How to create a new Email Template?
Table of contents
This article will explain what is necessary to create a new email template in the Billia Management Panel. These steps will only result in the creation of an outline of such an email. Any actual content and information that needs/has to be applied to a copy of it and any automated action that would dispatch that email to the specific party, are not the subject of this article. In order to see and learn the steps of automatically sending topical emails to a specific party, please click here**.
Creating Email templates consists of setting up Appearances and Templates, much like Document Templates. Please see this article for further details.
Step One - Choose/Create an Appearance
The first thing is to have a Document Appearance ready. If such that you need is not yet existing, you can create a new one.
- Navigate to your Billia Management Panel > Management > Email Templates > Appearances.
Click on the bottom right corner on the circle with a plus icon.
The space to create a new Appearance shows up.
Note: If after clicking to create a new Appearance you receive a message "Error parsing MJML", please note this is expected behavior. The system constantly verifies if the MJML syntax is correct. Opening to create a new Appearance shows a blank MJML field which is considered an error, since it is technically incorrect syntax.
Type in a name for the Appearance.
Tip: Include the Appearance's main purpose in the title, in order for it to be differentiated from other Appearances in the general list.
Set the slider button as active if you want that Appearance to be considered the default one for Email templates, unless manually changed on specific templates.
The actual content of the Appearance needs to be set in MJML language. When the correct syntax is used, the message "Error parsing MJML" will not show up. Clicking on the button "Beautify" will rearrange the spaces and new paragraphs of the MJML text to look better.
Example:
The above steps are the essence of the setup of an Appearance. Additional check-up in the process could be done with the preview of a Template. If any Templates already exist, they can be previewed how they look with that Appearance attached to them.
- After everything is done, click on the bottom right corner the circle icon to Save the Appearance.
Step Two - Choose/Create an Template
Next step is to set up a Template which will contain the actual variables and content of the Email.
- Navigate to your Billia Management Panel > Management > Email Templates > Templates.
Click on the bottom right corner on the circle with a plus icon.
The space to create a new Template shows up.
Set the Name of the Template. This will be visible in the list of templates and its purpose is to differentiate it from all the rest.
- Set the Title of the Template. This is a part of the Template that sets its Name in the respectively chosen language. It is visible in the Filter menu on the Templates preview page.
- Choose an Appearance to use with that Template. A drop down list of already existing Appearances is available.
- Please for now disregard Notification type field.
- Set the Status of the Template - active or disabled.
Type in the MJML text that actually sets the main part of the template and the distribution of information. For assistance you can refer to the right column as TWIG syntax is supported.
Example:
Clicking on the button "Beautify" will rearrange the spaces and new paragraphs of the MJML text to look better.
- A Preview will be available at the bottom. Clicking on the bottom right corner on the circle icon will Save all changes to this Template.
Conclusion
These steps will create the base and an outline for an email template - its design, type of information required, the purpose of the email, etc. After this, you can set the system when to send certain email templates and what information to require for them. For this you need to set automatic events with the Eventor.