An email template is a pre-formatted email that you can use to create and send emails quickly. Use email templates in Salesforce to increase productivity and ensure consistent messaging. Email templates with merge fields let you quickly send emails that include field data from Salesforce records like Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, or custom objects. You can use email templates when mass emailing people with List Email or just to send to one person. You can create your own template or use templates created by Admin or your manager.
There are two kinds of email templates in Salesforce:
- Classic Email Templates
- Lightning Email Templates
Classic Email Templates
You can create four different types of Classic email templates: Text, HTML with Classic Letterhead, Custom, and Visualforce. You can add text, merge fields, and attach files in all these types of email templates. They use Salesforce Merge Language (SML) to insert merge fields. These templates can be used in Workflow Rule, Process Builder, or Flow to send email alerts.
Lightning Email Templates
These are the newer versions of email templates. You can use Enhanced Letterheads with these templates. They use Handlebars Merge Language (HML) for merge fields, which is more flexible than SML. Enable Enhanced Folders and Sharing to organize Lightning Email Templates in folders and manage user access on a folder by folder basis. However, these cannot be used in Workflow Rule, Process Builder, or Flow to send email alerts. At least not now at the time of writing this blog post.
And here is a quick comparison of the features of both email templates
Email Template Builder
This is a new tool that is introduced with the Winter ’21 release. Use it to Create email templates faster and more easily with visual tools. Users can drag elements such as HTML, Rich Text, Button, Image, or Row to create rich, visually appealing email templates. To allow users to access Email Template Builder, create a permission set with Access Lightning Content Builder system permission enabled and assign it to required users. Note: Email Template Builder isn’t available for previously created Classic and Lightning email templates.
Email Templates in Salesforce is a cool, productivity feature that can save tons of time for your users in sending emails. With the introduction of the Email Template Builder, it has become even more intuitive, hence the step-by-step guide to get you started with it. After going through it, you will learn how to:
- Assign Content Builder Permission to Users
- Enable Email Template Folders & Enhanced Sharing
- Create a Lightning Email Template
- Edit in Lightning Email Template Builder
- Schedule List Email Using New Template
- View Scheduled List Emails
- Create a Classic Email Template
- Create an Email Alert
- Create a Process to Send Email Alert
- Use Classic Email Template
References & Useful URLs:
- Email Templates – Help Article (10 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=email_templates_landing_page.htm&type=5
- Email Templates in Lightning Experience – Help Article (10 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=email_templates_lightning_parent.htm&type=5
- Email Templates in Salesforce Classic – Help Article (10 mins) – https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=admin_emailtemplates.htm&type=5
- Interactively Create Engaging Email Templates – Salesforce Winter ’21 Release Notes (5 mins) – https://releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com/en-us/winter21/release-notes/rn_sales_productivity_email_ETB.htm
- Send List Emails at the Ideal Time – Salesforce Winter ’21 Release Notes (5 mins) – https://releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com/en-us/winter21/release-notes/rn_sales_productivity_email_schedule_list_email.htm
July 7, 2021 @ 4:45 PM
The Welcome Email when a community user is created is toggled to be off/unchecked. and a workflow is created to send welcome emails only to few users after user gets created, will the templates still populate merge fields ??? I don’t think they will, please help if have any insights.!
July 8, 2021 @ 4:17 PM
Hi Rakesh, if the workflow is on User object and is getting triggered after the creation of the record, it should populate the merge fields.
April 7, 2021 @ 12:32 AM
Hi there
Is it possible within classic email templates to pull in a long text field containing the html you want to render the email with? I have tried and can’t get it to work. Be very helpful to know if this is possible. The code i have will render if I paste it all directly into the classic email template builder but if I am trying to call on it as a field it just displays the html code without rendering, anything I can do about this?
March 24, 2021 @ 9:32 AM
I’d like you to add this to your comparison:
Ability to send Community/Digital Experience Merge Fields?
Classic: Yes {!Community_URL}
Lightning: No, the email is never sent and there is no error.
Use case: The Welcome Email when a community user is created should have a very log token/url that allows them to set their password the first time.
March 29, 2021 @ 5:04 AM
Thanks for highlighting this Mike
May 19, 2021 @ 8:38 PM
Does lightning email template support Experience Cloud site merge fields?
June 8, 2021 @ 4:00 PM
Hi Mei, I don’t think you can use experience cloud site merge fields in lightning email template. As of now you can use merge fields from Contact, User, Organization, and the standard/custom object you are sending the email from. The workaround can be to create a custom formula field in any of these objects and populate the value with the value of experience cloud site merge fields. That may work.
February 18, 2021 @ 1:47 PM
For the scheduled list emails, what happens when someone moves out of the list criteria before the schedule time and date?
February 20, 2021 @ 6:19 AM
Hi JC. If someone moves out of the list criteria before the scheduled time & date, the email will not be sent to those individuals. Moreover, if new entries get added to the list, the email will be sent to those as well. If you notice the recipient details in the email composer when drafting the email, you see a specific list view instead of any names. Hence, the recipients will be selected dynamically every time as per the filter in the list view. Once the List Email is completed the actual number is shown in the ‘Recipients’ related list of List Email object record. You can then compare the number between the scheduled and actually sent to find out differences if any. Cheers, Ashish
January 25, 2021 @ 8:35 PM
Thank you Ashish – do you know if Lightning Email Templates are due to have compatibility with PBs, Flows, and Workflows in a future release?
January 28, 2021 @ 4:34 PM
Hi James, from Spring ’21 release, you can use Lightning Email Templates in Salesforce automation. Here’s the link to the respective release notes for your reference. https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=release-notes.rn_forcecom_flow_email_templates_alerts_lightning_templates.htm&type=5&release=230
December 8, 2020 @ 11:40 PM
Super helpful thank you!
December 13, 2020 @ 6:37 AM
My pleasure Jen
September 17, 2020 @ 6:53 AM
that is what i need,thanks for your efforts
September 17, 2020 @ 9:00 PM
You’re welcome Amos 🙂