Correspondence form - Completing the Corr tab

Complete the Corr tab to define the text, formatting, property values, and, included correspondence fragments, and appearance of the correspondence.

Click the Edit mode button and select to edit in Simple Rich Text Editor, Source Only, or Templated Email.

  • In Simple Rich Text Editor, the toolbar is available to apply formatting and other edits. In Simple Rich Text Editor mode, select text with the mouse pointer and click a tool to apply formatting, such as bold, underscore, and italics.
  • In Source Only, view or update the source as HTML code. In Source Only, you can add HTML elements and JSP tags directly. For example, you can add the when JSP tag to conditionalize a portion of the HTML code. If you use JSP tags that identify a clipboard page, include the name and class of that page on the Pages & Classes tab.
  • In Templated Email mode, you can select from a set of included templates or upload your own custom email template.

If this correspondence rule is to be used with the Work-.AttachandHold flow action and a Word template rule, enter only plain text, directives, and JSP tags in the text area. Do not include HTML tags, such as <P> or <H3>. The Word template file provides the formatting.

HTML Email

When the Correspondence Type key part of the rule is Email, all correspondence produced for outgoing email includes HTML formatting, even if no HTML elements appear within in the source. The recipient's mail client must have the capability to accept and display HTML-formatted email.

Text Messages

When the Correspondence Type key part of the rule is PhoneText, the correspondence produced for outgoing email includes no HTML formatting. The destination may be a digital cell phone that supports Short Message Services (text messaging) or an email client program.

Linked Property references

In source mode, you can use references based on linked properties. For example, in a work object, the property Work- .pxCreateOperator is a linked property identifying a key to a unique instance of the Data-Admin-Operator-ID class. To include the full name of the create operator, enter the reference as:

<pega:reference name=".pxCreateOperator.pyUserName"></pega:reference>

Note the leading . before the linked property name.

Security

As a best practice to ensure quality and security, minimize the use of source mode in correspondence rules you create in application RuleSets. While such rules are necessary for specific features, use of generated correspondence is preferable when possible. If your application contains correspondence rules, use the Guardrails landing page to assess guardrail compliance, and use the Rule Security Analyzer to check for security vulnerabilities.

Field Description
(no label) Enter rich text for the correspondence. In Design mode, a wide variety of tools are available in the toolbar including fonts, font sizes, colors, lists formatting, graphic elements and alignments. Certain controls are available only in Design mode, and only when text is selected.
Icon Result
Bold

Bold the selected text using the <strong> HTML tag.

Italic

Make the selected text italics.

Underscored

Make the selected text underscored.

Change the font of selected text.

Change the font size of selected text

Font color

Change the font color of the selected text. Choose a color from the palette.

Background color

Set the background color of the selected area. Choose a color from the palette.

Unordered list

Convert the selected paragraphs to an unordered list (<ul> tag).

Ordered list

Convert the selected paragraphs to an ordered list (<ol> tag).

Remove formatting from the selected text.
Indent, increase space at the beginning of the selected lines.
Outdent, reduce space at the beginning of the selected lines.
Undo
Redo
Cut
Copy
Paste
Paste as plain text
Paste from Microsoft Word
Left-align the lines in the selected paragraph.
Center the lines in the selected paragraph.
Right-align the lines in the selected paragraph.
Justify the lines in the selected paragraph by adding spaces.
Spell check the paragraph.
Insert a table.

Insert a reference to an image. (The URL must identify an image that is available to the correspondence recipient.)

Select the Auto resize check box to enable responsiveness for the image. At run time, the image resizes in response to a change in browser window size.

Switch to source mode.

Convert the selected text to a subscript.
Convert the selected text to a superscript.
Make the selected text an HTML link (<a> tag). In a pop-up window, enter the HREF= value in the URL field. Optionally, enter a text in the Title field. Click OK.
Remove an HTML link.
Maximize the Rich Text Editor
Add Property

Include the value of a scalar property at the selected insertion point. Complete the pop-up window to supply the property Name, an optional Format (control) and an optional When condition rule. You may type in a full property reference. Click Save.

The system generates a <pega:reference > JSP tag from the information you provide.

Include the value of a section or paragraph rule at the selected insertion point.

