Communication Templates: Create, Use, and Manage

Add communication templates to your Aptly account through the Templates Library, right in your composer window, or from a board. Instead of writing the same email or text over and over again, use communication templates to reply faster and consistently across your team.

Enjoy this interactive guide. It walks you through all the points in this article along with how to create your own Out of Office Communication Template. You can also read below to learn more about Communication Templates.

A communication template is a pre-defined message sent via email or SMS to a contact (or multiple contacts) from Aptly to be sent manually or through an automation.

You can use communication templates for common responses to your company’s frequently asked questions. You can also use a communication template to move a specific process along by informing a recipient or asking them a question. For example, when an applicant has a question about application requirements, you can insert a communication template.

Benefits:

When you find yourself or your team writing the same emails over and over again, it’s time to create a Communication Template! Follow the steps below to create your own. Similarly, you can access the steps in the guide located at the top of this article.

From the Templates Library, select the communication template that you'd like to edit. The template will populate to the right (pane 4). Once you are finished editing, click Save.

From the Templates Library, select the template you wish to delete. Click the red Delete button. Confirm by clicking Delete in the popup window to permanently delete the template.

From your composer window, click Save Reply to save your message as a communication template.

You can edit the details of the template in the Communication Template Editor. Add a title, choose topics, organize to a specific folder, add merge fields, use the HTML editor, insert a button, or add attachments.

You can also click Insert Reply, then click + New Template in the bottom left corner of your composer to create a new communication template.

From your composer window, click Insert Reply. Select the communication template you'd like to edit. Click the Edit button. Edit and Save your template when done.

Merge fields are a great tool to use in Communication Templates to make your templated emails feel more personalized. The merge fields gather information from the TO field as well as from related contacts, locations, and cards. Any field that is attached to the conversation (Related Card, Location, Contacts, Lease) can be used as a merge field. Using Communication Templates in combination with automations from specific boards provides powerful communication that can happen without you doing anything. But first, you need to set them up.

Check out this video below (no audio) to see how to use merge fields.

Notice how the email was written as though it was going to be sent to a customer. This makes it easier to replace written text with merge fields.

Merge fields will auto-populate when sending messages to a contact. The contact must be in the To field:

If the information for a field is unavailable for the recipient, the merge field will show up highlighted in yellow.

If you are sending a message from a card, add a word or phrase in place of “fallback:” which will include backup text in the event that a merge field cannot be pulled. In the example below, if there is no field available for first name, the word “there” would appear. Ex: Hello there!

When composing or replying to messages, you can do so in the Message Composer Window. The path is the same for both Email and SMS messages.

When replying to a message, Aptly also suggests communication templates based on keywords and topics related to the message. To utilize this tool, there are a few steps that you need to have in place for auto-suggest to work successfully.