Using Web Templates
After a web template has been defined, you can use it in any of your Online Marketing web documents.
Note: A web template is associated with a particular SetID. If you want to use the web template with multiple SetIDs, you must create it in each one. Web templates belonging to different SetIDs are updated independently.
To use web templates, you must have the View web page templates permission, and to use template documents in dialogs you must have the Edit online dialogs permission. To edit web templates, you must have the Edit web page templates permission.
You should be aware of the following behavior associated with Online Marketing documents using templates.
If you modify a template but do not change its location (that is, the URL remains the same), the Document Preview function will display the modified template. This is because the document preview does not rely on what is cached on the server.
In a Live dialog, however, documents using web templates are cached. If a template HTML file is changed outside Online Marketing, the new version will not be used until the Online Marketing Dialog Server cache is cleared. You can clear the server cache by saving the template from the client, or by manually clearing the cache using the Online Marketing Control Center.
If you want a modified template to be active immediately, you must clear the server cache as soon as the template is modified. However, if you do not want the modified template to be active immediately, you should be aware that if the server cache is cleared for any reason (even by another Online Marketing user), this will activate the modified template.
To avoid inadvertently activating a template you do not want to use yet, give the template a new name that is not being used by any other dialog documents and test your document using that template. When you are sure the template works properly with the document, save the template under the original name, associate the document with it, and clear the server cache to make it active.
To use a web template with an Online Marketing document:
Before associating an HTML document with a web template, ensure that all references in the web template file (including GIFs, links, JavaScript and Java applets) are absolute references. They should be in the form http://www.domain.com/myimage.gif rather than the form ../images/myimage.gif. Also, make sure that all links and GIFs can be rendered by the Online Marketing web server.
In the Document Designer, create a new document, filling in the appropriate information. In the Template Name field, choose a template from the list of available templates.
Click Preview to verify that your HTML document is displaying properly in the web template.
If the template is not found at rendering time or if it does not contain the appropriate Online Marketing tags, the server treats the document as if no template exists and includes appropriate HTML tags around the head and body sections (just as it does with any other Online Marketing web document).
To change an existing dialog document to use a web template:
In the Document Designer, open an existing document.
On the Document page, select a web template from the list in the Template Name field.
Save the document.
The selected template is associated with the document.
If you change the web template, the documents associated with it will automatically apply the changes. However, documents that are imported with previously exported contents with formatting will not be affected by subsequent template changes. Any changes you make after adding a web template to your document will affect the associated documents.