YouTrack Standalone 2021.2 Help

Notification Templates

Notification Templates provide you with tools to customize email and Jabber notifications to suit your user communication requirements. You can edit the default Freemarker -based templates: add your own subject, change the language, and tailor the message text.

The default notification templates present key components of each message in a format that is easy to scan in a message preview. Most recipients don't even need to open an email notification to stay up to date. The components in the email headers are also optimized so users can filter their inbox and collect YouTrack notifications in dedicated folders.

That said, the email client that you use in your organization might not present this information in a friendly way. To modify the format of your email messages, customize your notification templates.

You can modify the email messages that are sent by YouTrack by customizing your notification templates. These templates are available from the Notification Templates page, which is accessible from the Notifications tab on the Global Settings page.

Notification templates administration

The Notification Templates page displays a list of templates. Each item in the list can be expanded to view and edit the template components. Template components are actual Freemarker .ftl files that are used as "building blocks" for messages.

Simultaneous Changes

YouTrack follows a digest scheme for notifications. This is intended to reduce the amount of notification spam that is generated by the application. Issue changes for a single notification are tracked and collected as follows:

  • Notifications for updates made by a single user paused for one minute. Each change made by this user resets the counter until a full minute has passed. After that, a single notification is generated that contains the entire collection of changes made by this user.

  • If another user applies changes to the same issue, another counter is started. From this point, whichever user goes a full minute without resetting their corresponding counter generates a notification. Any unsent notifications for changes that were applied by other users prior to the event that generates a notification are collected and sent as a separate notification.

That is, if John Doe updates issue TS-1, and his colleague, let's say Jane Doe, distracts him so he doesn't do anything with the issue within a minute, then the notification will be sent about any changes he made to TS-1 before the distraction.

The similar situation is when John Doe is updating the issue TS-1 and someone (his rival, probably) starts to update the TS-1 at the same time. As soon as another user's changes are registered, the notification about changes made by John Doe until that moment are sent.

Edit Notification Templates

Notification templates are available for notifications sent by email and Jabber. To update template for a specific protocol, just make changes in the corresponding branch of the notification template "tree": expand either  Notifications > [Template Name] > [Template Component] > email  or  Notifications > [Template Name] > [Template Component] > Jabber, respectively.

Edit notification template

To edit a notification template:

  1. From the Administration menu, select Server Settings > Global Settings.

  2. Select the Notifications tab.

  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Configure notification templates link.

  4. Locate the message component that you want to modify. For components that are integrated into specific message templates, expand the item in the Notifications list.

  5. Click the name of the template component that you want to edit (a <component_name>.ftl file).

  6. Make the desired changes in the message template editor.

  7. Click the Save changes button in the header.

The following controls are available for editing notification templates:

ControlDescription
Available VariablesLists the variables that can be used in this template. For more information, see  Local Variables.
Save changesSaves the current changes.
UndoReverts the most recent change.
RedoRestores the most recently reverted change.
Reset to defaultDiscards all current and previously saved changes and restores the default notification.

Preview and Test Changes

To view how your changes affect a template or a template component, select an issue in the Issue selected for preview dropdown list. When you select a notification from the list, a preview that contains data from the selected issue is shown in the Details sidebar.

Along with the preview that shows changes in the browser window, you can also see your changes in your email or Jabber client. Select the  Email  or  Jabber branch of a template and click the Send test message button in the toolbar.

Local Variables

Local variables can be used, but not changed by the user. Local variables are predefined and read-only.

Local VariableTypeDescription
headerstringThe header of a notification. Represents a short text which identifies the notification type. The following values are available: Created, Assigned, Updated, Commented, Resolved, Tagged, Voted, and so on. This variable is used in the default email subject template.
fromUserRepresents notification sender's details
toUserRepresents notification recipient's details
application.namestringEvaluates to "YouTrack"
application.versionstringEvaluates to the current version
application.buildstringEvaluates to build number
reasonstringEvaluates to description of the reason a user receives notification. Description form differs in jabber and email notifications.
issueIssueEvaluates to an issue, about which the notification is sent.
changeIssueChangeContains info about changes (issue project, summary, description, custom fields, visibility group, links, attachments) that initiated notification.
commentCommentEvaluates to an edited or posted comment, about which notification is sent.
comment_updatedbooleantrue - a comment has been edited, false - a new comment has been posted
tagTagEvaluates to an tag, which has been added to or removed from an issue.
untagbooleanindicator that issue has been tagged/untagged
unvotebooleanindicates that issue has been voted/unvoted
projectProjectImported project or project failed to import (id, full name, issues, leader...). Variable is used in the "Import status" notification.
exceptionThrowableJava Throwable object
messagestringtext of the message in the "Import status" notification.

