Thanks to this time-saving enhancement to Accelo's create email/activity feature, you can get back to doing the work you love. Sometimes referred to as "canned responses", template activities allow you to quickly insert a pre-crafted message, including smart merge fields, when composing an email or note for your clients & colleagues. By leveraging this feature, you now have more time to focus on the creative, analytical, problem-solving, and consultative work that's core to your business.
As your mouse moves over the list of templates, a preview of the subject & body will appear in the activity window!
Not only do templates help train and empower new users with the knowledge they need to handle common sales, service and accounts related inquiries, they also eliminate the need to copy and paste useful answers/replies you might have saved in Gmail, Word documents and elsewhere.
- Please note: This feature is only available in the Premium version of Accelo.
The next time you open the Create Activity modal, you'll find a button on the right of the subject row to toggle open the new activity templates panel.
Note: This panel can't be accessed if you're composing an in-line reply - but you can always "pop-out" the reply to continue in the full create activity window and then access the templates!
You'll also see an Uncategorized folder under My Categories - though if your colleagues have already discovered this feature they might have started making some shared categories & templates.
To create a new template, click the 3 dot menu in the blue Activity Templates header, then "Add New Template". As you can see, there's also an option to Add New Category (categories are essentially folders) to organize your templates. If you'd like to see a list of all the templates available to you (and configure them further), there's an option to Manage Activity Templates.
You can also turn an old activity into a template: View the full activity screen then click the 3 dot menu to find a handy new "Create Activity Template" option.
The templates sidebar has been designed so you can find and add a template with minimal disruption to your workflow. While your categories & templates are kept separate from the shared ones, if you're not sure where to look, just try to search box at the top - this will match across the template title, subject, owner and category.
When it comes to inserting a template, we've added a few smarts to let you know if there are merge fields which couldn't be converted, as well as the option to undo the insert if you change your mind. You can even re-apply the template (to refresh the merge fields) if you change the work that the activity is going against.
While all premium tier users will be able to create and edit their own (personal) categories and templates, we've added specific permissions into the Activities area so you can configure whether someone should be able to add, edit and remove shared categories and shared templates.
_______
We're always looking to improve our product, and already have some additions in mind for these templates - such as tracking template usage and being able to template attachments too. If you have any feedback or questions, you can always reach us via support@accelo.com.