Build your email and text templates

Templates hold the words. Workflows decide when each one goes and to which orders — so this page is only for building the emails and texts.

Find them in Settings › Communication › Templates.

The cards

Every email and text is a card, grouped by its folder. Each card shows:

• an envelope (email) or a speech bubble (text), and the name;
• one line on when it's used;
• which workflow sends it — Sent by "…", Used by a workflow · off, or Not used by any workflow;
• how many it has sent.

Use Search templates, All / Emails / Texts and All topics to find one. Folders makes, renames and orders the folders (so does Template folders). A new folder shows at once, empty — + New template in it starts one there.

Open a template

Press a card. At the top: the name, which workflows use it (each one is a link to Workflows) and Use in a workflow →. Save lights up only when you've really changed something.

Under the Subject and the Inbox preview line (the gray words after the subject in an inbox) are the variables the email uses, as chips — press one to copy it, then paste it into the words.

An email has four tabs:

Design an email

Every email opens in the Design tab's designer. On the left is a narrow rail:

• Add — the Add elements squares: Heading, Text, Picture, Button, Feature, Columns, Divider, Space, Logo, Social and Code (advanced). Press one and it goes in under the element you picked (or at the bottom). Old block design shows your company's saved blocks as small pictures — press one to put it in the email. Click it in the email to change it like anything else: click its words and type, click a picture to change it, select words for a color or a link. Code (top right of it) shows its HTML, for people who write HTML.
• Themes — the colors and letters of the elements you add.
• Background — Use background color on or off, and the color behind the email.
• Undo and Redo — take back the last step, or bring it back (also Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z and Shift+Ctrl+Z / Shift+Cmd+Z when you are not typing in a box). One Undo covers everything: words, pictures, moves, colors.

On the right is the email as your customer gets it. Click any words in it and change them right there — a small bar shows above them with Bold, Italic, Link, Variables and Done. Press Enter, click outside or press Done to keep the change; press Esc to put the words back as they were (Shift+Enter makes a new line). Click a picture to replace it (upload one or paste its web address) or to say where it opens when tapped. Click anywhere else on an element to pick it — its settings open on the left, with ← Back to the email at the top to go back. Switch between Desktop and Phone. When something would go out broken (a button that opens nothing, a picture address that is not a web address), the designer says so.

Move an element

Point at an element in the email: the pointer becomes a hand and Drag to move · click to change shows on it. Press on the element and drag it up or down — a green line shows where it will land — and let go. A quick click (without moving) still picks the element so you can change it. The green handle with six dots at its top-left does the same. "Your email" (an email you already have) moves the same way, so you can put new elements above or below it. You can also press the handle and use the ↑ and ↓ arrow keys, or pick the element and press the up and down arrows next to its name on the left. Undo puts it back.

Variables show as blue chips — First name, Company name — in the email and in the boxes on the left, never as code. Variables puts one where the cursor is. In a Text box, Enter starts a new line and a blank line a new paragraph; select words and press Ctrl+B (⌘B) to make them bold.

Start from a ready-made email

A new email offers Start from a ready-made email: Move booked, Your estimate, Move reminder, Thank you + review — or Blank. Pick one and change the words. You can get back to it any time with Start from a ready-made email… under Add elements (your email is replaced; Undo brings it back).

Emails you already have

An email you already have — written in HTML, or made with the old blocks — opens as one element, "Your email", exactly as it is sent today. Nothing is re-laid out, and its background color is kept.

• Add elements above or below it like any email.
• A calm note at the top says This email was made from code. Click any words to change them; for bigger changes use Edit the code (advanced). Click any words in it and type, exactly as above: only the words you change are changed in its code — its layout, its Outlook parts and everything else stay exactly as they were.
• Its parts (the header, the card, the button, the footer) move like elements: press on one and drag it up or down.
• Edit the code (advanced) (on the note, or on the left when "Your email" is picked) opens its code: the code on the left, the live email on the right. A click on the email never opens the code. ← Back to the email goes back. What is in the box is exactly what is sent. If the code uses things mail programs drop (JavaScript, flex or grid layouts, web fonts, pictures with no description), it says so plainly.

Your company logo and your company's details (name, phone, email) show with their real values everywhere you build an email — the designer, the header and footer, the small pictures — exactly as they are sent. A company with no logo yet sees a gray Your logo box where it will go (Settings › Company › Branding).

What you see in the designer is what the customer gets: the same email, with your header and footer and the order's details, is used for the designer, What they see, Email me a test and every real send.

Email me a test

Email me a test sends the email on screen — saved or not — to your own email address, with your newest order's details filled in and "[Test]" before the subject.

Texts

A text shows on a phone, with your newest order's details filled in, and counts its characters and parts. Press a variable chip to put it where the cursor is.

When does a template go out?

Set it in Settings › Communication › Workflows. Changing a template never changes which orders it goes to.