How to disable certain e-mail templates?

Software Support
1

Hi folks. This is my first time on this very neat forum. :smile_cat:

I’m having trouble tying to figure out how to disable e-mail templates at will. I’m an Admin on the site, and one of my Authors is complaining that there are way too many templates, that it’s cumbersome to go through the whole list to find one of them, and that it would be better to keep only those that we intend to use.

While I agree, I’m stuck at Home > Manage Journal > Email Templates (just translated the breadcrumb line from the Spanish version I use, hope the English original reads more or less the same) gazing at the screen without knowing quite what to do.
I can see that some of the templates can be disabled, but not all of them. Worse still, we need to disable templates that do not allow disabling.

I’ve tried locating the file that contains the templates in order to start from there, but no luck.

What to do?

2

Hi @Bestiola,

Authors shouldn’t have access to the list of email templates; are you referring to the Journal Manager?

Which email templates do you want to disable? The ones that cannot be disabled are generally purely voluntary, so there’s no need to disable them. Disabling an email template won’t remove it from the “Prepared Emails” list, which is admittedly long.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

4

Hi Alec, and thanks for replying.

Authors shouldn’t have access to the list of email templates; are you referring to the Journal Manager?

I’ve now switched to the English version, and I’m on Home > Journal Management > Prepared Emails.
My Authors have the role of Admin until we have all of the OJS set and ready; that’s why they can access all administration nooks and crannies.

The request for hiding some of the Prepared Emails comes from an author who doesn’t want to wade through all the list to find the templates we intend to use. He sent me a list of unwanted templates:

  • All templates beginning with BFR
  • EMAIL LINK
  • All GIFT templates
  • All LUCENE templates
  • All NOTIFICATION templates
  • OPEN ACCESS NOTIFY
  • PAYPAL INVESTIGATE PAYMENT
  • PUBLISH NOTIFY
  • All SUBSCRIPTION templates
  • SWORD DEPOSIT NOTIFICATION

I’ve tried hiding them via CSS, like so:

#emails table tr:nth-of-type(3),
#emails table tr:nth-of-type(4) {
display: none; 
    }

…and so on, for all unwanted templates.
However, as the list is built as an HTML table, and the table is split into several pages, this solution works only for the first page. Beyond the first page, there’s no way I can target each template with CSS.

6

Thanks @parveen123, but on the page Home > Journal Management > Prepared Emails it is not possible to click on the names of the email templates. ¿Is there any other page from which I can access email template management?

7

Hi @Bestiola,

I’m still concerned about the access you’ve granted your authors. They should definitely not be getting Admin or Journal Manager roles; it won’t be possible to properly blind your peer reviewers, for example, if the authors are able to enter the system and have a look at the review process directly.

The “Prepared Emails” interface isn’t intended for regular use; it’s intended for the occasional tweak to the default wording. For that reason it hasn’t been streamlined e.g. to allow quick access to a small number of templates.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

8

Thanks @asmecher for the heads up and the information!
Anyway, the roles are just temporary, since we’re still exploring how the system works…
For now, I’ve created a Test User to which I can assign any role and play with that, in order to see what can each role do. I’ve noticed there’s an option that allows me to take control of the Test User without having to log out as Admin. (Great!)