Templates provide the email or print content that you want to communicate with others. Written in HTML, they can be static, have simple variable replacements, or complex logic.

Adding/Editing Templates

Name

A name for the template is required. It should be unique and descriptive.

Tags

One or more tags can be associated with a templates. Tags are useful for groups like items together. For instance, you may want all your templates used for in your current year communications to have the tag "currentyear". All tags are automatically converted to lowercase when saved. Tags can contain spaces but may not contain commas. If you enter multiple words separated by commans, each word will become a separate tag. You can remove tags by clicking the "x" on each tag.

Description

A short description of the template. It can contain up to 4000 characters.

Template Type and Dynamic Template

Template Type: A template can be one of three types: EMAIL, LETTER or TWIML. Templates for Email and Letter communications are formatted in HTML. Templates for Twilio-Voice and Twilio-SMS should use the TWIML template type. However, you only need to use the actual TwiML if you are targeting a Twilio-Voice destination. For Twilio-SMS, just provide plain text with no markup (HTML or TWIML).

The Letter type is only different in that it will be converted to PDF and selecting Letter as the template type gives you the option to preview the template as a PDF.

For more information on creating TWIML templates, see additional TwiML documentation.

Dynamic Template: Dynamic templates allow fields from the template to be added to the communication. Placeholders are added to the templates using a custom tag. See Placeholders for how to the placeholder custom tag.

Note about dynamic templates: Having a dynamic template among your templates changes how new communications are created. When creating new communications, the user will be asked to select from among the dynamic templates and provide the content that will be inserted into the <@placeholder> tag. You can still get to the regular communication edit panel by clicking the "Advanced Communication" button.

Content

The content of the template is expressed using a combination of HTML, plain-text, TwiML and Template Syntax syntax. You can compose your content directly in the editor, paste it in from another source, or upload it using the "Upload Content" link (limited to HTML and TXT files).

Please note, for Twilio-SMS messages your content should be less than 160 characters for maximum compatibility across mobile providers. Twilio supports SMS messages up to 1,600 characters but there are compatibility issues. See this Twilio FAQ for more information.

Manage Assets See Assets.

Archive/Delete Template

If a template is not used in a communication, you have the option to delete the template in the top-right corner of the Edit screen. If the template is associated with a communication, it can only be archived. Archived templates can continue to be used in communications, they will just not be visible when selecting a template on a communication. You can see archived templates using the filter on the template list screen.

Searching Templates

After you've Dispatch a while and you have several templates, you might have the need to search for a particular term or phrase you've used in your communications. From the Template list page you can search through your content. This search function searches the following locations for your search term:

• Template content
• Placeholders content gathered on Communications
• Template name
• Communication name
• Communication destination details
• Communication from address and from name (if type is EMAIL)
• Communication subject (if type is EMAIL)

Your search term will look for your search term in the templates that are not archived as well as the Communications that have not been archived. The search is case insensitive and restricted to templates and communications owned by your client.

The search results include the name of the Template or Communication, which type of object holds the search term (Template or Communication), the type of Template (EMAIL, LETTER, or TWIML), email details (from address, name, and subject), and finally the content itself. Content is hidden by default but you can toggle the visibility of the content individually or en masse.