Creating & Customizing Message Templates
About This Course
Transcript
Why message templates matter
Building every guest email by hand, or writing similar messages over and over with no reusable starting point, is slow and inconsistent -- and getting one detail wrong, like a balance-due line showing on an already-paid guest, is embarrassing and avoidable. A message template solves this: build it once with the right variables and conditional logic, and it correctly personalizes itself for every guest it goes to.
What you will learn
- How to create a new template and choose the right category
- How to build a template body with variables and blocks
- How to add conditional blocks that show or hide content per guest
- How to add an SMS version and preview or test-send a template
- How to clone and archive templates over time
Creating a template
Go to Setup Sell online Message Templates and select New Template. Name it -- guests never see this, it is for your team -- and choose a category. The category decides whether and where this template can send itself automatically, like Confirmation or Event Reminder. If you are building something you will only ever send by hand, choose User Defined Message. This choice is fixed once the template is created.
Building the template in the Studio
The Studio is where you build the actual message: the Subject line, the inbox Preheader, and the body, with a toolbar for formatting, links, images, and an HTML view. Select + Variable to insert a guest's real detail -- first name, confirmation number, pickup time, even a custom field answer -- grouped by Customer, Experience, Pickup, Payment & Refund, Company, and Custom Fields. Pick one and it drops in as a chip; TripWorks fills in that guest's actual value when the message sends.
Conditional blocks
Conditional blocks are where this gets genuinely useful: wrap any section in a Condition so it only shows for guests it applies to. Show a balance-due reminder only when BALANCE_DUE is actually true for that guest, or a waiver notice only when WAIVERS_UNSIGNED is true -- so a guest who has already paid or already signed never sees a nudge that does not apply to them.
Adding an SMS version
Every template can carry a separate SMS version alongside the email. Email is always on; turn on SMS in the Settings drawer and write its own content -- SMS has a real length constraint, so keep it short and direct rather than trying to compress the whole email into a text.
Preview, test, and manage
Use Preview as to render the template against a real booking, so you see exactly what a guest would get, then Send test email to receive a copy in your own inbox before it goes live anywhere. Clone copies a working template as a starting point for a new one -- useful since you cannot change a template's category later. Archive retires a template from use while keeping its send history intact; TripWorks blocks deleting a template that has already sent a message.
FAQ
Can I change a template's category after I create it?
No -- the category is fixed at creation because it controls what the template is allowed to do. To switch, create a new template with the right category and clone your content into it.
What is a conditional block?
A section of the template that only shows for guests it applies to -- for example, a balance-due reminder that only appears if the guest still owes money, or a waiver notice that only shows if their waiver is not signed yet.
How short does an SMS message need to be?
SMS templates have a real length constraint, since a text is a much smaller format than an email -- write the SMS version as a short, direct message rather than a condensed copy of the full email.
Why can I not delete this template?
Because it has already sent at least one message, and deleting it would erase that message from your history. Archive it instead under Settings, Status, Archived.