Email templates can be used within a flow to determine the contents of an outbound email sent from Pendula.

While optional, creating an email template allows you to easily reuse the same contents in multiple flows and avoid having to re-create common elements shared across your email communications such as logos or headers/footers.

Quick links

Before you start

Email best practice

How to create an email template

Email template builder overview

Before you start

Before you can create an email template, you'll firstly need to connect Pendula to your data source, and have created the related object your new template is regarding.

The related object of a template will determine what information you can provide within your messaging as merge fields, so you'll want to set this up first!

See Related objects for more information

Email best practice

Whether you are new to creating emails or are already familiar with other email template builders, we'd recommend reading over the Email best practice article first before creating an email template in Pendula.

How to create an email template

1. Click on the Templates tab in the top navigation bar

2. Click on the button to navigate to the new template screen

3. Enter your template details and content (see table below)

   
   

   Template details

   Field	Purpose
   Template name	Name of the template which will be used as the reference from within the flow builder and the templates list view. It's always best practice to ensure template names are unique
   Description	Provides you with the ability to specify further detail, if necessary
   Type	Defines whether the contents of the email are: Transactional: Messages that provide the recipient with information related to a recent transaction or event within your business Marketing: Messages that advertise or promote a commercial product or service Other : Messages with content that is neither commercial or informational in nature
   Data source	Defines the data source a template relates to. The selected data source controls which related objects are available for use.
   Related object	Defines the object (or table) in which a template relates to. The selected related object controls which merge fields are available for use. See Related objects for more information.
   Status	The status field determines how templates are used and whether they can be applied to a flow from within the flow builder. Active: ready to be used and active (available within flow builder) Inactive: ready to be used, but not active (not available within flow builder) Draft: editing in progress and not active (not available within flow builder)

4. Under Select a starting point for your template you can select from one of three options:

   Select a layout
   
   

   Provides you with 4 pre-built emails with editable placeholder blocks (paragraph, title, image).

   This is the recommended option for creating email templates within Pendula.

   See Selecting a pre-built email template for more information.
   
   

   Code your own
   
   

   Upload or paste external template html code into the email builder.
   
   Please note: using HTML from other email platforms may cause unexpected results, especially if you continue to edit it within Pendula. We'd recommend only making minor changes to imported templates using the drag and drop builder such as adding merge fields for best results.

   To ensure maximum rendering capability across different email clients, the Pendula email builder does not support <style> for specifying CSS. To retain the CSS styling, you can use inline styles. To easily compile HTML with inline styling, you can use third party applications such as Litmus.

   See How to import HTML into Pendula for more information.
   

   
   Build from scratch
   
   

   Build your own email template from scratch using drag-and-drop blocks.
   
   See Building and editing a template for more information.
   
   

5. Once you have selected one of the above options, follow any required steps (such as choosing a pre-built template or pasting html code) then click on Save & next to progress to the email template builder.

Email template builder overview

Responsive view

Allows you to preview the email based on the device displaying it.

This is a guide only, and will differ depending on the email client and device used. For example, Microsoft Outlook has known rendering issues.

Left to right: desktop, tablet, mobile landscape, mobile portrait

Add merge field

Allows you to add a merge field using the merge field modal. You can read more about this in the Adding merge fields article.

Preview

See template without the underlying block structures

Undo

Reverse most recent action

Redo

Repeat most recent action

Delete

Remove selected element

Left to right: preview, undo, redo, delete

Styles

Access the Styles panel to customise a block or HTML element

Add blocks

Access the add blocks panel, in order to click and drag new blocks onto your template

View layers and groups

Clicking on the hamburger icon allows you to view the different HTML layers which exist within the template