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Custom Templates for email & SMS

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Using Communication templates to save time communicating with employees

If you frequently communicate with your employees on reoccurring topics, you may find it helpful to create custom templates to send emails and SMSs (if enabled) quickly and more consistently.

Some everyday use cases for email/SMS templates may be:

    • Reminding admins to check Approved Shifts
    • EOFY/EOY Updates and information for employees
    • A periodic check-in communication for new staff after commencement
    • Communicating availability of shift offers on short notice
    • Employee Surveys
    • Termination Surveys and Exit interviews

In this article, we will cover:

  1. Creating SMS and email Custom templates.
  2. Editing and deleting Custom templates.
  3. Using a template when communicating with your employees.

  Please note: The ability to create a Custom Template is controlled by the permission 'Access Custom Templates'.


Want to experience a virtual walk-through of our new Custom templates? Check it out below! Or view the walk-through in full screen here!

 

Creating a Custom template for email or SMS

Custom templates will allow you to streamline your communication with your employees, whether by SMS or email, using templates will save you time.

Next time you send an email or SMS to an employee/s, consider building it as a template and storing it to use again in the future!

Everyone has access to email templates, but you will only be able to use SMS templates if you have SMS enabled on your platform.

To check out your Communication Settings:

  1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Communication Settings, or
  2. From Custom templates via the Settings cog (see below).

Start building out your library of templates so that you can use them repeatedly!

Creating SMS and email templates

To create a Custom template:

  1. Navigate to the main menu > Communication > Custom Templates. Here you will see a list of all your existing Custom templates available for use.
  2. Select + New Template, and choose from:
    • Email
    • SMS (Only available for use if SMS is enabled on your platform).
  3. Name your template.
  4. For Email only, Select a 'reply to' address (this could be any admin on your platform) and choose an Email Subject line.
  5. Personalise the email/SMS by selecting from available tokens. These will auto-populate with the correct data from your platform before your communication sends. Token choices include: 
    • + First Name
    • + Last Name
    • + Manager's Name
    • + Employee ID
    • + Employment type
    • + Operation
  6. Fill in your email/ SMS content, while inserting the tokens in the appropriate areas in your content.
  7. Add an attachment (email only) to your template. Select + Add Another to add multiple attachments.
  8. Once you have reviewed the content you can Save template.

You have built your template available for future use! This can be edited or deleted (see below) if your needs change over time. To send an email or SMS using a Custom template Navigate to Approved/Pending People and load your template to your chosen group of employees.

Edit or delete your Custom templates

You may find you have Custom Email/SMS templates that are no longer of use to your business or may need a minor change to continue their active use.

You can edit and delete templates to keep your content in Custom templates current and active.

Delete a Custom template

If you have a template you no longer use, you should delete it.

To delete a template:

  1. Use the filters to locate the content you want to delete, navigate to the 3 dots on the right-hand side, and select Delete.
  2. Confirm you would like to delete the selected content. This action cannot be undone. You will then see this content removed from your list.

    Please follow along to see a demo of an Email template being deleted.

Edit a Template

Editing a template allows you to keep it current for your business! Consider editing to change the subject heading (email), alter the 'reply to email' or change content or attachments.

To edit an existing template:

  1. Use the filters to locate the content you want to edit, navigate to the 3 dots on the right-hand side and select Edit.
  2. Make edits to the selected content. 
  3. Once complete, Save the template.

Please follow along to see a demo of an email template being edited.

  Please note: If you would like to change an email template into an SMS template, you cannot change the template function through the edit function.

Send an email or SMS using a template

Once you have built your templates (email or SMS), you're able to tailor the size of your group if needed and can send the content to:

  • An individual employee
  • A select group of employees by using your filters or tag groups
  • All employees

  Please note: You can only include sending any attachments (e.g. png or pdf) in emails (not SMS).

You'll select your group of employees via any of your People menus. Please consider your group before you begin, for example, you'll want to use Pending People if you are wanting to communicate with candidates.

If you use a previously created email or SMS template you can:

    • Add more tokens to the content before sending.
    • Adjust the content of the template by making edits before sending it.
    • Adjust the 'reply to' email for Emails.

Sending a bulk email using a Template

To send a bulk email to a group of employees, you'll follow the below process:

  1. Select your group of people to send the email to.
  2. Bulk or single send via Bulk Actions.
  3. Apply the Template, edit as needed including adding more tokens, changing the reply to email, and adding more written content, and Send.

Please follow along to see a demo of a bulk email being sent to 2 recently terminated employees. We have also included the Exit Interview attachment.

  For more detailed instructions on Emailing employees in Single and Bulk as well as configuring Email in your platform, please read our Communicating with Email article.

Sending a bulk SMS using a Template

To send a bulk SMS to a group of employees, you'll follow the below process:

  1. Select your group of people to send the SMS to.
  2. Bulk or single send via Bulk Actions.
  3. Apply the Template, edit as needed including adding more tokens, and Send.

Please follow along for a demo of a bulk SMS that is sent to our casual employees.

  For more detailed instructions on sending SMSs to employees in single and bulk as well as configuring SMS in your platform, please read our Communicating with SMS article.

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