Message templates

Message templates are reusable email and SMS messages with version history, used by workflow send steps so every automated message reads exactly the way you approved it.

What templates are

A template is a named, versioned message: a channel (email or SMS), a subject for email, and a body with {{variable}} placeholders that get filled with real data when a workflow runs. For example, a body containing Submission received on {{assignment.name}} sends with the actual assignment name in place of the placeholder.

Templates live at Automation → Templates, described as "Reusable email/SMS message templates with version history and rollback."

Creating a template

1. Click New template.
2. Enter a Name, for example "Submission alert SMS".
3. Pick the Channel: Email or SMS.
4. For email, enter a Subject. Subjects support {{ variable }} interpolation too.
5. Write the Body as plain text, using {{variable}} placeholders for dynamic data.
6. Save.

For email, after creating the plain-text version you can design an HTML version in the visual editor, which shows a live preview as you work. The plain-text body remains the fallback for mail clients that do not render HTML.

Editing and version history

Open a template to edit it in the editor drawer. Every save creates a new version (shown as v1, v2, and so on in the list). The drawer includes the full version history with rollback: pick any earlier version and restore it.

This makes templates safe to experiment with. Try a new wording, watch how it reads in real workflow runs, and roll back instantly if the old version was better.

SMS rules

SMS templates are validated strictly:

• Plain text only. No HTML.
• No emoji or non-Latin characters. SMS messages containing emoji or characters like Chinese or Japanese text are rejected, because carrier handling of those characters is unreliable and can garble the message or inflate segment counts.

Keep SMS bodies short and factual: what happened, on which assignment, and what to do next.

Using templates in workflows

In a workflow's Send email or Send SMS step, pick the template from the template picker instead of writing an inline message. Using a template means:

• The wording is maintained in one place, even if many workflows send it.
• Editing the template updates every workflow that uses it, with no workflow edits needed.
• Version history gives you an audit trail of exactly what message was in force at any time.

See Workflows for the send-step configuration.

Managing the list

The Templates page has three tabs: All, Email, and SMS. The table shows each template's Name, Channel, current Version (v{n}), and when it was last Updated. Deleting a workflow never deletes the templates it used; templates are shared resources that outlive any single workflow.