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Templates

Smart Templates and Legacy Templates for scheduling communications across campaigns in the Communicate App.

#templates #scheduling #time-saving #best-practices

Templates

Streamline Your Communication Scheduling

Templates in the Communicate App let you reuse communication plans across your campaigns. There are two kinds:

  • Smart Templates — Built on a timeline with placement choices tied to the Start or End of a campaign. These are the recommended option for new work and work well with Channel Preferences and Schedules.
  • Legacy Templates — Built on a simple week-and-day grid (the original template experience). Legacy Templates will be deprecated soon. Use the Convert to Smart Template flow when you are ready to move a legacy template forward without losing the original.

You can still create, edit, and apply Legacy Templates until they are fully retired; converting creates a new Smart Template and, in the flows described below, typically keeps the legacy template unchanged.

Short path: Quick Start: Smart Templates

1. Templates list

The Templates section lists what you have created. When both types exist, the page groups them into Smart Templates and Legacy Templates. You can use Search for… to find a template by name.

Each template appears as a card with its name, a Smart or Legacy badge, Duration (for example how many weeks), and Comms (how many communications the template includes). Where column headers are shown, you can sort by name, number of communications, or template length by clicking the headers.

From the row menu (for example Open actions for that template), you can Edit, Duplicate, or Delete when those actions are available. Duplicate creates a copy whose name may end with COPY.

Legacy cards remind you that legacy templates will be deprecated soon and offer Convert to open the Convert to Smart Template wizard.

Deleting: Choosing Delete asks you to confirm (Confirm Delete). Existing campaigns that already used the template are not undone by deleting the template.

2. Smart Templates

Creating a Smart Template

  • Open Templates from the sidebar, then choose New and Smart Template (the + menu may also offer New Template, which starts a Smart template).
  • Enter a Template name and save as prompted.
  • Anchor the template to the Start or End of a campaign. The builder reflects Campaign start or Campaign end style wording so you know how the template will align when applied.
  • Add weeks with Add week as needed. Drag channels from Channels — Drag onto the timeline onto each week’s timeline.
  • Open a placed card to set Placement options (for example Follow Schedule, Choose Day, Auto (Follow Preferences), Unavailable, Pick day, Preferred day with a weekday, Remove, Done) according to what appears for your setup. Channel Preferences and Schedules affect how auto and schedule options behave.
  • Removing a week may ask you to confirm (Remove week? / Delete week).

Save when finished; you should see confirmation such as Template saved successfully!

Applying a Smart Template on a campaign

  • On the Communications Calendar within the Campaign page, click + Apply Template.
  • Under Smart Templates, pick the template you want. Entries that are longer than the current campaign may appear unavailable (grayed).
  • Use Template Preview to review and, where the product allows, drag communications on the calendar to reposition or remove them before you apply. You can Cancel or Apply.
  • If there are conflicts, you may see messages such as X Conflict(s) Found and guidance to resolve them by adjusting items on the calendar. After applying, review any Template applied with conflicts messaging, lists of items that Could not be placed, or success toasts, and use Dismiss when you are done.

3. Legacy Templates

The following describes the original week-and-day grid templates. This workflow is still supported but is considered Legacy and will be deprecated in favor of Smart Templates.

Templates list (Legacy)

The Legacy experience also provides a list view that functions similarly to the Campaigns list, allowing you to manage templates effectively.

  • Sorting:

    • You can sort your templates by name, the number of assigned communications, or the length of the template by clicking on the column headers.

  • Editing and Duplicating Templates:

    • Edit: To edit a template, click on the three-dot icon next to the template’s name. Any changes you make will only affect future uses of the template, not any campaigns that have already used it.
    • Duplicate: Clicking Duplicate will create a copy of the selected template. You can give the duplicate a new name and adjust it as needed.

  • Deleting Templates:

    • To delete a template, click on the three-dot icon and select Delete. Deleting a template is straightforward and does not provide a warning or prompt. Existing campaigns that used the template will remain intact and unaffected by the deletion.

