Template Designer is the tool you'll use to customize the default templates that come with Higher Logic Thrive Communications. This designer gives you full control over each template's structure, theming, branding, and more to ensure their associated messages meet your organization's needs.

While you cannot create your own custom templates, you're free to update all aspects of these defaults to meet your needs. 

NOTE: Updating these templates affects their use across your account, meaning these changes are reflected for ALL users; make sure to communicate any template changes to others in your organization so everyone is aware.

Access your templates

There is no dedicated page to directly access your templates; instead, you'll select them and have the opportunity to update them when creating or editing a message. Let's walk through this process now.

1. Access the Admin interface and click the Communications tab above the search field.
2. Navigate to Messages > List.
3. Create a message or edit an existing one to access Message Designer. 

NOTE: When creating a message, you'll land on the Select Template tab; when editing an existing message, you'll need to click the Select Template tab.

4. On the Select Template tab, you can:
   
   (a) click a template to apply it to your message or 
   (b) click the Edit link below a template. You are now able to customize this template using Template Designer.

NOTE: A message's currently applied template is displayed on the left side of the page.

The remainder of this article provides an overview of Template Designer's tabs and features.

Design tab

The Design tab is where you'll likely spend the most time, as this is where you'll be designing the template's structure, allowed content, and theme properties, all of which are applied to messages leveraging the template.

This tab includes two sub-tabs, Build and Theme.

Build sub-tab

The Build sub-tab is where you build out a template's structure and content, as well as configuring the properties of the content itself. You can perform actions such as:

• Dragging-and-dropping purpose-built layouts and elements onto the canvas; these “building blocks” simplify design and include groupings such as Structure and Static Elements.
• Adding Static Elements (e.g., image-based blocks, dividers, video, dynamic RSS) directly to the template; these become part of every message that uses the template.
• Enabling a Preheader by clicking the “Click here to add a Preheader” prompt on the canvas; its position is fixed and cannot be moved.

Our knowledge base provides several articles discussing every aspect of the Build sub-tab. Refer to the articles in the Template Designer Layouts section to learn more.

Theme sub-tab

Click the Theme sub-tab to set the properties (e.g., spacing, background colors, fonts) for the template's elements (e.g., text, hyperlinks, lists). These become the default styles for each element. Now, when you add elements to the template, they "inherit" those properties.

NOTE: The text element (shown below) is where you configure the properties (e.g., font, size, color) for the template's styles (headings, sub-headings, and text).

The elements and settings that are available on the Theme tab are detailed in Manage a Template Theme.

Properties tab

The Properties tab is where you'll set high-level properties for your template.

While not explicitly displayed on the page, this tab has two "sections":

Template properties

This section includes high-level properties used to locate and identify your template:

• "Status" - The "status" of your template is indicated above the options: In Progress or Active. Note that only Active templates can be used in messages.
• Template Name - Enter a name for your template. Changing this name automatically updates the name located in the top right of the designer.
• Folder - Click the dropdown to select a folder where the template can reside.

Envelope

These are the default envelope properties associated with messages:

• From - Enter a from address that subscribers see in their inboxes.
• Friendly From - Enter a name that subscribers see in their inboxes. This name is associated with the from address.
• Reply To - Enter an address that subscribers can reply to.

Review & Activate tab

After you've finalized your template design, you're just a couple steps away from seeing it in your organization's messages. Let's look at the Review & Activate tab, where you'll be able to take a final look at your template before it's ready to go.

The Review & Activate tab is divided into three sections:

• At the top, checking your template content;
• next, activating (and deactivating) the template;
• lastly, performing a virtual inbox test.

Let's look at each of these sections in a little more detail.

Check content

As mentioned above, you’ll want to review the look and feel of your template before you activate it. You can review three main versions of your template:

• Desktop Version
• Mobile Version
• Online Version

To see how each version of your template looks, click the corresponding button. Pay special attention to the Mobile version to see if adjustments need to be made to ensure a good mobile experience for those opening your messages on a mobile device.

Activate

The Activate your template section shows the status of your template. There are a number of tasks you must complete before activating a template; these are listed in this section. After completing these steps, you will be able to activate your template and use it in a message.

NOTE: For active templates, this button updates to Deactivate; click it to deactivate a template.

This message displays: "Deactivating this template will not affect any in-progress, published, or scheduled messages that are using it. Any current or future versions of messages using this template are preserved."

Notes

• Any template that has been used in a message (In Progress, Scheduled, and/or Sent) is considered in-use.
• If an in-use template is deleted, any messages that are currently using it are not affected; the messages maintain the template's details. Deleted templates are no longer available for new messages, though.

Virtual Inbox Test

The Virtual Inbox Test provides two services:

• It allows you to see how your message will look in various email environments (desktop, web, and mobile) and email clients.
• It checks whether your message passes the spam filter test, which scans your message for common spam triggers.

To learn where Virtual Inbox Test is available, how to run the test, and what to do with the results, see Virtual Inbox Test.

Edit an activated template

To edit an activated template, simply deactivate it and edit it like you would any other template.

NOTE: Updating a template automatically prompts the people creating messages to let them know that there was a template change. They'll have the option to update their messages accordingly.

Best practices: Deliverability

The ultimate goal when sending a message is to, of course, have it delivered. Prior to any message landing in someone's inbox, email clients employ a spam filter to evaluate whether that message meets a set of standards.

Because much of a message's content is often dictated by its template, let's look at some of the best practices you can employ to give your messages the best chance of delivery.

• Avoid excessive punctuation, caps, hyphens, etc. in the body and subject of your message.
• Avoid using third-party link-shortening tools such as bit.ly or tinyurl. Because a lot of spammers use these free tools in an attempt to hide their spam links, many email clients now flag these types of links.
• Avoid "exposed" URLs (i.e., simply pasting a full link in the message); instead, "embed" your URLs in text and images.
• Avoid common spam trigger words/phrases in the body and subject line. While this is fairly nuanced in practice, you should avoid words like "free!" and phrases like "work from home"; ultimately, if it sounds like something a spammer or scammer would say, try to keep it out of your messages. With that said, there is some flexibility here, and simply including the word "free" doesn't automatically mean your message won't be delivered.
• Avoid too little text in the body of your message. A common reason this occurs is the use of excessive images. Spam filters flag emails with too little text, so messages that comprise mostly images tend to be flagged. This can be tricky, as many organization employ graphic designers who produce wonderful images for use in their email campaigns, and while we support (and encourage) the use of high-quality imagery to bolster your messages, it's important to have a balance of images and text.
• Include alt-text for all of your images. This is especially important if you plan to include a lot of images. This not only helps you comply with accessibility standards but also gives spam filters additional text to evaluate.
• Avoid dangerous HTML elements like JavaScript, iFrames, and embedded content. If you want to share this type of content, provide a link to it instead. For example, a lot of marketers want to embed a video directly in their message, which is a huge red flag for spam filters. Instead, we recommend taking a screenshot of the video and link that image to the video.