Part 1 · Communicating and meeting

Letters

Write official letters in your company's image, with a locked letterhead, templates, reusable text blocks and one letter per recipient.

Symbifox 18.0 (September 2026 catalogue) · Modules: Letter Writer, Recruitment: the job offer · Revised 2026-09-12

The Letters application, shown on screen as Lettres (letters), produces the official documents your organization signs and mails: confirmations, formal notices, attestations, job offers. You write only the text. The logo, colours, contact details, signatory and footer come from your company record and do not drift from one letter to the next. One template and a list of recipients produce as many personalized letters, each as a PDF, ready to print or send by email. It serves management, administration and human resources.

Overview#

A letter brings together a sender (your company), a recipient taken from Contacts, a date, a salutation, a body and a closing. It receives a reference when it is finalized and goes through three states: Brouillon (draft), Finalisée (finalized) and Envoyée (sent). While it is a draft, everything can be changed. Once it is finalized, the recipient's name and address are frozen as they were that day.

Three objects prepared in advance do most of the work. A letter template holds a standard subject and body, with merge fields that Symbifox replaces with the recipient's values when you apply it. A text block is a reusable paragraph, filed by category and called up by a shortcut, that you insert at the start or end of the body. Finally, the letterhead decides how the page is dressed: five layouts, from the dark banner to pre-printed paper.

What sets the Symbifox approach apart fits in one sentence: the page design is locked. A letter's author chooses the layout, not the colours or the logo, and each company in the instance issues its letters in its own image. The shared visual settings are made in Settings and brand identity.

The list of letters is the application's home screen: one line per document, with its reference, recipient, applied template and state.

Configuration#

Access and permissions#

Anyone with an internal account can write, edit and send a letter: it is an ordinary office task. A single group is added, set in Settings › Users & Companies › Users.

When several companies share the instance, each person sees only the letters and blocks of the companies they have access to. Job offers also follow a specific rule, described in Understanding.

Settings#

You set the page design once and for all on the company record, in Settings › Users & Companies › Companies, on the Lettres tab.

The five layouts:

Base data#

Prepare three things before the first letter: at least one template for your recurring mail, the text blocks for your usual wording, and the company's letterhead or signature block. Recipients come from Contacts: a record with a complete address saves you retyping anything.

Getting started#

This walkthrough writes a letter to Clinique dentaire Rosemont, a Boréal client, from the demo template.

1. Open Lettres › Lettres, then select New.
2. In Destinataire (recipient), choose “Clinique dentaire Rosemont”. The title fills in by itself.
3. In Modèle (template), choose “Lettre générale” (general letter), then select Appliquer le modèle (apply template). The standard subject and body appear, with the merge fields already replaced.
4. Replace the paragraph in square brackets with your text, and adjust the Appel (salutation) and the closing.
5. Select Insérer un bloc de texte (insert a text block), choose “Disponibilité pour échanger” (available to talk), leave the position at À la fin du corps (at the end of the body), then select Insérer (insert).
6. Select Aperçu PDF (PDF preview) to check the layout.
7. Select Finaliser (finalize). The reference is assigned and the recipient's address is frozen.

All that remains is to send it. Envoyer par courriel (send by email) opens a pre-filled message with the PDF attached. Marquer envoyée (mark as sent) closes the cycle for a letter handed over in person or mailed.

The form of a demo letter shows the header buttons and the structure of the document.

Common tasks#

Write a letter#

1. Open Lettres › Lettres, then select New.
2. Choose the Destinataire. The Titre (title) fills in by itself and stays editable.
3. Check the Expéditeur (sender), the Date and the En-tête (letterhead).
4. Enter the Appel, the body and the closing.
5. Optional: choose a Signataire (signatory) and their Fonction du signataire, which replace the company's.
6. Select Save.

The letter stays in Brouillon and can be changed freely.

Apply a template#

A template brings the subject, the standard body and suggested blocks.

1. Open the draft letter and choose the Modèle.
2. Select Appliquer le modèle.

The body is replaced with the template's, merge fields filled with the recipient's values, and the title takes the template's subject. If a value is missing from the recipient's record, Symbifox flags it without blocking: the letter is highlighted in the list until you complete it.

Insert a text block#

1. Open the draft letter.
2. Select Insérer un bloc de texte.
3. Choose the Bloc de texte (text block); its content appears as a preview.
4. Choose the Position: À la fin du corps or Au début du corps (at the start of the body).
5. Select Insérer.

The paragraph joins the body, with its own merge fields already replaced.

Produce and print the PDF#

1. Open the letter.
2. Select Aperçu PDF to open it in the browser, or Télécharger le PDF (download the PDF) to save it.
3. Select Imprimer (print) to use the usual print dialog.

The document comes out in US Letter format, with the chosen layout.

Send the letter by email#

1. Open the letter, then select Envoyer par courriel.
2. Check the Destinataires (recipients), the Sujet (subject) and the Message.
3. Leave Joindre le PDF (attach the PDF) checked, unless you have a reason not to.
4. Optional: select Prévisualiser PDF (preview PDF) for a last look.
5. Select Envoyer (send).

The email leaves in a company-branded layout, PDF attached, and the letter changes to Envoyée.

Change a letter's state#

1. On a draft, select Finaliser: the reference is assigned and the recipient frozen.
2. On a finalized letter delivered other than by email, select Marquer envoyée.
3. To correct a letter already finalized, select Remettre en brouillon (reset to draft).

Each change of state is recorded in the letter's chatter, the message thread at the bottom of the form.

Produce one letter per recipient#

One template, a list of people, as many personalized PDFs.