Complete the pop-up window to identify the rule type (section or paragraph), the Purpose key part, an optional When condition rule, and (if the included rule is based on a page other than the page of this paragraph), a Using Page page name value. Click Save.

The system creates a <pega:include ..> JSP tag from the information you supply.

Make the selected text a link that presents a SmartInfo pop-up section.

Included Section Preview Select Show the preview of included section check box and any sections included in the paragraph display as they will appear at run time.
Included Property Preview Select Show the description for included properties check box and any properties included in the paragraph display a description. The description is updated when the rule for is saved.
Designated Printer Optional. For print only. To print correspondence from this rule on a printer identified in your system, enter the Printer Name value of a Printer data instance.

If the correspondence is to be printed on a printer not known at this time, leave this field blank. The operator can select a printer, or your application can compute a destination printer.

Special Print Activity Optional. For print only. By default, the system uses the standard activity named Data-Corr-Letter.Send to send correspondence items to a printer. To use another activity, create an activity with Data-Corr-Letter as the Applies To key part. Enter the Activity Name key part here.
Display Width

Optional. Enter a display width as a percentage value between 10 and 100. If your application presents the correspondence item to a user for editing, the system sets the initial correspondence display window to this percentage of the user's full monitor width (in pixels). The user can adjust the window size.

Select a percentage that suits the correspondence. The default is 60 percent.

Display Height Optional. Enter a display height as a percent value between 10 and 100. If your application presents the correspondence item to a user for editing, the system sets the initial correspondence display window to this percent of the user's full monitor height in pixels.

Select a percentage that suits the correspondence. The default is 80 percent.

After Create Select the initial disposition of correspondence items created by this rule:
  • Send — When correspondence can be sent out without review and approval by a second user.
  • Verify — When correspondence is verified by a second user before being sent out. The second user can update and send the correspondence or reject it. This choice is useful for highly sensitive documents. At runtime, the system starts an additional flow named VerifySendCorr. The standard flow Work-.VerifySendCorr routes the correspondence item to the team manager for verification, but your application can override this flow or portions of it. For background, see the Pega Community article How to enable verification in correspondence rules.
  • Attach and Hold — When correspondence is to be attached to a work item but is not sent out, or is sent out by a later utility activity such as Work-CorrNew. You can use this option with correspondence started with the standard flow action Work-.AttachandHold, which creates attachments assigned to a category.
User Edit Indicate what degree of editing is available at runtime to an application user for correspondence items produced by this rule:
  • Select No Edit to prevent any editing by the user.
  • Select May Edit to allow editing by users who update the work item.
  • Select May Display if the application is to display the correspondence to users who process the work item, but the correspondence cannot be altered by these users.
  • Select Must Edit if users processing the work item must complete information in correspondence items produced from this rule.

Select Must Edit if the user edits correspondence in conjunction with the flow action Work-.AttachAndHold to support sending Microsoft Word files in DOC format as email attachments.

Generate For Typically, the system sets this field to HTML or JSP, to indicate whether the HTML source is to contain HTML directives or JSP tags. For new rules, the initial value is JSP.

Use of JSP tags offers superior performance and other advantages over directives. Although both directives and JSP tags are supported, JSP tags are recommended for new development.

If this rule is circumstance-qualified or time-qualified, make this Generate For value match the Generate For value of the base rule. The base rule and the qualified rules must all use JSP tags or all use directives.

Do not save the rule form if you have composed HTML that contains both JSP tags and directives.

SmartInfo pop-ups

For paragraphs on user forms, you can associate a pop-up SmartInfo section with the paragraph. To configure a Smart Info section:

  1. Click the SmartInfo icon .
  2. On the form that appears, enter the Stream Name key part of the section in the Name field.
  3. Enter a page name in the Using Page field. If you do not provide a Using Page value, at runtime the system uses the Applies To class of this paragraph rule to find the section.
  4. Enter brief text for the window title in the Header Text field.
  5. Click Save.

A SmartInfo pop-up window can supply context-specific help to application users. This feature depends on AJAX technology.

The SmartInfo feature supports interactive users as they complete or review a user form. The SmartInfo feature doesn't operate when a paragraph rule is included in a correspondence rule.

About Correspondence rules