a change. It confirms both the wording and that email delivery is working end-to-end. A test always sends immediately, whatever cadence the template has — so it never sits in the queue while you're waiting for it.
• Think twice before delaying an email someone is waiting for — an invitation, a signup confirmation, a message notification. The editor flags these; delaying one means the recipient waits too.
• Keep subjects short and specific — they're what the reader sees first.
• Disable instead of delete when you want to pause a custom template but keep it for later.

Troubleshooting

• Test says "not configured." Email sending isn't set up on this deployment. See Notifications & emails and check Admin → Invitations & email → Email delivery.
• Test says "send failed." The email provider rejected the message — most often an unverified sending domain. Diagnose it in Admin → Invitations & email → Email delivery.
• A change didn't take effect immediately. Overrides refresh across the platform within about a minute; send another test shortly after saving.
• An email never arrived and the template has a cadence. Check the template card — a "waiting" count means it's queued for its next slot. A queued email that's still waiting long after its slot is a sign the platform's background worker has stalled; Observability → Platform metrics shows held sends and flags overdue ones.
• A recipient got no email at all. If the template has a frequency cap, look in Email delivery for a capped by cadence row for that address — they'd already received one inside the window.

Do this next

• Check delivery health for every email path in Admin → Invitations & email → Email delivery.
• Review which recurring emails a user can turn off in Notifications & emails.