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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Email Templates
Email Templates
Templates are a great resource to use while conducting email outreach. View the School Templates your staff liaison provided for you or create your own. You can even customize your email signature. Templates can be edited in the Email section as needed Edits made on that page will not impact the original template.
Understanding Email Templates
Understanding Email Templates
Learn how email templates work inside the Portal to help you make templates efficiently.
Name
Name
This is the title of the email template. This is also the only outfacing information you see about School Templates from your Email page.
TIP: This still applies when creating your own templates, enter the title of the template. This is not asking you to input your name.
Template Format
Template Format
The two types of email template formats are Formal or Plain Text. We recommend using plain text in order for your outreach to appear more personal. The formal template has a thick grey border around the text and the font is slightly larger. The plain text email appears like a traditional email.
Subject
Subject
Be creative with subject lines. You can even insert Email Tokens here!
Email Tokens
Email Tokens
Email tokens enable you to send the same email to multiple constituents while still appearing personal. By using any of the following tokens, it inserts a variable that pre populates different information for each recipient. Email tokens are essentially merge fields.
Add Full Name will insert the recipient's first and last name using the $FULL_NAME$ token. On your email preview, the sample text will read Bruno Bear.
Add Preferred First Name will insert the recipient's preferred first name using the $PREFERRED_FIRST_NAME$ token. On your email preview, the sample text will read Bruno.
Add Nickname will insert the recipient's nickname. If no nickname is available it will default to their preferred first name. On your email preview, the sample text will read Bru.
Add Ask Amount will insert the recipient's Brown Annual Fund ask amount. On your email preview, the sample text will read $100.00
Add Email Signature will will insert your first name or your customized email signature if you have created one. This should appear as you expect on the email preview.
Add Last Gift Designation will insert the designation of the recipient's last gift. If this constituent has not made a gift in over 5 years, this will be populate blank when the email is sent. On your email preview, the sample text will read Soccer.
Add Last Gift Amount will insert the amount of the recipient's last gift. If this constituent has not made a gift in over 5 years, this will populate $0.00 when the email is sent. On your email preview, the sample text will read $50.00.
Add Last Gift Date will insert the date of the recipient's last gift. If this constituent has not made a gift in over 5 years, this will be populate blank when the email is sent. On your email preview, the sample text will read 01/01/2018.
Add First Name and Spouse Name will insert the recipient's first name and their spouse's first name (if applicable). On your email preview, the sample text will read Bruno and Carrie.
Add Class Year will insert your class year. On your email preview, the sample text will read 2012.
Checkboxes
Checkboxes
There are two defaults used to track email your outreach located underneath the email composition box and above the Create Email Template button. If you send an email solicitation or a thank you email template that does not use these checkboxes, the Portal will not acknowledge the email as a solicitation or as stewardship.
↳ Default as Gift Conversation – Any solicitation template uploaded by staff will have this checked. Use this when creating your own templates.
↳ Default as a Thank You Note – Any stewardship template uploaded by admins will have this checked. Use this when creating your own thank you templates.
Create Your Own Templates
Create Your Own Templates
Any email templates you create appear anywhere you can send an Email. After creation, make any permanent changes to the templates through the My Template page, and any temporary one-off changes to your templates in the Email section.
TIP: Make sure you look at any School Email Templates your staff liaison provided for you! Those templates have helpful language and include giving links that you can use while making your own templates. Just copy a school template, head to create a new template and paste it to get started!
How to create your email signature
How to create your email signature
An email signature appears when you use the email token labeled Email Signature ($EMAIL_SIGNATURE$). Place the token at the end of your email for a professional signature at the end of each email.
Click My Templates in the left hand navigation menu.
Click Email Signature in the upper right corner of the screen.
Customize your email signature in the text box.
To save, click Update Email Signature
TIP: Think about including your suffix inside your email signature such as Josiah Carberry ‘29 or if there are two of you using one account, include both your names John Doe ‘89 and Jane Doe ‘90.
