Part 4 — Reference · Chapter 26

Merge Field & Field Code Reference

One consolidated reference for the bracketed codes that pull live data into generated documents (chapter 12), HTML emails (chapters 12 and 13) and generated filenames. The authoritative field list is long and grows with the product, so BigWave lets you download the complete current merge field list from inside the application. Treat that download as the source of truth and this page as the manual for reading and using it.

The model

A code is a bracketed token, [LikeThis], placed in a Word document template, an HTML template or snippet, or a naming pattern. At generation or send time, BigWave resolves each token against the record at hand, usually a work order and everything reachable from it, and replaces the token with the value. An unresolvable token is left visibly unresolved rather than dropped, so template mistakes announce themselves in preview.

What is available to merge

The downloadable list enumerates the fields, which cover the reachable graph of the work order:

  • Work order. ID, description, status, dates, notes.
  • Customer and site. Names, addresses, contacts, IDs.
  • Project and company. Project information, and your company details for headers and footers.
  • Schedule and assignment. Scheduled dates, assigned technicians.
  • Money. Line items, totals, invoice and quote numbers, PO number.
  • Custom fields. Every field you defined in chapter 10, which is where templates get their real specificity.

The same field vocabulary serves all three template surfaces, documents and emails and filenames, and each surface’s editor tells you anything specific to it.

Formatting values

Raw values are rarely presentation-ready, so codes accept format strings that control how dates and numbers render. A date field as “March 4, 2026” or as “03/04/2026”. Money as currency with two decimals. The in-app template documentation carries the format syntax alongside the field list. Format explicitly in customer-facing templates rather than trusting defaults, because the default aims at data fidelity, not typography.

Replaceable fields in filenames

Naming patterns for generated documents, chapter 12, use the same tokens. A pattern of site ID plus document type plus year yields self-sorting filenames across hundreds of uploads. Filename resolution renders values as plain text with no formatting artifacts, so the pattern you write is the filename you get.

The status action token

The one token complex enough to document fully here. In an HTML email template or snippet:

[WOStatusAction status="Approved"]

resolves to a unique, unguessable action URL, which you place inside your own button or link HTML. The token emits the URL only. When the recipient clicks, they land on a confirmation page, and confirming moves the work order to the named status. The status is matched by name within the work order’s project, so the name has to exist in that project’s status list, spelled identically.

The token takes two independent arguments:

  • status="..." sets which status a confirmed click applies.
  • snippet="..." names a reusable HTML snippet to render as the confirmation page, letting you brand the page and put the real action buttons on it. Inside the snippet, plain [WOStatusAction status="..."] buttons carry the actions.

Use either or both. The plain form, status only with the default confirmation page, is fine for a simple approve link. The snippet form builds the fully branded approve-and-decline experience of chapter 18. Each emailed link is single-purpose and tied to its work order, and the click-then-confirm handshake exists so email scanners can’t trigger actions by prefetching links.

Practical notes

  1. Build templates against a real work order and preview relentlessly. Unresolved brackets in a customer’s inbox are the failure mode.
  2. When the field you want is a custom field, check its exact name in its definition. Token names must match.
  3. Keep a company style for date and currency formats and reuse it across templates, so your paperwork agrees with itself.
  4. After renaming a status, search your templates for the old name. Status action tokens address statuses by name, and chapter 7 warned you they would.