Configuring Email Templates

When managing privacy requests, it's important to keep consumers informed about the progress of their requests. This is typically managed through email templates, which can be customized both in terms of content (continue reading) and appearance. The following instructions outline how to modify the email content for each request type.

The following types of emails may be sent while processing privacy requests:

• Subject identify verification: An email used to confirm the identity of a data subject.
• Privacy request status: An email sent to a data subject when a privacy request has been received, approved, or denied.
• Access request completed: An email sent to a data subject when an access request has been completed that includes a link to download the data package.
• Erasure request completed: An email sent to a data subject when an erasure request has been completed.

To further familiarize yourself with the email template types, including default values, see our email template types guide.

There are 2 different modes to configure these emails:

1. Basic messaging. This mode is available by default for all users. It requires separate ENV variables to be set up that globally enable/disable each email template type.
2. Property-specific messaging. This is a paid feature that enables enabling/disabling each email type by website property.

Configuring Email Template Content

Option 1: Basic Messaging

We recommend Basic Messaging mode for everyone just getting started with Fides, particularly if you only have 1 web property that needs to be managed within Fides.

The following configuration variables are available for Basic Messaging mode, and should be set up in an ENV file or in the fides.toml file.

FIDES__NOTIFICATIONS__SEND_REQUEST_COMPLETION_NOTIFICATION="true"
FIDES__NOTIFICATIONS__SEND_REQUEST_RECEIPT_NOTIFICATION="true"
FIDES__NOTIFICATIONS__SEND_REQUEST_REVIEW_NOTIFICATION="true"
 
FIDES__EXECUTION__SUBJECT_IDENTITY_VERIFICATION_REQUIRED="true"

The first three variables control just the email sends, but the last one also determines whether or not identify verification is needed for the privacy request. If this is enabled, then an email or SMS will be sent if a provider is configured. For more on this topic, please see the subject identity verification guide.

After your ENV vars are set up, navigate to the Management > Email Templates section of the Admin-UI to customize email content.

Option 2: Property-specific Messaging

Paid users have access to property-specific messaging mode. This enables you to enable/disable and configure different email content depending on which website property the privacy request originated from.

For example, if you have 2 properties, "House of Cookies" and "Pizza Parrot", you may want your Privacy Request Received email for "Pizza Parrot" to read "Your privacy request for Pizza Parrot been received!". Or, you may wish to disable the privacy request received email for just the "House of Cookies" property.

This level of customization is possible by doing the following steps, in order:

1. In your Admin-UI, navigate to the Management > Messaging section of the Admin-UI to customize email content by property. Ensure the appropriate email templates you wish to send are enabled/disabled as needed.
2. Once you have the templates configured / customized as you like, you'll need to set the following ENV var to signal to Fides you're ready to start sending the property-specific emails:

FIDES__NOTIFICATIONS__ENABLE_PROPERTY_SPECIFIC_MESSAGING="true"

Advanced configuration options

In the following cases, a custom value can be configured to override the default setting. To change these settings, please set this via environment variable or in the fides.toml file.

What's next?

You may want to update the style of these messages. Please see our guide for configuring email style.