Generate appointment subjects with field templates
When the back-office system doesn't send appointment text the way your planners want to read it, field templates let you compose the subject and body from the underlying data - without changing the back-office.
Before you start
The problem this solves: an appointment arriving from the back office carries raw data. A job number, a task description, a customer name. The planner sees "Task 4729" when what they need is "Service call - ACME Corp - 14 Main Street".
Field templates compose that readable string on Dime.Scheduler's side. The back office keeps sending its standard data and needs no changes, which is the whole point: this is the cheap fix when the alternative is a back-office development request.
One limitation to understand before you invest any time, because it changes how you test:
Template changes do not affect existing appointments. Only new records coming in from the back office render with the updated template. To refresh an existing appointment's subject or body, you generally have to push it through the back office again.
1. Understand the building blocks
A field template is an ordered list of three kinds of block:
- A field resolves to a property on the job or task at render time. Drop in
JobNoand you get the job number. - Free text is literal text between the fields: separators, labels, punctuation.
- A new line inserts a line break. Useful in the body, rarely in the subject.
Render time fills in the field values and concatenates everything into a single string.
2. Compose the subject
Select the template on the left; it loads on the right. Drag a block type from the top-right corner and drop it where you want it. Then pick the source field, or type the literal text.
Reorder by dragging, or with the caret buttons. Remove with the trash icon.
Design the subject for a narrow appointment bar, not for the editor. Subjects get truncated on a dense board, so put the most identifying value first. Customer name usually beats job number, because a planner recognizes "ACME Corp" faster than "4729".
3. Compose the body
The body has room to breathe, so this is where new-line blocks and fuller labels pay off. It is what a planner reads once they have already found the appointment, so it answers "what exactly is this?" rather than "which one is this?"
4. Save
Edits stay pending until you press Save on the right-hand side. Until then they live only in your browser, so navigating away loses them. This catches people out, since the editor looks like it has already applied the change.
Verify
Do not test by re-reading the template. Push a fresh appointment through from the back office and look at it on the board, because existing appointments will keep their old text no matter how correct your template is and will make a working template look broken.
Check the subject at realistic board density, where truncation actually happens, rather than on a wide empty board.
Related
- The same page has a Tooltip tab that uses the same drag-and-drop builder against a richer field library. See planning board tooltip.
- Extend the appointment card with templates when you need to capture extra data rather than display it.