Placeholders

Learn how to use placeholders to help you populate client and proposal information automatically!

Pat Kuo avatar
Written by Pat Kuo
Updated over a week ago

What are placeholders?

Placeholders are small blocks of code within Ignition that dynamically insert information depending on the specific details from a client or proposal.

Think of these as "find and replace" fields in Ignition that help you populate a large amount of information automatically, saving you loads of time!

Note: Make sure you have all applicable client information fields filled out to ensure this information appears correctly.

For example: You will need to make sure you have your client address saved to the client information section to have the placeholder client.address appear correctly.

Here's an example below:

Hello, contact.name ! Thank you for your business. Please look out for an email within your contact.email inbox requesting more information so we can get started on your work.

Will turn into this:

Hello, John Cena! Thank you for your business. Please look out for an email within your john@youcantseeme.com inbox requesting more information so we can get started on your work.

You can find a list of available placeholders below when creating and customizing your terms templates.

Please note: Placeholders are currently supported in Terms Templates, Service Terms and Notification Templates.

They are currently unsupported in Service Descriptions.


Manage placeholder warnings

Placeholders in yellow may need your attention. This colour indicates the placeholder may be missing information or is not compatible with the New Proposal Editor. You can hover over the placeholder to reveal a tooltip with more information.

Missing information from the client record

Placeholder will pull information from the client record in Ignition. If a placeholder that requires client information is used and it is missing, the placeholder will appear in yellow.

To correct this, update the client record to add the missing information. You can update the client record in the Clients tab → select the client → Edit Client or in the New Proposal Edit in the General Step → Edit Client.

Information can't be displayed until the proposal is created and signed

Placeholders for future dates, proposal messaging and client signatures can only be populated once the proposal has been sent or accepted. For example, The “Sent Date” of a proposal cannot be determined while the proposal is being created and can only be displayed once the proposal has been sent.

These placeholders will appear in yellow, but no action is required and the information will display once the proposal has been sent or accepted.

Not compatible with the New Proposal Editor

Placeholders that are compatible with the Classic Proposal Editor only and not compatible with the New Proposal Editor will appear in yellow. If you are using the New Proposal Editor these placeholders will not appear in your final Proposal terms letter or Service Terms.

Placeholders that have errors

If a placeholder contains errors this will not render any content in the proposal terms and will appear in red. Please remove this placeholder and select the correct placeholder from the list.


Troubleshooting Placeholders

If your placeholders are not working, follow these steps to troubleshoot the issue:

  1. Check to see if the information exists in your Ignition client records.

    It is important to ensure that the information exists in your client. Navigate to the General step → Edit client to check or make changes.

    Save any changes you've made to see the updated information in the proposal terms.

  2. Check to see that you are using the correct placeholder.

    Jump into the specific template you are checking and ensure that the correct placeholder is inserted.

  3. Send a test proposal to yourself

    Use the Space Ranger (demo client) to build and send a proposal to yourself.

If you have actioned these steps and notice that the placeholder still isn't functioning as expected, please contact us with some screenshots at help@ignitionapp.com.


How to insert Placeholders

You can insert placeholders directly from the Placeholders dropdown in the editor.


List of supported placeholders

We will continue to support all proposal placeholders listed below.

contact.addressee - Inserts the name to whom this proposal is addressed to.
contact.name - This will insert your contact's full name.
contact.salutation - Salutation for the contact.
contact.email - shows the contact's email.



client.address - Inserts the client's company address.
client.business_structure - Inserts your client's business structure.
client.company_number - Inserts the company number for the client (ABN, ACN, etc).
client.phone_number- Inserts your client's phone number.
client.group - Inserts the group the client belongs to.
client.manager_name - Inserts the client manager's name.
client.manager_email - Inserts the client manager's email address.
client.manager_job_title - Inserts the client manager's job title.
client.name - Inserts the client's full name.
client.partner_name - Inserts the client partner's name.
client.partner_email - Inserts the client partner's email address.
client.partner_job_title - Inserts the client partner's job title
client.postal_address - Inserts the client's postal address.
client.tax_number - Inserts the tax number for the client

client.update_payment_details_url - Inserts the link where you can add additional payment methods.



practice.admin - Inserts the name of the practice principal (account holder)
practice.name - Inserts your company name. This is useful for consistency and if you need to change it at any point, you simply change it in the company settings and all your templates will be updated.


proposal.end_date - Inserts proposal's end date

proposal.commencement_date - Inserts the proposal's start date

proposal.sent_date - Inserts the date that the proposal was sent. (Please note when you preview the proposal before sending, this will be blank.)

proposal.total_cost - Displays the minimum contract value (changed from the Classic Proposal Editor)

proposal.sender_email - Inserts the email of the user specified on the proposal under the Presentation step. If no user is specified, it will return your company email.

proposal.acceptance_date - Displays the day the proposal was accepted.

proposal.accept_link - Inserts a link for your client to accept the proposal.

proposal.accept_proposal_message - Inserts the proposal's accepted message you specify in your Library → Notifications tab.

proposal.message_text - Inserts the custom message that you entered in the Personalized Message box on the Presentation step.

proposal.pdf_url - Inserts the proposal PDF URL of the accepted proposal.

payment_verification_message - Inserts the ACH payments verification message for Ignition practices that are in the US. To edit the template, navigate to your Library → Notification → ACH verification request email.


List of unsupported placeholders

The following proposal placeholders are not supported as the New Proposal editor no longer has these concepts (e.g., billing types have been replaced by billing rules):

  • proposal.on_acceptance

  • proposal.on_completion

  • proposal.recurring

  • proposal.bill_day

  • proposal.fiscal_period_end

The following proposal placeholders are not supported as the relevant information is now automatically included in the proposal PDF:

  • proposal.sender_name

  • proposal.price_summary

  • proposal.service_summary

  • proposal.details_table

  • proposal.service_terms

Please note that when you are creating a new proposal, if you have a service which contains service terms, the system will automatically display and append the service terms at the bottom of the page in Step 5 of the proposal acceptance experience.

This location of this is currently unable to be changed.

Deprecated Placeholders

Please note, that in the New Proposal Editor experience, we have deprecated a number of proposal-specific placeholders.

This is because we have improved the PDF experience to ensure it will always include the relevant content from these placeholders. This means you will always have a compliant PDF document including scope, pricing and service terms even without these placeholders in your terms.

It's important to note that all of the placeholders will continue to work as intended in the classic proposal editor.

If you are using the New Proposal Editor, the deprecated placeholders will not display any values (it will be blank) if you have these within your terms documents.


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