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;
• an on / off switch (for people who can change settings).

Turn a template on or off

Press the switch on its card — it saves at once, and the card never opens. A template that is off is never sent automatically: every workflow skips it. It can still be picked in an order's message box when Offer it in the order's message box is on (in its Details). Turning off a template a live workflow sends asks first and names those workflows — "This email won't be sent by: …" (the Template on switch in its Details asks the same; there the change waits for Save). If the change can't be saved, the switch goes back and says why.

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 in its own pieces: each paragraph, heading, list, picture, button and gap is an element on the left (In this email: Text, Heading, List, Picture, Button, Space, Section). Nothing is re-laid out: until you change something it is sent exactly as before, and its background color is kept.

• Change words: click them in the email and type, as above. Only the words you change are changed.
• Take out a picture: click it and press Take the picture out (or pick the Picture element and press the bin). Take out words: pick the Text element and press the bin.
• Fix spacing: line breaks and empty gaps are Space elements — pick one and press the bin to close the gap. To add room, pick the element above and add a Space from Add elements.
• Move any piece with the arrows (or press and drag it), and add any element (Text, Picture, Button, Space…) under the piece you picked. Anything you add can be dragged to any place between two pieces — the green line shows where it lands — not only to the top or the bottom of the email. An older email laid out in one big table opens in its pieces too.
• More word tools (colors, lists) opens a piece in the word editor: headings, lists, alignment, colors, links, picture size.
• A Section is a part the editor keeps whole — columns side by side (like a header with your logo and phone), a table, or a list that repeats for each item. Its words are still changed by clicking them. In a table whose full-width rows hold your words with a row of two boxes side by side here and there (a little icon beside its words, "Move date" beside "Arrival"), each full-width row opens in its pieces and each side-by-side row is one Section; whatever you put in that table goes across its whole width.
• Edit HTML (on the note at the top) opens the whole email's code: the code on the left, the live email on the right. What is in the box is exactly what is sent. Edit as text, pictures and spaces (on the note) brings it back into pieces. Edit the code (advanced) on a picked piece opens just that piece's code.

A short email that has only one part (for example a single block of words) opens as one element, "Your email": click its words to change them, or use Edit the code (advanced).

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. Its customer links are your company's short link with a sample ending (?hl=preview), the same shape your customers get; the sample opens nothing.

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.

Move confirmation messages

The Move confirmation folder holds the day-before request (text and email), the reminder (text and email), the thank-you text and the confirmation note to the customer (text and email). Change their words here or in Settings › Dispatch › Move confirmation, under The words — it's the same message. When they go is set on that page, not by a workflow. See Move confirmations.

When does a template go out?

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