Introduction

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Each contact list contains a variety of standard and custom fields which can be merged into an email, form, or survey.
The editor language enables you to merge contact data or define which content is displayed based on contact data.
Except for a few helpers, our online editors provide merge and logic syntax, so you don’t need to know how to write it. Advanced users can learn the syntax to really make Tarvent work for you.
Helpers can assist in formatting your data
In addition to contact data, items such as Account, List, Contact, and more can be merged.
Referring to an item’s data is done through dot notation. For example, to get the Contact’s first name, you can use Contact.Firstname.

GENERAL SYNTAX

To merge contact data, simply add {{Contact.FieldName}} and the Tarvent engine will merge the data. In addition to the basic merge, there is also {{{Contact.FieldValue}}} which uses triple brackets instead of double brackets. Triple brackets should be used whenever HTML and/or link URL content is being passed as the value of a field.

Here is a basic example of how the syntax looks:

<html>     
	<head>         
		<title>Newsletter</title>     
	</head>     
	<body>         
		Dear {{Contact.FirstName}},</br>         
		This month’s newsletter&hellip;     
	</body> 
</html>

Helper names are not case sensitive. However, the “{else}” in the conditional helpers is case-sensitive and should always be added in lowercase letters to ensure the Tarvent engine can process the editor language correctly.

CULTURE

Some helpers support a culture parameter. This is typically an optional parameter. You can specify a custom culture, when supported, to control how the data is formatted before merging. If no culture is specified, the default culture is “en-US”.

TIME ZONE

Some helpers support a time zone parameter. Like the culture parameter, this controls how the data is interpreted before merging. If no time zone is specified, UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is used.

HELPER REFERENCE

There are a lot of helpers. Do not get overwhelmed. To narrow down what you are looking for, it is best to know what kind of data you are working with than reference helpers that match that data type.

Text Helpers
Format your text-based data in various ways before merging.

Number Helpers
Format your numeric-based data using specialized helpers before merging.

Date Helpers
Dates can be difficult, but our data helpers take the pain away and give you some calculations as well.

Comparison Helpers
When you need to control which content is displayed for each recipient or visitor, comparison helpers are the magic you are looking for.