In the Communication Templates application, you use substitution variables in the Subject field and in the Message field. When you use substitution variables in a communication template that is used to create a notification, the substitution variables are replaced with the corresponding values in the record that generates the notification.
When you use substitution variables in the Message field, you type the text in the Subject field or in the Message field. You then add a space and a colon before the substitution variable to format the output correctly. If more text or other variables follow, you must insert a space after any variables in the Subject field or the Message field.
You can also use dot notation with relationships in substitution variables. For example, rel1. rel2. fieldname.
Your Incident #:TICKETID was opened on :REPORTDATE . The person assigned to work on your issue is :OWNER . You will be contacted on or before :TARGETSTART .