Create and Edit Legacy Transactional Templates
Legacy transactional templates are pre-coded email layouts you can reuse to create and send transactional emails. Creating email templates involves a mix of content writing, HTML, and CSS expertise. Email templates should look good on different email clients and be responsive for mobile devices. Many non-technical customers will hire a front-end or email template developer to build their templates. We also suggest testing your templates with rendering applications like Litmus before sending them to your customers.
Twilio SendGrid limits the combination of transactional templates and versions to 300 per user ID. This means you can have 300 templates with one version each, or fewer templates with more versions of each template.
Transactional templates are account and Subuser specific. Templates created on a parent account aren't accessible from Subuser accounts.
- Open the Legacy Templates page and then click Create Template.
- Add a unique template name in the dialogue box and then click Save.
- Open the Actions drop-down menu to create a new version.
- Click Add Version. The editor opens. From here, you can change the subject and the body of your email template.
The easiest way to get started with a new template is to use one of your previous email templates or a free template from the internet, and then modify it to fit your needs.
Email templates are table-based HTML with inline or header styles, because some well-known email applications will only read table-based HTML.
To add a template:
- To open a new template in the Code Editor or Design Editor, click Actions, then New Version.
- If you selected the Code Editor, copy and paste your HTML code into the code editor. If you paste in an email template, it is likely that you will overwrite the default basic HTML provided in the code editor. If you selected the Design Editor, use the WYSIWYG editor with drag & drop modules to create your email template.
- Click Save.
Before you send an email using this template, preview it.
After you create your template, preview and test it so you can verify the format and layout of email messages based on this template.
To preview your template:
- Select Preview. A window pops out with a preview of the email that you're going to test, with the option to view the template formatted for both mobile and desktop platforms.
- Click Send Test to send a test email using your new template.
- Fill in the recipient and subject line fields and then click Send.
With this test, Twilio SendGrid doesn't replace any substitution tags with text. The test presents the layout and format of your template.
The main template view on each template group displays an actions menu.
From this menu, you can edit the name of your template, add a version, preview, test, or delete the template. Each template version also has an action menu. Clicking this presents a menu that allows you to preview and test, edit, duplicate, and delete the template version. You can also use the preview function to send a test.
When you delete a template, Twilio SendGrid removes all the versions of that template.
To activate your template:
- Navigate to the template you wish to use and select the action menu.
- Select Make Active.
Info
A template can only have one active version at a time. If you've created a new version with different HTML that you want your customers to start receiving, you'll need to make that version "Active."
To duplicate a template:
- Navigate to the template you wish to use and select the action menu.
- Select Add Version.
The app creates a clone, giving it a name that starts with untitled. You can give the template a unique name by selecting the action menu next to that version and clicking Edit. Once the editor has opened, enter a unique name in the Template Name field. This duplicate version will not be active until you activate it.
Add an unsubscribe link to your template to help recipients opt out and to comply with anti-spam regulations. For more information, see the Suppressions overview.