Text Message Editor
How to write a text message template: adding details such as the customer’s name, how long the message is, the phone preview, drafts and saving.
Text message templates hold the wording Work Planner texts to customers, such as a reminder the day before a visit. Open one from Settings > Document Templates with the pencil on its row, or with Edit message on its details page. A new one starts here too: Create Template, then Create from scratch and Text message.
The editor fills the screen. The message is on the left and, beside it, how it reads on a phone. On a phone the preview sits under the message.
Writing the Message
- Message: Type the wording as you want customers to read it. Line breaks are kept.
- Insert variable: Adds a detail where your cursor is, such as First name or Business name. It goes in as {{first_name}}, and Work Planner fills in each customer’s own details when the message is sent. Messages about jobs also offer the job’s details, such as Service, Due date, Next due and the price rise details.
- Typing a variable yourself: You can type one in the same form, with two curly brackets either side. If a name isn’t one Work Planner knows, it stays as typed in the preview so you can spot it.
How Long It Is
- Characters and texts: Under the message you’ll see how many characters it has and how many texts it takes to send. It’s counted with the example details in place of the variables, so a real message can be a little longer or shorter.
- One text or several: One text holds 160 characters. A longer message goes as several texts joined together, each holding 153.
- Emoji and curly quotes: One emoji, or a symbol such as a curly apostrophe, makes every text hold 70 characters instead. The editor says so when your message has one. Straight apostrophes and quotes keep the full length.
- Longest message: A message can be up to 1,600 characters, about ten texts. Anything longer is marked in red and won’t save.
The Phone Preview
The phone shows the message as a customer would read it, with your business name at the top and example details, such as Jane and a due date, in place of the variables. It changes as you type.
Saving
- Drafts: Your changes save as a draft a couple of seconds after you stop typing, and the top bar says Draft saved. A draft isn’t sent to anyone. Ctrl+S, or Cmd+S on a Mac, saves the draft straight away.
- Save & quit: Makes your message the one that’s sent, then takes you to the template’s details page.
- Coming back to a draft: If you leave without saving, the editor opens with your draft next time and a note saying when it was saved. Discard changes puts the message back to how it was last saved.
- Undo and Redo: The arrows in the top bar step back and forward through your changes, including inserted variables.
- Renaming: Click the template’s name in the top bar to change it. The name saves straight away.
The Menu
- Template details: Goes to the template’s details page, where you choose how it’s sent and whether it’s the default.
- Save as template: Saves the message as it is now as a new template with its own name, in Your templates. This template stays as it was.
- Discard unsaved changes: Shown while there’s a draft. Puts the message back to how it was last saved.
Where Text Messages Are Used
Choose a text message under Text in the Message Customers Popup, and it’s filled in with each customer’s details, ready to check or change for that send before it goes. Automations can send your text messages too, instead of wording of their own.
Related articles
- Document Templates List: Finding a template and opening it.
- Template Use, Page Size and Layout: How a template is used, and why text messages have no page settings.
- Message Customers Popup: Where a text message template is used.
- Email Message Editor: Writing the emails that go with your texts.
- SMS Settings: How texts are sent from your account.