Why are the merge fields I am using in my Task Message Templates not populating with the correct values?

Environment:

Merge Fields in Message Templates
November 2012 and newer

Resolution:

If you find that your Organization, Contact, Opportunity and Incident Merge fields are not populating with the correct values when your administration email message templates are sent, you may wish to review the Tasks from which these messages are being sent to ensure that each of the expected fields is populated with a value on the task record.

If a Task's Incident field is populated with a reference number, it does not necessarily follow that the Organization and Contact fields will also be populated with the administration email (such as Task Information or Task Forward) is sent. The Contact and the Organization will not be taken from the associated Incident. A single Task could be associated to numerous different records, including Organizations, Contacts, Opportunities etc. A Task's Organization could be entirely different from the Organization of the related Contact or Incident's Contact, for example. It could be set to a' Completed' status as it related to its Incident, but still be in progress as it related to its Contact. For this reason a Task is associated with each object separately. Rather than drawing the Organization and Contact data from the Incident, it looks for the Organization and Contact fields on the Task itself to be populated.

If you find that your merge fields are populating with 'No Value' when administration emails are sent, ensure that the fields in question are on your Task workspace and are being populated with values. Those merge fields will not be populated with values from other related records.