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Adding Custom Tokens to Email Templates

  • 26 July 2016
  • 4 replies
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miguel_clark
Hi, 

We are trying to set up some Product Notification email templates that we can reuse and send to a list of our users for our monthly releases. 

Is it possible to add custom tokens to a template that I can fill in when I create an Outreach?

This tokens would not always be fields from the Contact or Account record. But they might be things like a Subject, Description, Release Date or other bits of text that would not be know till we create the Outreach.

I am trying to avoid having to copy and paste and create 100s of templates that have only a few minor differences. 

Has anyone else found a good way to handle these types of email notifications?



Thanks

Miguel 🙂
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Best answer by dan_ahrens 27 July 2016, 00:46

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dan_ahrens
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Hi Miguel,



I think one of the challenges here is that the tokens used in the outreach would be pulled from data associated with the contact or company record. 



As a thought, assuming that each monthly outreach would never be repeated - you could use the same powerlist and outreach and just update the template each month. Since you wouldn't ever send an outreach to any customers with previous month's newsletter, it wouldn't matter that you update the template each month.



Would this get you what you needed?



-Dan
VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
elizabeth_adams_c593ee
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Hi Dan - I have a question about your solution. We have similar template build-up in that we have newsletters and other things that need to be revised and sent periodically. One of the reasons we've settled on new templates each time is because there isn't a 'snapshot' captured of the template at the point in time it's sent (to my knowledge). So, if the CSM wants to go back and see the content of an email distributed on X date, they need to look at the template. If the template has been altered, that becomes problematic. Is there a way to keep a history while modifying the template as you suggest?
Elizabeth Panska
dan_ahrens
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Hi Elizabeth, 



A couple options come to mind with the scenario you described. One would be to use the "copy to" function in the outreach to send a copy of that outreach to a mailbox or an individual that would keep a file of each outreach that was sent. 



Another idea would be to similarly create a digital archive by creating a powerlist that only has one or two internal users (or even an email that is not assigned to a person) and run an outreach using the same template against that powerlist each time you send the monthly outreach. 



Essentially, you would keep the "archive" of outgoing messages in an email folder instead of taking up space and cluttering up your Gainsight CoPilot screen.



A final option - in the next month or two we anticipate the addition of folders to CoPilot. In this scenario, you could create unique templates each month and put past months in a folder that you would name "archive" (or similar).
VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
john_cascarano
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Miguel-



This is a stab in the dark, as I'm not sure how segmentation and release frequency occurs at your company, but here's a quick idea:


  • Create a custom Salesforce object (EX: Product Releases)
  • Add fields to that object for Description, Release Date, etc.
  • Add a lookup field to the Account/Contact object for selecting a "Product Release" record (I'd recommend doing this at the Account level)
  • Add formula fields for the associated lookup's Description, Release Date, etc.
This will allow you to create relevant Tokens from the Account/Contact object, and you can even remove these fields from the respective layouts, if you wish.



A single "Product Release" record could perhaps be updated each month, or new ones may be created for keeping historic record, addressing Account segmentation, etc. Just be careful to update accurately!



Best,



John

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