Customise a disciplinary letter

What this achieves

A disciplinary letter is the document an employee is served with when a case resolves, and it is generated from a template. Overriding the template is how you make that document say what your organisation and your advisers want it to say.

Required role: Administrator.

Before you start

The letters supplied with the product are starting points. The screen says so directly: they are starting templates, and your legal counsel should review and finalise the wording for your jurisdiction. Do that before a case is served on anyone, not after.

Steps

Go to Settings → Disciplinary.
Open the Letter Templates tab.
Find the template by its Code and Language.
Select Edit.
Edit the Subject.
Edit the Body, using the variables listed under Available variables.
Select Save override.

Options on this screen

Option	Description
Code	Which letter this is. A stage on an escalation ladder names the code of the letter it serves.
Language	The language of this version of the letter.
Subject	The subject line of the served letter.
Source	Default where the supplied template is still in use, or Custom where you have saved an override.

The variables

Variables are filled in when the letter is served, so the same template produces a document specific to the case.

Variable	What it is replaced with
`{{employeeName}}`	The employee the case is about.
`{{violationName}}`	The violation type the case was raised under.
`{{stageName}}`	The stage the case resolved at.
`{{consequenceSummary}}`	The consequences the case carries.
`{{incidentDate}}`	The date of the incident.
`{{effectiveDate}}`	The date the action takes effect.
`{{companyName}}`	Your company.

Example: a body reading Dear {{employeeName}}, this letter concerns {{violationName}} on {{incidentDate}}. reaches Tom Hargreaves with his name, the violation, and the incident date already in it.

Write the letter so it still reads correctly with any value a variable might take. A sentence that only works for one violation will be served against every case that uses that stage.

Reverting

Reset to default removes your override and restores the supplied template. The screen confirms before it does. Your wording is not kept alongside the default — if you may want it back, save a copy of it somewhere first.

Language

Which language a case’s letter is served in follows the legal entity’s jurisdiction, unless the disciplinary policy for that scope sets Letter language to override it. Where you operate in more than one language, override the template in each language you serve, rather than one language and a hope.

What happens next

The override applies to letters served from now on. Letters already served are unaffected: a served letter is stored with the case as it was issued, which is what makes it usable later as a record of what the employee was actually shown.