Resident letters and stage communications

A resident letter card appears at every meaningful case stage — survey scheduled, summary provided, works scheduled, works complete — sharing one compose box, one send path, and the same branded PDF machinery throughout.

What it is

Every stage’s letter card offers the same three tools: a Draft with AI starting point where one exists for that stage, an always-available Insert template (no AI) deterministic alternative, and a freely editable compose box regardless of which you use — AI drafting is never a precondition for sending. Where a stage has a real generated artifact behind it (the full evidence report at Surveyed, the works-completed PDF at Works Complete), the card attaches it alongside the letter and links through to view it directly, so the resident and your own records get the same document.

How to do it

1. Open the case and find the letter card for its current stage.
2. Click Draft with AI for a starting point, or Insert template (no AI) for a deterministic one — either way, edit the compose box freely before sending.
3. Set the From name (defaults to you), the recipient’s email (suggested from the property’s tenancy where known), and the subject line.
4. Click Send to resident — this needs a confirmed recipient address and no unfilled placeholders in the letter body.
5. Use Other outputs for Print, Copy, or — on the Platform plan — sending the cover letter or its attached artifact to a configured SFTP destination instead of, or as well as, emailing it.

How it integrates

Every send goes through one mail transport regardless of which stage’s card triggered it — your organisation’s own SMTP first, the platform relay second, or an honest message that sending isn’t set up yet if neither is configured. Nothing here is stored server-side except the plain send record (recipient, subject, body text, timestamp, who sent it) — the PDF itself is rebuilt from that record on demand, never cached as a file on the server. A letter containing an unfilled bracketed placeholder is blocked from sending until you remove it, so a stray placeholder never reaches a resident’s inbox.

Common problems

• Send to resident is disabled. Either the recipient address is missing or invalid, or the letter still contains a bracketed placeholder — both are flagged inline.
• The AI draft used a name or address I didn’t expect. AI drafting only ever uses facts already on the case — check the case record itself, not the letter, if something there looks wrong.
• Sending to SFTP isn’t offered. It’s a Platform-plan feature, and only appears once at least one SFTP destination is configured — see Sending and pulling files over SFTP.