Step By Step Guide To Using Email Templates in Salesforce

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:

1. Classic Email Templates
2. 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