Templates in your account

Message templates are a great way to create re-usable "layouts" that can then be used as the foundation for messages that are sent from your account.

One of the main benefits of templates is that they can also be easily customized with "one-off" information (e.g., dates and locations) in the messages that are created from them.

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Access your templates

To access your templates:

1. Access the Admin interface.
2. Navigate to Messages > Templates.

The Templates list page opens and displays all of your account's templates. If you have a lot of templates, they might display on additional pages; use the page-navigation and display-count options at the bottom of the page to view and access them.

TIP: On this page:
- Click a column header to sort on that column; click again to reverse the sort order.
- Click-and-drag a column divider in the list header to resize the width of the column; new widths will remain in effect until you change/re-size them.
- Click the columns count below the list to add and remove columns in the current view. Your displayed-column selections will remain in effect until you change them—even if you end the session and log in again.

NOTE: Template Names are hyperlinks. If you click a template Name, you will navigate away from this page, so consider the following options when managing your templates.

- Click a template Name to open the template's associated editor in the current browser window.
- Right-click a template Name and choose the "new tab" option to open the template's associated editor in a new browser tab (keeping the Templates list open in the current window).
- Click anywhere on the row other than the Name to select and manage the template as described in this article.

Template editors

The latest (and the default) Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) template editor/designer is Template Designer (which might also be referred to as TD2).

NOTE: If you have a long-standing Thrive Marketing Professional/Informz account, you might have used any of the "legacy" template types (Standard and/or Advanced), in which case, their editors/designers should still be available in your account.

You can access your preferred message editor when you initiate the template-creation process on the Templates list page.

To create a template:

1. Click the plus sign icon to the right of the page title.

2. Click the Type dropdown and, from the menu, select a template editor.

• Template Designer - This is the latest (and recommended) editor. To use Template Designer to create templates, see Template Designer.
• Standard and Advanced - These two options might be available for long-standing customer accounts that have access to the classic editor, Template Designer 1.

The Preview Panel

Select a template to view and edit its details in the Preview Panel.

• Click the template again to deselect it and close the Preview Panel or click the X in the panel to close it.

In the Preview Panel, you can:

• Click the dashed-underlined values of the template's name, Friendly From, From, and Reply To fields to edit these values right in the panel.
• View the "times used" and "unsubscribes" counts for the template.

NOTE: The Cancel and Save buttons display at the bottom of the panel only if you make changes.

Manage your templates

All of your templates are stored in folders.

• You can manage your template folders as described in Manage Your Folders.
• You can quickly access a list of your template folders and choose a folder to filter the list to display just that folder's templates.

To manage your templates:

• Refer to Multi-select template actions, below, to learn how to manage several templates simultaneously.

• Refer to Copy to Child feature, below, to learn how to copy a template to a child account.

Select a template to activate the management-actions buttons above the list. Now, click:

• Edit to make changes in the template's associated editor.
• Copy to make a copy of a template.
  • The template's name is prepended with "Copy of" but you can specify a different name on the Copy Template dialog and then click Copy.
  • The list page automatically refreshes; verify that the copy is present.
  • The copied template is deactivated by default and must be manually activated by an Admin.
• More > Delete, and then confirm the deletion in the pop-up.
• More > Move, select which folder to move it to, and then click Move at the bottom of the dialog.

NOTE: Long-standing customer accounts might also have access to the classic editor, Template Designer 1. When these template types (Advanced and Standard) are selected, the More dropdown menu has additional options: Properties, Style, Text, and View.

Multi-select template actions

While most of the template management actions can be taken on individual templates only, you can perform some actions in-bulk by selecting multiple templates ("multi-select") as described in this section.

The available multi-select actions are Move and Delete.

Multi-select notes

The multi-select actions display in the flyout panel.

After you've selected at least two messages:

• The Select All/Deselect All checkbox appears next to Name in the header row. Check the box to select and act on all messages in the current list view.
• With messages selected, you can navigate to additional list pages. If you do, note that:

• Messages you've already selected will remain selected.
• Message checkboxes on the subsequent list pages will be unselected but available.

Multi-select actions

When you've selected multiple messages, the following actions are available in the flyout panel.

How to multi-select templates

To select multiple, consecutive templates:

1. Select a template.
2. Press and hold the Shift key (Windows and Mac).
3. Select the last template in the consecutive run that you want to manage.

NOTE: The Templates list page does not support the traditional Ctrl+click (Windows) and command+click (Mac) key combinations with which to select non-consecutive items in a list.

To select multiple, non-consecutive templates:

1. Select a template.
2. Press and hold the Shift key (Windows and Mac).
3. Select another template in the list.
4. Release the Shift key and uncheck the boxes of templates that you do not want to manage.

TIP: You can combine these methods to select/deselect groups of and individual templates.

Copy to Child feature

You can copy a template from a parent account to any of its child accounts. This is a great way to ensure that messages in your child accounts:

• adhere to your organization's branding and
• maintain a consistent "look" with other messages that are sent from your organization.

TIP: This also saves Admins having to re-create templates multiple times in multiple child accounts.

See Child Accounts Overview to learn about Child Accounts.

To copy a template to a child account:

1. On the Messages > Templates page select a Template Designer type template.
2. Click More and select Copy to Child.

In the dialog, Copy of is prepended to the name of the template.

3. Accept this name or specify a different name for the template. (Required)
4. Check one or more boxes to select child accounts. (Required)
5. Click Copy.

A notification confirms whether the copy was successful.

Copy to Child feature notes

The Copy to Child feature is unique to Template Designer templates.

This section details a few things to keep in mind when copying templates to a child account.

You cannot:

• copy a template from a child account to a child account; only from a parent account to a child account.
• copy a template from a child account to its parent account.
• simultaneously copy multiple templates (i.e., no multi-select option).
  • You can, however, copy one template to multiple child accounts simultaneously.

To ensure these limitations, the Copy to Child option:

• will not display for parent accounts that do not have child accounts.
• will not display for child accounts.

The copy will retain all the formatting and configuration selections of the original template.

The copy will not retain:

• personalization values; these have to be manually re-assigned in the copy.
• story-level targeting; these have to be manually re-configured in the copy.
• the following links; these have to be manually re-linked in the copy:
  • Unsubscribe Landing Pages
  • Form Landing Pages
  • Content-Only Landing Pages

Images in the template retain their reference to the images in the parent account's Asset Manager.

Search templates

Click the magnifying glass icon to expand a search field, allowing you to find specific messages. The list will automatically update with each typed character and display all records (visible and hidden) that contain a match against all list fields.

• The search field is not case-sensitive: You can type "news" to find "Newsletter" templates.
• Click the X to clear the field and restore the original list.

Template folders

You can organize your templates by grouping similar or related templates into folders. Because the Templates list displays all of your templates by default, organizing your templates into folders enables you to isolate a group of templates to more easily work with and manage those templates.

TIP: Create folders and organize your templates from the beginning; otherwise, it will be a more time consuming and difficult task doing so after dozens of templates have been created. When creating a template, you'll be able to select which folder to store it in.

NOTE: Learn more about using folders to manage your templates.

Export the list of templates

You can export the list of your organization's templates. The exported file will be in .csv format which you can then customize.

NOTE: The export action is specific to your current folder view. For example, if you're viewing the list of templates in your Newsletter folder, only those newsletter-based templates will be included in the export. To export a full list of all your templates, make sure you're in the All view.

1. Click the export icon.
2. On your operating system's "save" panel, give the file a memorable name, navigate to a save location, and complete the export.

NOTE: The exported file will include all of the columns on the Templates list page, irrespective of which columns are displayed when you generate the export.