An email template is a pre-made email, ready to use. A template is written once, and then used many times over again. Email templates can be used to quickly send common email content to recipients. Email templates can be authored in HTML, or plain text and can include pictures, tables, text mark-up and other formatting as per the HTML specification. Additionally, email templates can have embedded "tags", or "tokens" within the subject or body of the email template. These tags will be replaced with context-sensitive data just before the email is sent. This allows you to create dynamic and powerful email templates that not only have a personal touch, but also form part of a powerful email response management system.
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Email Template |
1. Speed. Email templates are used to speed up the process of sending email. Rather than having to compose an email from scratch every time, you simply use a pre-made email template.
2. Consistency. Email templates provide a way ensuring that each email you send is consistent, meaningful and contextually relevant (via email template tags.
3. Email response management. Email templates are used by the Email Manager to send email as part of the job logging/add action email response management workflow.
Email templates can be linked, or associated with Action Templates. This relationship is especially powerful, because you can link up to 5 different email templates to any one action template. This means that you can send 5 different types of email to 5 different types of person every time you perform an action against a job. This is especially helpful when you wish to send email to clients, staff, management, external vendors and others, from the one action.
For further information about how email template link to action templates, see Action Templates
The email template has the following main sections
Title : A short description to identify the template. It is a best practice to use some sort of naming convention for this field as this will make it much easier to locate, identify and understand the purpose of the template if the name of it follows a well-understood naming convention.
Category : A pick-list of terms used to describe the template category. Category options are administered through the System Codes screen. The Category code appears as an available field in the Field Chooser for Email Templates. This field is used to sort, classify and search for Email templates.
Type : A secondary pick-list of terms used to describe the category. Type options are administered through the System Codes screen. The Type code appears as an available field in the Field Chooser for Email Templates. This field is used to sort, classify and search for Email templates. Default values include "Complete", "Introduction" and "Conclusion". These values may be edited via the System Codes screen, however they may be useful to classify an email template and its intended use. For example, an email template marked as "Conclusion" may simply be a signature, or document footer that can then be re-used when creating new templates. See the "Insert other email template button" description below.
Subject : When an email template is used to send email, this field will be inserted into the subject of the outgoing email. The subject field can accept email template tags, and is a vital field in the configuration and use of the Email Manager, particularly when automatically scanning and replying to in-coming email from an already existing job where the Job # tag is used.
Message : This field contains the content of the email. It can be formatted as either HTML, or plain text, and this is toggled via the format drop-down box on the editing toolbar. The message field can accept email template tags, and is a vital field in the configuration and use of the Email Manager, particularly when automatically scanning and replying to in-coming email from an already existing job where the "reply between the lines", or similar email scanning technique is used.
Attachments : This tab allows any attachment to be linked with the Email Template. When the template is used to send email, any attachments listed here will be sent with the email.
Email Settings : The email settings tab allows a "from address" to be specified for the Email Template. When a valid email address is entered into this field, the out-going email will be sent "from" the email address listed. This is useful to ensure that when an template email is replied to, the email is always sent to a specific address. This is useful for good Email Response Management practices. Read information about the "From address".
Insert system tags button : Use this button to display a pop-up menu of all of the available email template tags. Once a tag is selected, it will be inserted into either the subject, or the message body at the position of the cursor.
Insert other Email Template button : Use this button to insert another email template into the one you are editing. When you click this button, the Email Template search screen will appear. You can then search and select an email template that will be inserted into the one you are editing at the cursor position. When the search screen is displayed, you may find it useful to sort the list of email templates via the "Type" column, and select the appropriate email template. See the "Type" description.
Templates can be used when sending email via the regular "Send Email" screen, or they can be used when performing an action on a job. The lower half of the action screen contains 5 drop-down boxes that are populated with the email templates that you have subscribed to. By selecting a recipient type and then selecting the appropriate email template from the drop-down box, HelpMaster is able to send up to 5 different emails to 5 different people in one action.
See also