1. Open Lettres › Fusion en lot (batch merge).
2. Choose the Modèle.
3. Check the Expéditeur and the Date.
4. Add the Destinataires.
5. Optional: check Finaliser automatiquement (finalize automatically) so each letter comes out already finalized.
6. Select Créer les lettres (create the letters).

Symbifox opens the list of letters created, one per recipient, each with its own values.

Create a letter template#

Prerequisite: belong to the Gestionnaire group.

1. Open Lettres › Configuration › Modèles de lettres (letter templates), then select New.
2. Enter the Nom (name) and the Objet (subject), which becomes the title of the letters produced.
3. Choose the En-tête applied by default.
4. In the Corps (body) tab, write the standard text and place your merge fields; the Champs de fusion (merge fields) tab lists them.
5. In Blocs de texte suggérés (suggested text blocks), add the paragraphs this kind of letter often calls for.
6. Select Save.

Create a text block#

1. Open Lettres › Configuration › Blocs de texte (text blocks), then select New.
2. Enter the Nom, a short Raccourci (shortcut) and a Catégorie (category).
3. Write the Contenu (content), including merge fields if the paragraph names the recipient.
4. Leave the Société (company) empty to share the block across all companies.
5. Select Save.

Write a job offer from an application#

Prerequisite: the proposed terms are recorded on the application; without them, the button refuses to act.

1. Open the application in Recruitment.
2. Select Rédiger l'offre (write the offer).
3. Review the letter that opens as a draft: position, salary, special conditions and start date are already there.
4. Adjust the text, then select Finaliser.

The letter stays linked to the application, and a shortcut button at the top of the application counts the letters produced. To have it signed, select Envoyer pour signature (send for signature), see Electronic signatures.

Have the assistant review a draft#

1. Open the draft letter.
2. Select Réviser avec Claude (review with Claude).

The assistant opens with the letter in context and suggests a review. The button appears only if the assistant is installed, see Gen, the assistant.

Archive a letter#

1. Open the letter, select the gear icon, then Archive.

The letter leaves the current lists; the archived filter brings it back. Nothing is deleted.

The menus, one by one#

Lettres: the main menu, open to anyone with an internal account.

Lettres › Lettres: the list of letters (columns Référence (reference), Date, Titre, Destinataire, Modèle, État (state)) and their form. Twelve letters on the demo, almost all job offers produced from applications, plus a draft addressed to Léa Marchand. On an empty screen, the help text invites you to write your first letter.

Lettres › Fusion en lot: the dialog that produces one letter per recipient, described in Produce one letter per recipient.

Lettres › Configuration: grouping menu, reserved for the Gestionnaire group.

Lettres › Configuration › Modèles de lettres: the list of templates (columns Nom, Objet, En-tête). Two on the demo, “Lettre générale” and “Offre d'emploi” (job offer), both with the dark banner.

Lettres › Configuration › Blocs de texte: the library of reusable paragraphs (columns Nom, Raccourci, Catégorie), which you reorder by dragging. Three on the demo, filed under “Ouverture” (opening), “Clôture” (closing) and “Mentions” (notices).

Reference#

Fields of the Lettre form#

Fields of a letter template#

Fields of a text block#

Reports and exports#

• Lettre (letter): the document PDF, produced by Aperçu PDF, Télécharger le PDF or Imprimer, and attached to the sending email.
• The list of letters exports with Actions › Export (see Common actions in every application).

Automations#

The application does nothing on its own: no letter leaves without an action from someone. Two conveniences aside: the title fills in as soon as a recipient is chosen, and the recipient's details freeze at finalization.

Public pages and portal#

None. A letter is read as a PDF, never on a web page. To have the document signed online, use Electronic signatures.

Modules that extend this application#

A single satellite module, and it fills a gap: the job offer.

A letter can also be signed online: the Envoyer pour signature and Voir les signatures (view signatures) buttons on a job offer come from Electronic signatures, which documents them.

Understanding#

The page design is locked, and that is the point. An official letter commits the organization. Letting each person compose their own letterhead means accepting that the logo ages at different speeds from one workstation to the next. Here, the author chooses one layout out of five and writes the text; the rest comes from the company record, for all letters at once.

Merge fields must stay simple paths. Symbifox allows more elaborate expressions only to people who have the right to edit email templates. So that any manager can adjust a letter template, the set of allowed fields has been fixed, and it includes only direct references: the recipient, their company, the date, the reference, the signatory, and for an offer, the application. A field written otherwise, with a fallback value for example, will make rendering fail for an ordinary user. Rely on the template's Champs de fusion tab.

The offer template belongs to you. An upgrade of the module never rewrites the text of the “Offre d'emploi” template: what an organization has rewritten stays its own. The trade-off is deliberate: an improvement to the original text does not reach instances already installed.

An offer is not read like other letters. Anyone with an internal account can read letters, whereas the salary offered to a candidate is reserved for recruiters. Two rules therefore combine: an ordinary employee sees letters linked to no application, and a recruiter sees everything. A letters manager who is not a recruiter loses access to offers, deletion included. This is intentional.

The module refuses an offer without terms. An application with no salary and no special condition has nothing to offer. The button raises a message rather than producing a letter that would announce a salary of zero. Likewise, a letter is addressed to someone: without a contact on the application, the button says where to add that contact instead of creating one for you.

Image and PDF are not equivalent. In image mode, the letterhead dresses the first page only. For a letter of several pages, prefer the uploaded PDF, which stamps the body on each page and keeps vector quality when printed.

Troubleshooting#

See also#

• Contacts: the records that recipients and signatories come from.
• Recruitment: the applications a job offer starts from.
• Electronic signatures: having a letter signed online.
• Settings and brand identity: the logo, colours and contact details that dress the page.
• Email, Gen, the assistant, Common actions in every application.