Communication Templates will feed all communication that comes from Service Fusion (with the exception of On The Way notifications). You are always able to freehand any correspondence, however, these templates can provide a valuable shortcut. They are also necessary when it comes to automated correspondence from the system, such as Reminder Presets and some options in Outbound Email Settings. You can find Communication Templates by hovering your mouse over My Office and selecting Communication Templates from the second column.
Click image to enlarge
This page contains a column with a menu to the left. These are the categories that your templates will be stored in. These are important because these determine which template is available in each part of Service Fusion.
When you select a section, it will expand to show you all of the templates that you have stored in each section. If the section is not expandable, there are no templates there yet.
Click image to enlarge
You are able to add new templates by clicking the blue Add New button. When you select to Add New, the system will give you the layout to create a new template.
After entering a template name, select a Recipient. Templates can be internal for technicians or external for customers, and the available tags will vary based on the Recipient selected. There are no tags visible until a Recipient has been chosen.
Click image to enlarge
These tags will serve as useful tools to populate your Communication Templates. Expand each category corresponding with the information you would like to add in to your template, then either drag and drop them into the body or double-click to insert the tag where the cursor was. These tags are designed to automatically pull the corresponding information from the estimates, jobs and invoices that they are sent from to save you time and lots of typing. You can also use the tags to add your company information as well! Trying to find a tag but not succeeding? Try using the search bar at the top of that column to search tags. Some useful keywords might be phone, name, or address.
Click image to enlarge
Some tags have special functionality. You can read more about the Pay Online tag here, and about the Accept Estimate tag here.
You will have three toggle options next. The first is 'Use As Default Template'. When this is set to Yes this will be the template the system will automatically use when it send automatic correspondence. You can have two Defaults set per template section: one for the Field Worker/System user, and one for the Customer. The system will pull the correct Default in accordance to whom your automatic communication is being sent.
Next there is the 'Make Available In Worker App' toggle. This will give your Field Workers the ability to select this template from the Worker App when emailing estimates, jobs, and/or invoices!
A preview from the field worker app:
The last toggle is the 'Status' toggle. This will determine the usability of the template. If a template that you created has become obsolete and you don't wish to sift through your templates in a drop down, you can mark it as inactive and it will not longer show in the lists across Service Fusion! You can always change this toggle to make an inactive template active again if needed. While templates can be deleted, choosing to make a template inactive can be a good option if the template is seasonal.
Below the body of your template there are the options to cancel your current session, save the template, or preview. When you select to preview the template there is a drop down of current items within your system that fit in to the section the template you are wanting to preview. For example, if you are creating a job-related Communication Template, then the preview drop down will give the option to select among some of the current jobs to see how the template will look with real information! You are able to preview your templates before you save them so you can ensure that everything looks just the way you would like, and adjust any tags that might need to be adjusted.
Click image to enlarge
When it comes time to apply your Communication Templates to your outbound emails you can do so from the email dialogue box that is available by clicking the Email button at the top of any View Estimate, Job, or Invoice page. The body of the Communication Template you created will be shown below the Subject line. This will allow you to make any one-time changes you wish. Any changes you make to the template here will not permanently apply to the template itself.
Click image to enlarge