Create Your Own Templates
Create Your Own Templates
Click My Templates from the navigation bar
Click Create New Template located at the top of the page. Two new dialog boxes will appear at the bottom of the page.
Give the template a Name.
↳ Note: The Portal is requesting a title for the template, not your name.
Give the template a Description.
↳ This is a required field, we recommend making note of any specifics for the template - such as, if this is for a specific assignment, if this includes an ask amount, etc.
Enter the Subject of the email. Be creative as possible, you can even include Email Tokens (merge fields) by using the red buttons above the body content.
Choose the desired Template Format from the dropdown.
↳ We recommend plain text
Enter the Body content of the email, including any Email Tokens (merge fields) you wish to use. See above section for description on email tokens.
If the template includes a solicitation, make sure the box Default as Gift Conversation is checked underneath where you drafted the body content - this marks all emails sent using this template as a Gift Conversation and tracks your outreach appropriately.
↳ If this is a thank you template, ensure the Default as Thank You Note is checked.
Before saving, review the Email Preview on the right hand side for any grammatical errors or broken tokens. Remember, the email preview uses test data— see the Conducting Outreach section for an example of a good email preview.
Click Create Email Template located BELOW the email composition box to save.
To use your template, navigate to the Email section or to your assignments full record or snapshot. See the Conducting Outreach section for more detail on sending an email.
IMPORTANT:
Use the following giving link in your templates: https://brown.edu/go/FVP23
Do not copy email tokens from other templates or attempt to manually enter them. Each time you add an email token use the buttons provided otherwise the tokens may break.
By not using these checkboxes, the Portal will not be able to recognize you sent your assignment’s solicitations or thank you notes. You can risk accidentally soliciting them twice.
Do not click the Create Email Template button in the top right corner above Email Preview. This will close the composition window and may delete your template. Use the button below where you drafted the email content to save.
How to Organize My Templates?
How to Organize My Templates?
The templates listed on your My Templates page only include the templates you create. Templates created by your staff liaison are only accessible on the Email page. Templates are listed from most recent to most out to date.
On the My Templates page, your templates display the following information:
Name – This is the title of the template. This does not need to be your name, you are the only one who sees these templates.
Subject – This is the email’s subject line - remember to be short and creative!
Description – Use this feature to make note of any specifics for the template - such as, if this is for a specific assignment, if this includes an ask amount, etc.
Status – This will read Active if it is visible on your Email page or the assignment email windows, Draft or Archived if it is not visible.
Editing Your Templates
Editing Your Templates
The only way to permanently edit a template is through the My Templates page. If you only wish to one-off edit the template when sending to a particular assignment, use the Email options. See more information on Email on the Conducting Outreach page.
Navigate to the My Templates Page
Click on the Name of the template you want to edit
Make any changes to the template. Remember to review the Email Preview.
↳ If you are making changes to the visibility of the template, use the checkbox highlighted in yellow.
Click Save Template located underneath the email body content to save.
Resources
Resources
Resources enable us to better aid your outreach efforts. Resources are grouped by category and can have a large array of topics such as scholarship information, giving day toolkits, or a volunteer welcome packet.
If you're unable to find the resource you are looking for within this Google site, visit the Portal Resources section. Any resources that contain sensitive information will only be available in the Volunteer Portal.
How to View Resources
How to View Resources
Resources are organized by category, and be listed in order of oldest to newest. Staff Liaisons provide job descriptions, manuals, toolkits, templates and more for you to use. Resources are added throughout the year, so check back periodically for new resources.
Click Resources in the left-hand navigation menu
Each category has a title & description and all resources assigned that category are listed below. On this page, you can see the following for each resource:
Name: Title of resource
Description: Description of resource
Category: This will reiterate the category of the resource
Created: This is the date your staff liaison had created the resource
Updated: This is the date the resource was last updated
Click on the Name of the resource you would like to view.
The Resource Name is centered at the top of the screen. The resource content could be text or provide a link to a PDF. You may also see a preview image of the resource - clicking the image opens the PDF.
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