Weak email template. Removing rows breaks it.

I am aware that "messing" with the template is not recommended as I would imply from the below page. 

From the above guidelines it appears that it is OK to add/remove text. In fact that is the recommended "workaround" to remove the Jotform branding -even for paying customers- from autoresponder emails.

From my tests, removing a row causes a malfunction with the spinner value 0 being hidden as if it were an empty field. 

On one hand you state that "any modification to the template will stop or disable auto-update".

On the other you say "you can manually add/remove fields". 

Do you mean we should be happy with a template which leaves an email output of empty rows  for all the text we have manually erased without being able to delete the whole row? 

It would look like this with many skipped lines (horrible): 

Removing a row is  quite a useful and necessary part of creating an email which makes sense for the user/customer of Jotform and for their final customers, rather than than having many empty lines from which the text was manually erased. 

I also think Jotform should provide a more robust email template and provide clear guidelines on how to make modifications without losing functionality. 

If you edit the Email Notification/Autoresponder it will stop updating if you add new fields to the form. The new fields will not be automatically added, but you can edit the Email Template, add a new row and add the new field. 

You provided a screenshot of the Notification with empty rows. If you just remove the data from the row, it will still be included in the email Alerts. You should remove the empty rows if you don't want them as a part of the Notification table. 

I saw that you already reported the issue with the Spinner field on this thread - https://www.jotform.com/answers/2134764

We will address the issue there.

Hi Joanna, 

Thank you for your response. 

Big Question: Is removing a row from the email autoresponder/notification template considered modifying the Template in a way that it looses the ability to auto update hence one has to manually update or re create the email notification/autoresponder from scratch every time they make changes to the form? 

Yes, unfortunately, when you remove a row, it will be considered as custom template. Since it is a part of the table.

And the Form Builder will stop or disable the auto-update.

Let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Indeed it is very unfortunate. A deal breaker for me as a paying customer. 

Consider this from the user's perspective:

Editing the email template (this includes removing irrelevant rows) in order for it to look good and make sense for one's customers is normal. 

Editing the form itself to make changes/improvements is normal.

Having to recreate the email autoresponders/notifications (which can require quite a bit of work to start out with) every time one modifies the form is simply a lack of functionality. 

I can't wait until the next time I tweak my form, so I can spend a good half an hour re-creating and re testing that the email templates are working again! 

If it helps, there is no need to recreate the entire form, you can just add the new fields into the existing notification, by adding a new row, typing the label of the field, and adding the field variable from the Dropdown field:

Hi. Yes I was aware that one can manually re-add any new fields. It's just that it becomes really tedious to do that every time one modifies the form. 

In practice I would always end up with autoresponder/notification emails which had fields missing because I would forget that every time I made a change to the form, I would have to go back into the emails and add the fields manually. 

So although it is possible to manually update fields in the Table, it tuns out for me that my emails eventually would stop working correctly simply because I updated the from and forgot to go back in and update the emails manually. 

Just because one deleted some rows in the email templates (which again is normal) then makes it all very unusable. 

It is not a question of principal. It is a real use scenario. 

I like to tweak/improve the form often.

I like to have a good looking email autoresponder/notification email without irrelevant rows. 

I DON't like updating the email templates by hand hand every time I make changes to form.

FEATURE REQUEST: Email template/table should MAINTAIN AUTO-UPDATE ABILITY even if rows are deleted or Added. 

I made several tests on one of my forms, but I cannot break the Email Notification. It is automatically updated when the form is edited, even if I edited the Notification table.

Based on my test the Notification will be updated as long as you do not delete the table. Please note that the Update Email option has to be set to Yes inside of the Advanced setting. 

If you can break the Notification or Autoresponder, so that they will stop updating when the form is edited, please provide us the exact steps how to replicate the issue. 

Dear BJoanna,

thank you again for the test. This is good news. 

It contradicts what documentation says "any modification to the template will stop or disable auto-update" and it also contradicts what your collegue just said "Yes, unfortunately, when you remove a row, it will be considered as custom template. Since it is a part of the table. And the Form Builder will stop or disable the auto-update." 

But still it is good news. 

One question though: In your animated test I didn't see you actually test the email output of the modified template? Did you verify that the email (not just the template) contained the correct information and no new fields were missing? 

I have not tested the notification of my colleague. But the system will send it exactly as it is configured.

If you are able to break the notification, please provide the exact steps, so we can further investigate.

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

Hi IvayloK. 

I acknowledge that you have changed your response to my question after BJoanna's test so now you agree with Joanna that it is possible to add/delete rows without breaking autoresponder/notification emails. 

Good. So now it's you and Joanna who say it's OK. So perhaps I can disregard official Jotfrom documentation saying that "any modification to the template will stop or disable auto-update". Good to know. You might want to update the documentation though. 

To answer your question, the fact is that I came to ask this question because my form autoresponder/notification email broke when deleting a row in Template. This affected a spinner which si not reported correctly inj email (the spinner result "0" is being erroneously treated as an empty field and therefore hidden in email output AFTER a random text row has been deleted in template -which shouldn't break the notification email you say) . 

Since I was desperate to find a solution, I have tested it separately with an experiment and confirmed the malfunction in an autorepsonder email affecting spinner output after deleting a row in email template. 

see here discussion and my latest test here  https://www.jotform.com/answers/2134764

I am awaiting for a solution to this BUG in Jotform which I have tested for you guys. 

At the moment I don't know if it is a problem specific to template or just has to do with spinner. 

Thank you for clarification. We have escalated your issue on the other thread.

We will keep you updated via the respective thread (https://www.jotform.com/answers/2134764).

Thank you for your patience and understanding.