Scenario: Creating text and images

Text assets
Image assets
Implementation overview
Tools used
Team members
Best practices/tips and tricks

Most letter templates include text and images. Images typically include company logos that appear on letters. Text includes standard wording and clauses that you want to include on your letters.

Text assets

A text asset is a piece of content that consists of one or more paragraphs of text. A paragraph can be static or dynamic. A dynamic paragraph contains references to data elements, whose values are supplied at runtime. For example, the customer name in a letter salutation could be a dynamic data element, with its value made available at runtime. By changing these values, the same letter template can be used to generate letters for different customers.

The Correspondence Management Solution supports two kinds to dynamic data items (variable data):

Data dictionary variables: These variables are bound to the data dictionary and get their values from the supplied data source. A data dictionary variable can be protected or unprotected. During correspondence creation, the user can modify the default value of unprotected data dictionary variables, but cannot modify protected ones.
Placeholders: These are variables that are not bound to a backend data source. They require the user to fill in a value during correspondence creation.

Note: The solution template does not force you to create unique names when creating placeholders. If you create two placeholders with the same name, such as a text and a condition, and use them both in a letter template, the values of the placeholder last inserted is used for both placeholders. If two placeholders have the same name, their types are compared. If the types are different then their type becomes String.

Image assets

An image asset is a graphic that can be used in a letter template. You can upload the following types of images to the Correspondence Management Solution:

JPEG, JPG
GIF
PNG

Implementation overview

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) is responsible for creating the images and text, and having them reviewed and approved as required. The SME then uses the Manage Assets user interface and upload assets using corresponding editors to upload images and add text to the Correspondence Management Solution Template. For details on how to use the Correspondence Management editors to create text and image assets, see Working with text and Working with images.

Tools used

The Manage Assets user interface is used to upload images and create text assets.

Team members

A graphic artist typically creates images. The Subject Matter Expert (SME) uploads the images, and is also responsible for creating the text assets, possibly with input from others, such as the legal department.

Best practices/tips and tricks

Use a consistent naming convention to avoid duplication.
Use appropriate data dictionary binding in text modules.
The following rules apply when using the Text Editor when changing a text asset:
- Addition of variable: Allowed
- Removal of variable: Allowed
- Update of properties: Allowed
- Change of data dictionary: Allowed until data dictionary element is not used. You cannot change the data dictionary on update.
The following rules apply when using the Image Editor when changing to an image:
- Update of properties: Allowed
- Change of data dictionary: Allowed on assigned images. You cannot change the data dictionary on update.