Email, texts & calls
Variables in templates
The placeholders that fill in each customer's name, move details, prices, invoice and links when a message goes out — how to insert them, how they're spelled, and how to check them.
- 3 min read
- Checked against MoveBoard
- For owners & admins, sales
On this page
A variable is a placeholder that MoveBoard fills in for each order when the message goes out — "Hi [the customer's first name], your move on [the move date]…".
Insert one
- In a template (Settings › Communication › Templates): press Variables in a Text block, or press a variable chip under the subject to copy it and paste it into the words.
- In a message on an order: press Variable. Insert a variable opens — Filled in for this order when the message goes out. Search ("customer first name", "move date", "grand total"…) or pick a kind; Show all lists every one of that kind. It lands where your cursor was.
How they look
In the words, a variable is spelled like [(${CUSTOMER_FIRST_NAME})]. Always insert them from the picker — a misspelled variable isn't an error, it's simply replaced with nothing and the message still goes.
The kinds
| Kind | Examples |
|---|---|
| Company | Company name, phone, email, website, logo |
| Customer | First name, last name, email, phone |
| Order | Move date, arrival window, crew size, hourly rate, estimated job time, estimated quote, grand total, balance, discount, fuel, cubic feet, addresses, extra stops, inventory table, additional services table, notes |
| Order contact | The order's own contact name, email and phone |
| Invoice | Invoice number, issue date, total, paid amount, balance, status, terms, the invoice link |
| Crew | Foreman, driver, helpers, truck, the crew's arrival time |
| Account and Link | The customer's portal link, the order for service link, the bill of lading signing link, the review link, the receipt link |
| Storage tenant and Payment receipt | For storage bills and receipts |
Two links are named for what they do:
- Deposit link — the customer's secure link to reserve the move with a deposit (their own portal link).
- Inventory link — their link straight to the portal's Inventory page.
Some variables are only filled in by one kind of message, so the Variables list offers them only while you edit a template of that kind:
- Job leg (Pickup or Delivery), Job dates (the date(s) of that part of the job), Job area (the town of that part's address) and Job customer area (the customer's last name and town) — only in the crew's Job Assignment Removed and Job Cancelled texts.
- Storage declined amount and Storage declined card last four — only in the Storage payment declined messages.
Check them
Variables are filled from the saved order. Always look before you send:
- In Templates, What they see fills in your newest order's details.
- On an order, the eye (Preview the email) or Preview and send SMS fills in this order's.
If a variable has nothing to fill for an order — no arrival window yet, no invoice — it comes out empty. Write the words around it so the sentence still reads well. A variable is never shown as code — not in the preview, not in the message box, not in the email that goes out.
The tables fill in for every order: the additional services, packing, fees, payments and valuation tables show the order's rows with their total. With nothing to list, the services, packing and fees tables say $0.00 and the payments and valuation tables say None; an order with no inventory leaves the inventory table out.
Related guides
- Workflows & automationBuild your email and text templatesEvery email and text your company sends, as cards — see each one exactly as your customer gets it, build an email in the designer (from a ready-made one or blank), send yourself a test.
- Email, texts & callsSend an email from a templatePick one of your email templates on an order, see it filled in for this customer, change the words for this one email, and send — from the company's mailbox or your own.
- Email, texts & callsEmail header and footerSet the logo, banner and contact details that go round every email template — once, for every email — and give one template its own when it needs to look different.
- Workflows & automationTemplates vs workflowsTemplates hold the words, workflows decide when they go — which page to open for which change, and why switching a template off still stops it.
Still stuck? A person will help.
Open a ticket from Support inside MoveBoard, or email us — we usually reply within one business day.