Composing and sending a message is covered in Email. This article covers the two surfaces either side of it: the templates that supply the wording, and the email log that records what went out.
What a template is
A template is a saved subject and body for one kind of message. Ceum ships five, and every account gets its own copy of all five:
| Template | Written for |
|---|---|
| Message client | anything, addressed to a client |
| Send invoice | an invoice you are attaching |
| Send overdue reminder | an invoice that is past its due date |
| Send project email | a project |
| Send task email | a task |
Each one holds a name, a type, a subject, a body, and the set of variables its type allows. The type is what ties a template to the kind of record it is about, so it is fixed — the type field in the editor is read-only, there is exactly one template per type, and the page has no action to add a sixth or to delete one of the five. What a template you have never touched offers instead is Reset template to default, which is only meaningful once you have changed something.
Until you edit a template, its wording is not stored text at all: it is resolved from the built-in copy in whichever language the app is set to, so changing language changes the wording. The moment you save an edit, your text is stored as typed and stays that way in every language.
Editing a template
Open Email templates and use the Edit row action. Three fields are yours:
- Template name — what the template is called in lists and in the compose picker.
- Subject — supports variables.
- Body — plain text, with the same variables.
Insert variable above the body drops a {{variable}} at the cursor, into whichever of the two fields you last had focus in. Submit with Update email template, or with Cmd/Ctrl+S.
Expanding a row on the templates page shows the same content read-only, along with the variables that template accepts. The table itself lists each template's name, type, and when it was last modified.
Resetting
- Reset template to default is a row action. It clears your name, subject, and body so the built-in wording returns. It is disabled on a template that still uses its default.
- Reset all to defaults sits in the page header and does the same to every template you have customized. It is disabled when none are.
Both ask for confirmation, and neither can be undone — the edits are gone.
Variables
A variable is written {{name}}, two braces on each side, and is filled in when the message is composed. Which names a template may use is decided by its type and cannot be extended:
| Template type | Variables |
|---|---|
| Message client | clientName, yourName |
| Send invoice | clientName, invoiceNumber, amount, currency, dueDate, yourName |
| Send overdue reminder | the Send-invoice set, plus daysOverdue |
| Send project email | clientName, projectName, yourName |
| Send task email | clientName, taskName, yourName |
A name outside that set is refused: the editor marks the body, disables the submit button, and names both the offending variable and the ones you may use. The server refuses it too, so nothing invalid can be saved from any client.
{{yourName}} resolves to your company name from brand and invoicing settings, falling back to your account name. When neither is set, the placeholder is deliberately left in the text so the compose page can flag it rather than sending a message with a blank where your name should be.
Everything a variable cannot express — the actual message — is typed into the body while composing. A template is the greeting, the record's details, and the sign-off, not a fill-in-the-blanks letter.
How a template is chosen
- From a record. The envelope action on a client, invoice, project, or task picks the type and fills in what it knows. An invoice picks Send invoice or Send overdue reminder depending on its due date.
- From the compose page. Create from template opens a short picker: choose the template, then the records it needs — client, then project, then task or invoice — and confirm. It stays unavailable until you have at least one client.
- Not at all. Typing straight into the subject and body is fine. The message sends and is logged as usual; its log row simply carries no template type.
The email log
Email logs is the record of every message sent from your account. The row is written before delivery is attempted, so a message that never arrived is recorded just as fully as one that did.
Each row carries the recipient, the subject, the send time, a status, and the template type it was composed from. Behind the row, Ceum also keeps the message body exactly as it was delivered, any error the mail provider returned, and the attachments.
Four statuses appear:
- Sent — accepted by the mail provider.
- Pending — the row exists and the provider has not answered yet.
- Failed — the provider rejected it, and the error is on the row.
- Suppressed — the address had previously hard-bounced or reported a message as spam, so nothing was sent to it. No send allowance is used. The row exists so that the skip is visible instead of silent.
Filtering and ordering
The column filters are:
- Date — a range.
- To and Subject — case-insensitive substring matches.
- Status and Template type — any number of values each.
The message body is not a column filter, but it is searched by global search, which returns logged mail beside everything else and links straight to the row.
The list is ordered by send time, newest first. Clicking a column header sorts by it — Date, To, Subject, Status or Template type — a second click reverses the order, and a third returns to the default. Sorting and filters are both held in the page URL, so a sorted, filtered view can be bookmarked.
Which columns are shown is up to you — see Customizing columns. A filter on a column you have hidden keeps applying and keeps its removable chip, so hiding a column never quietly widens the result.
In privacy mode, the recipient and subject are blurred in the table and in the expanded row, and image attachments show a placeholder in place of their thumbnail.
Expanding a row
Opening a row shows three blocks:
- Email information — recipient, subject, sent at, status, template type, and the error message when there is one.
- Email body — the message as delivered. It is fetched when you expand the row rather than shipped with the whole list, so the list stays quick on accounts with a lot of mail.
- Attachments — one row per file with its name, size, and type, and a Download button. An image also gets a thumbnail; clicking it opens a full-size viewer that can open the image in a new tab, download it, or print it.
Attachments on a logged message
A message carries at most three attachments, each up to 10 MB, and 30 MB across all of them. Each one is:
- a file you uploaded — ordinary document and image types only, never an executable or a script;
- an existing invoice PDF, reusing one that was already generated; or
- a freshly generated invoice PDF.
The bytes are kept with the log row and count towards your account's storage allowance, which is also why they are removed when the row is.
Exporting log rows
Export on the log opens the generate dialog, and Email log exports keeps the files it produces. The columns offered mirror the columns you currently have visible, plus an export-only Error column that is off until you turn it on. An optional timeframe narrows which rows are included. Generated files carry their own, shorter retention than the rows they were made from — see Export data.
How long entries are kept
An email log entry is kept for a number of days set by your plan, counted from when the entry was written:
| Free | Starter | Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 90 days | 180 days | 365 days |
Sending needs Starter or above, so the Free window is not something a Free account accumulates. It is the grace period an existing log gets after a downgrade or cancellation — long enough to export it.
Once an entry passes its window, the weekly cleanup removes it and deletes its stored attachments with it. Anything already scheduled for removal is listed ahead of time on Items approaching deletion.
On mobile
The mobile app reads the log and composes from a template, but does not edit templates. You can browse sent mail, open a message for its rendered body and its attachments, and pick a template while composing; creating, editing, and resetting templates is web-only.