Creating a Legacy Template

Creating a new Legacy template uses the week-and-day grid.

  • Starting a New Legacy Template:

    • Click the “+ New” button at the top of the Templates page, then choose Legacy Template when prompted.
    • Name the Template: Enter a name for your template. There are no restrictions on the name, so you can include any characters you need.
    • Select Template Length: Use the “Weeks” dropdown to select the length of your template. You can choose any length from 1 to 20 weeks.

  • Building the Template:

    • The template layout resembles the communications calendar in the Campaign page. It displays a grid where each column represents a day, and each row represents a week.
    • Above the grid, you’ll see a set of Channel icons. Drag and drop these icons into the cells corresponding to the days you want the communications to be scheduled. You can add multiple communications on the same day or spread them out across the week.
    • There are no visual indicators like color-coding or labels within the cells, so it’s important to plan your schedule carefully as you place each communication.
    • Once you’ve set up your template, click Save to finalize it.

Reducing the number of weeks on a Legacy template may ask you to confirm that communications in removed weeks will be removed.

Applying a Legacy Template on a campaign

  • Navigate to the Communications Calendar within the Campaign page.
  • Click + Apply Template and choose an entry under Legacy Templates (names may show (Legacy)).
  • You may see Legacy Template Notice explaining that Legacy Templates will be deprecated soon. You can Cancel, open Convert in Wizard to run Convert to Smart Template (see below), or Apply Legacy Template to proceed with the legacy apply flow.
  • The dropdown will only offer templates that have the same or fewer weeks as your current campaign. Select the desired template, and the communications from the template will be added to your campaign’s schedule. Keep in mind:
    • The Day 1 of the template corresponds to the start date of your campaign.
    • If the template is shorter than the campaign, the remaining days or weeks will be left blank for you to fill as needed.
  • Existing communications in your campaign will not be overridden by the template. You can apply multiple templates to a single campaign, but if you need to change templates, you’ll need to remove all existing communications before applying a new one.

After you convert from this notice, you might see Smart Template Ready asking whether to Apply Smart Template to the current campaign now.

Adjusting after application

Once a template has been applied, you can adjust, reorder, or remove any communications as needed, just as you would if you had scheduled them manually.

4. Convert to Smart Template

You can start conversion from:

  • Convert on a Legacy template card in the Templates list, or
  • Convert in Wizard from the Legacy Template Notice when applying a Legacy template on a campaign.

The wizard walks you through:

  1. A New Smart template name and Anchor (Start or End), with helper text about how Legacy anchoring relates to campaign start versus Smart End anchoring.
  2. Preview and adjust and Resolve conflicts steps with actions such as Continue, Back, Cancel, or Create / Creating…
  3. A confirmation such as Create Smart template? — for example that the new Smart template will be created and the legacy template will stay unchanged — then Create.

When conversion finishes, you may see Smart template created. If something blocks creation, follow on-screen messages (for example resolve blocking issues before continuing).

5. Best Practices

To get the most out of Templates, consider the following best practices:

  • Tiered Templates:

    • Create templates based on the tiers or levels of your communications. For example, major all-church events might have a Tier 1 template with more weeks and communications, while smaller events might use a shorter, more focused template. This approach allows you to quickly match a template to the scale of the campaign.

  • Consistent Start Days:

    • Consider standardizing the start day for your campaigns. If you always start campaigns on a Monday, you can create Legacy templates with this in mind, ensuring that Day 1 of each template aligns with Monday. For Smart Templates, choose Start or End anchoring to match how you plan series or countdowns.

  • Prefer Smart Templates for new work:

Templates are a powerful tool to enhance your communication planning, ensuring that your campaigns are well-organized and executed efficiently. By taking advantage of templates, you can save time, reduce errors, and maintain a consistent approach across all your communication efforts.

Additional Resources

For more detailed guidance, explore our Documentation. If you have further questions, reach out to us at [email protected].

Start organizing your communications more effectively today.

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