Every day, somewhere in your agency, a CSR is typing an email they've typed a hundred times before. The renewal follow-up. The certificate confirmation. The "we need your updated driver list" request. They're writing it from memory, or copying from a sent folder, or building it fresh because they can't find the last version they used.
This is a solved problem in Applied Epic. Most agencies just haven't solved it yet.
What Email Templates Actually Are
Epic's Email Template Configuration — found under Configure > Email > Email Templates — lets you build a library of pre-written emails that staff can select during distribution workflows or directly from the Applied Epic Outlook Add-in. Think of it as your agency's official messaging playbook, built into the system itself.
This isn't just a convenience feature. It's a consistency and compliance tool. When your team pulls from a library of approved templates, everyone is saying the same thing, in the same way, under your brand. The version control problem disappears. The "I thought I had a template for this somewhere" conversation goes away.
The Features Most Agencies Miss
The basic concept — pre-written email text — is simple enough. But there are three layers of functionality that make Epic's email templates genuinely powerful, and most agencies haven't touched any of them.
Branding Profiles
Before you build a single template, set up a Branding Profile in Epic's Branding Profile Configuration. A branding profile controls the visual formatting of your emails — fonts, colors, header, footer, logo placement. Once it's built, you apply it to every template in one click. The result is that every templated email your agency sends looks like it came from the same professional organization, not from whatever formatting choices a CSR made on a Tuesday afternoon.
Merge Variables
This is the feature that makes templates feel personal instead of generic. Merge variables are placeholders you insert into the subject line or body of a template — things like the contact's name, the policy number, the account name, or the expiration date. When a CSR uses the template, Epic pulls the actual data from the record and populates it automatically.
The important nuance: merge variables are context-sensitive. The variables available depend on where the email workflow is initiated. A template used during the Distribute Attachments workflow will have access to different data than one used during a renewal distribution. This is worth understanding before you build, so you match your templates to the right workflows.
User Signature Pull
Templates can be configured to automatically include the sending user's Epic email signature. This means your staff don't have to remember to add their signature — and clients always get a properly signed email without anyone thinking about it.
The Attachment Defaults Tab
One piece of template configuration that often gets skipped entirely: the Attachment Defaults tab. This controls how emails sent using the template get stored as attachments in Epic. You can define the folder path, set a security access level, mark emails as important policy documents, and even control whether they're accessible through the CSR24 client portal.
For agencies serious about documentation standards, this is where you enforce consistent filing at the template level — so CSRs aren't making storage decisions every time they send an email.
Connecting Templates to Email Events
Templates become part of your workflow when you associate them with Email Events in the Email Event Configuration. This is how you control which templates are available during specific distribution workflows. A renewal distribution event should surface renewal templates. A certificate workflow should surface certificate templates. The right tool shows up at the right moment — which means staff aren't scrolling through a list of 40 templates to find the one they need.
A Note on Naming and Descriptions
You can't delete email templates in Epic — only inactivate them. This means your template library will grow over time, and poor naming decisions made early become permanent friction. Before you build, agree on a naming convention. Something like [Workflow] — [Purpose] works well: "Renewal — Commercial Lines Follow-Up" or "Certificate — New Holder Confirmation." Descriptions matter too — they're what staff see when selecting a template during a distribution workflow, so make them specific enough to choose from at a glance.
Where to Start
If you're building email templates for the first time, don't try to template everything at once. Start with your highest-volume, most repetitive email types — renewal follow-ups, certificate confirmations, and missing information requests are usually the right first three. Build those well, connect them to the right email events, and train your team on how to use them. Then expand from there.
The goal is a library your staff actually uses — not an ambitious system that feels like more work than just typing the email themselves.