Email templates

Wild Apricot provides a variety of professionally designed templates for your manual emails and automatic emails. You can use these templates as is, duplicate and modify them, or create your own templates from scratch.

Emails created using Wild Apricot's new generation of email templates are responsive – meaning that they will automatically adjust to fit smaller screens – and will appear the same on different email clients, subject to some variations.

After selecting a template for your email, you replace the boilerplate text with your message, and replace or remove graphics. You can also add macros to insert member or event information.

Using an email template

There are a number of ways you can initiate an email using a template.

To start without selecting a template or any recipients, follow these steps:

1. Click Emails under the Email menu.
2. Click the Compose email button.

To start by choosing the template you want to use, follow these steps:

1. Click Templates under the Email menu.
2. Click on the template you want to use. Templates are grouped by type. Custom templates that you have created or copied yourself. The Themed templates are professionally designed templates in a variety of colors and styles, with sample content and graphics. The Basic templates are simple templates in a variety of layouts, with boilerplate text and no graphics.
3. Click the Send email option.

To start by choosing the contacts or members you want to email, follow these steps:

1. Click the List option under the Contacts or Members menu.
2. Search and filter the contact or member list to display only the contacts or members you want to email. For instructions on searching and filtering, see Contact list.
3. Click the Email contacts or Email members button.

You can also choose to email the registrants for a particular event by clicking the Email registrants button, or email contacts on an event waitlist by clicking the Email waitlisted button.

In either case, the email wizard appears to walk you through the steps involved in composing and sending your email. Unless you began by choosing a template, the first step in the email wizard is to select the template you want to use as the basis for the email.

To choose a template, just click on it. You will be automatically taken to the design step, where you can design the content of your email. For more information, see Sending manual emails.

Template types

There are two kinds of email templates in Wild Apricot: system templates and custom templates.

System templates are templates provided by Wild Apricot. You cannot modify or delete a system template, but you can duplicate one to create your own custom template. Custom templates are templates you have created or copied.

System templates are grouped into Themed and Basic templates. The Themed templates are professionally designed templates in a variety of colors and styles, with sample content and graphics.

The Basic templates are simple templates in a variety of layouts, with boilerplate text and no graphics.

Among the basic templates is a Simple template, which consists of a single cell layout with no headers or footers – suitable for clients who want to send a plain message quickly.

Using templates with automatic emails

When you're customizing automatic emails – like event reminders, renewal reminders, and donation confirmations – you can use email templates or previously sent emails as the basis for the automatic email.

After choosing the template or previous email you want to use, you can customize the text, graphics, and layout as you wish. You can also personalize the message by using macros to insert specific information such as the recipient's first name or organization.

To choose a previous email or an email template as the basis for your automatic email, click the Copy from button.

From the screen that appears, choose the template to use as the basis for the automatic email.

After choosing a template, draft, or previously sent email to be used as the basis for the automatic message, click Next.

You can now customize the email.

Creating a new email template

To create a brand new email template, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the Email menu and select the Templates option.
2. Click the Create new template button. A wizard will appear to walk you through the steps of creating a new email template.
3. On the wizard's Details tab, enter a name for the new template and its email subject line.
4. Click the Design tab, then use the email editor to add text, images, macros, and other content. Designing an email with the email editor is like using building blocks: you stack different kinds of layouts on top of each other to form the structure of your message. Then, you can add your content by inserting different gadgets into the various cells within your structure. For more information on using the email editor to design an email template, click here.
5. On the Preview tab, you can preview the appearance of the email on desktop computers and mobile devices.
6. When you are finished modifying the template, click Save.

A thumbnail representing your template will be automatically generated.

Changes to email templates are automatically saved every 5 seconds. If your browser crashes or you accidentally reload the page, you'll be prompted to continue editing the auto-saved version the next time you open the template for editing.

Duplicating an email template

To create a new template by duplicating an existing template, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the Email menu and select the Templates option.
2. Click the template you want to duplicate.
3. Click Duplicate.
4. Use the wizard that appears to specify the template name and its subject line, to add text, images, and other content, and to preview the appearance of the email. 
5. When you are finished modifying the template, click Save.

Creating an email template from a previously sent message

To use a previously sent email message as the basis for a new email template, follow these steps:

1. Open the previously sent email message within your email log.
2. Click the Save as template button at the top.
   
3. Using the wizard that appears to change the name or subject line of the template, or its contents.
4. When you are finished modifying the template, click Save.

Modifying an email template

You can only modify custom templates – templates you have created. To modify a system template – a template supplied by Wild Apricot – duplicate the system template to create a custom template then modify the custom template.

To modify a custom email template, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the Email menu and select the Templates option.
2. Click the template you want to modify.
3. Click Edit template.
4. Use the wizard that appears to specify the template name and its subject line, to add text, images, and other content, and to preview the appearance of the email. For instructions on using the new email editor to modify templates for manual emails, click here. For instructions on using the legacy email editor to modify templates for automatic emails, click here.
5. When you are finished modifying the template, click Save.

The thumbnail representing your template will be automatically updated.

Changes to email templates are automatically saved every 5 seconds. If your browser crashes or you accidentally reload the page, you'll be prompted to continue editing the auto-saved version the next time you open the template for editing.

Deleting an email template

You cannot delete system templates – templates supplied by Wild Apricot. To delete a custom email template you have created or copied, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the Email menu and select the Templates option.
2. Click the template you want to delete.
3. Click Delete.
4. You will be prompted to confirm the deletion. Click OK to proceed with the deletion.