Hi ​@dayn.johnson - well spotted, this is an interesting one.  I just did some testing in our sandbox to be absolutely sure and can confirm that {username} and {recipient_username} both work in exactly the same way, and that {group_url} also works despite not being available in the variables menu.

The discrepancy with the variables list is something we need to fix - I’m going to ping our Product folks about it.  Thanks for flagging!

Thanks ​@Kenneth R! I definitely bookmarked ​@Julian’s guide on the available variable for each type of system email -- it’ll be super helpful while I’m building emails outside of the CC template tool so I can drop that code in before I export the HTML for copy and pasting.

Dream state: an email template builder that functions on the same level as the one available in CS, with the ability to simply insert a token like we insert elements (see image 1 for where tokens live in the element selection, and image 2 for what I’m envisioning for choosing the token we want to include).

Follow-up question here -- is it possible (maybe on a long-term roadmap) that we might be able to use any CC variable in any CC email template? I’m envisioning something similar to a CS data object for CC (that I would then be able to query in CS after passing through via an integration).

That’s a fair question ​@dayn.johnson !  I’ll pass it on to our Product team as well.  And I do totally understand your observations about the CS builder vs the one in CC.  What we have in CC is definitely much simpler.

Thank you for passing that feedback on! Definitely -- would love to get something that’s even along the lines of this post editor where we could make simple text changes that would be reflected in the HTML, so other moderators are able to make changes to the system templates if needed, not just those of us who have access to the CS template builder or another HTML editor. 

Having a side-by-side editor would be super cool, but the CS editor is great.

Yep totally get that!  Perhaps a small side-note, but one thing to consider is that the CC system emails are not really designed with the idea of them getting edited frequently, which perhaps explains why the functionality is quite simple.  These are emails that are configured at launch and in many communities won’t be touched again for some time apart from occasional tweaks or during redesigns.

The email campaign feature is different, of course, hence the template and the WYSIWYG editor that we have there.  

(that said, I do agree it would be incredible to have something like the CS editor for all CC emails!) :) 

Interesting -- makes sense on the infrequent redesigns. I don’t see us redesigning them soon after launch unless we go through a complete rebranding, so that makes sense. Though the fact that any subsequent branding changes have to be made to each template individually is a bit difficult.

Edit to my earlier post: I understand why the template editor is more trimmed down here. Certainly makes it easier to maintain consistency across the email campaigns. 

Setting the overall template style with the HTML-only editor is still a bit limiting, however -- and basically makes it mandatory to have either HTML knowledge or access to a third-party editor.