Directives

You use FTL tags to call directives. Besides built-in directives like the #list directive, you can define your own directives in Freemarker. For more information, see the User-Defined directives manual.

  • wiki- process embedded text using Wiki syntax and keywords. Directive applies HTML escaping.

    • parameter- no parameters

    • body- text to process

Example:

@wikisolidhtml <#escape x as x?html> ... <@wiki><#noescape>${comment.text}</#noescape></@wiki> ... </#escape x as x?html>
  • diff- render html element presenting text change. Mark deleted and added sections of text with given styles.

    • parameters:

      • oldText- old version of text

      • newText- new version of text

      • insStyle- html style of inserted parts of text

      • delStyle- html style of deleted parts of text

    • body- no body

Example:

@diffsolidhtml <@diff oldText=change.before.summary newText=change.after.summary insStyle="background-color: #E6FFE6;" delStyle="background-color: #FFE6E6;"/>
  • stacktrace render the html component representing stacktrace of Throwable

    • parameters:

      • throwable- instance of Throwable Java class

    • body- no body

Example:

@stacktracesolidhtml <div><pre><@stacktrace throwable=exception/></pre></div>

Utils

  • Everywhere the type of returned value is list<?>, you can iterate over method result using #list directive.

Method Summary
static stringgetAttachmentUrl (Attachment attachment)
returns URL of attachment resource
static stringgetAvatarUrl (User user)
returns URL of user avatar
static stringgetCommentReplyUrl (Comment comment)
returns URL of web page with Issue view focused on reply text area
static stringgetCommentUrl (Comment comment)
returns URL of web page with Issue view focused on comment
static list<ProjectCustomField>getCustomFields (Issue issue)
returns list of custom fields of issue
static IssuegetDuplicate (Issue source)
returns issue duplicated by the source issue, if there is no such issue returns null
static stringgetEditProjectUrl (Project project)
returns URL of web page in Administration where you can edit project
static list<Tag>getExplicitTags (Issue issue)
returns list of tags of issue except tag 'Star' visible for notification recipient
static intgetInvisibleAttachmentsCount (Issue issue)
returns number of issue's attachment invisible for notification recipient
static stringgetIssuesUrl (Project project)
returns URL of web page with the Issues list opened in context of a project
static stringgetJiraIntegrationUrl ()
returns URL of web page in Administration where you set up Jira integration
static list<Issue>getLinkedIssues (Issue source, string linkRole)
linkRole name of link (Related, Duplicate, and so on)
returns list of issues linked with source by the link of specified role
static list<string>getLinkRoles (Issue source)
returns all possible roles of links of the source issue
static stringgetPossessiveName (User you, User from)
returns "you" if you and from is the same user, and from user presentation otherwise
static stringgetResolveStatus (Issue issue)
returns "resolved" if issue has been resolved and "" otherwise
static stringgetSettingUrl (User user)
return URL of web page with user profile setting focused on the "Filters and Notifications" tab
static stringgetStarSrc (Issue issue) return URL of 'Star' tag image resource
static stringgetTaggedIssuesUrl (Tag tag)
returns URL of web page with the Issues list opened in context of tagged by tag issues
static stringgetTrimmedTagName (Tag tag)
return tag name restricted by 25 chars length
static stringgetUrl (Issue issue)
returns URL of web page with issue
static list<Attachment>getVisibleAttachments (Issue issue)
return list of issue's attachments visible for notification recipient
static booleanhasLinks (Issue issue)
returns either issue has any links or not
static stringinUserTimeZone (instant time)
returns human readable formatted time brought to the recipient time zone
static booleanisFixed (Issue issue)
returns either issue has been fixed or not

Last modified: 27 April 2021