Reminder and general templates – iController Guide

Templates in iController are used to process all default communication (email, PDF, SMS) actions, in order to have an efficient work flow.

There are two groups of templates:

Reminder and account statement templates
General templates

Reminder templates

During the set-up of your company's iController platform, procedures have been created to decide when and how to follow up debtors. Most of the procedural steps have a template linked.

Possible reminder templates are:

Account statement
Reminder 1, 2, 3, …
Registered letter
SMS-reminder
Outsourcing notification

How to create a reminder template?

Click on the gear icon () in the upper right corner
Go to Settings
In the left menu select Reminder templates  (Templates section)
Click on the green button Add new template
Choose a company and click on Add template

A template must always be linked to a company. If you have multiple constituents in iController, you need to add a template (e.g. reminder 1) several times, each time with the correct template background of the company in question.
Click on General options to configure the template settings.

There are several options:
1. - Give the template a name
  - Choose the location (city) of your company
  - It is possible to only show documents between a range of days in procedure (D.I.P.)
  - Decide which documents should be visible in the template. By default documents in status procedure are shown, but you can
    - Show documents in dispute
    - Show documents in promise
    - Show documents in payment plan
    - Show documents in outsourced
    - Show only due documents
  - The total amount can be visualized in the document overview table. The other option is to use replaceable tags to communicate the amounts (in the text) below the table.
  - Reconciliations can be visualized in the document overview table
  - When ticking the 'force PDF' checkbox, for this template there will always be a PDF document generated, whether or not 'reminder email' is enabled for the debtor. This is useful for registered letters, if you decide to send these by postal mail
  - The Force SMS checkbox is used for the SMS-reminder action
  - Attach PDF to email
    
    How to change the location and date position on the PDF template?
    
    You can change the position by adjusting the fields ‘Location top’ and ‘location left’ in the general options of a template
    
    If you want the date to be set in the middle of the template, you can fill in 110 in ‘Location left’, if you want it all the way to the right you fill in 200.
Add and select the necessary languages.
Create the content of the email reminder template by selecting E-mail and clicking Change text.
Copy-paste the email body into the PDF template (PDF - Change text).
Add the PDF background to your template.
Click Change margins to adjust the placing of the debtor's address information.
You can delete a language (template) or add a template in a new language.
Repeat steps 8 and 9 for each new language.
In the reminder templates, a table with an overview of the outstanding documents is included.
By clicking on Change document overview the columns visible in the table and layout settings can be installed.

SMS template

Use the 'Force sms' checkbox to make sure a text message will be created for this specific procedure step.

Note: It is not possible to copy a template throughout entities. To add a similar template, create a new one in a split window and copy paste the text and settings from the previous template.

Note: When there are debtors with a language other than the ones installed for the necessary template(s), it won't be possible to send the (automatic or manual) reminder. Create the reminder in this language or change the debtor's language to another language for which there exists a template.

Note: Please contact support when it is not possible to select the columns visible on the document overview.

Tip: When copying a procedure where the different reminder templates for a company are linked to, these reminder templates will automatically be created for the new company. It saves time to only have to adjust the background and limited content instead of creating the templates from scratch.

What are reminder templates used for in iController?

The reminder templates are used for standard procedure steps.

To be able to execute an automatic action on the worksheet from the reminder or registered mail type, it is necessary that a reminder template is linked to the procedure step (see Settings > Procedures).
Reminders can also be sent manually from the debtor sheet.
Look for Send document overview in the left menu to send every reminder that has been created for the company to which the client belongs.

How to change a reminder template?

In the reminder templates list, all reminder templates are visible.
All existing languages per templates are shown in the Languages column.
Use the pencil to edit a template.

Account statement templates

In most cases, it won't be necessary to create an account statement template separately in the Account statement templates section (see Settings), since this template should be set up in the Reminder template' section.

However, as account managers (in case they are set up in iController) don't have the rights to send reminder statements from the debtor sheet and you would want them to be able to do so, copying these templates into the account statement templates will enable them to do so.

General templates

All templates that differ from reminder templates and that can be used for several communications in iController, are set up in the General templates section.

Possible general templates are:

Accompanying email for a report sent recurrently
Payment plan template
Warning mail for representative
Email sent from a configured tracking list
And many more

Learn even more about templates

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