Text templates are saved messages your team sends often — a first touch to a seller, a showing reminder for a buyer, a follow-up after a call. Admins keep them at Settings → Text Templates; anyone who can text picks one from the text composer and personalizes it before sending.
Creating a text template
Creating and editing text templates is admin-only. Everyone else can open a template to read it.
Go to Settings → Text Templates (or select Text templates at the top of Settings → Email Templates).
Select New template.
Give it a Name (up to 80 characters, and different from your team's other text templates) and pick a Category: Buyer, Seller, Vendor, Follow-up, or General.
Write the Message. Select Insert merge field to drop in a field that fills in when someone uses the template:
- Recipient — the contact's first name, full name, or email
- Sender — the name or email of the person sending
- Team — your team's name
- Dates — today's date
For example, "Hi {{recipient.first_name}}, this is {{sender.full_name}} with {{team.name}}" sends as "Hi Jane, this is Sam Rep with Acme Homes". The counter under the box shows how close you are to the 1,600-character limit.
Select Create Template.
To change a template, select it in the list, edit it, and select Save Template. To retire one, open it and select Archive — it moves to the Archived tab and stops showing in the composer. Open it there and select Restore to bring it back.
Using a text template
- Open the text composer — Text in a contact's header, or the send box on a deal's Texts & Calls tab.
- Select Template. The team's templates are listed by category; type in the search box to find one by name.
- Pick one. It fills the message box for the person you're texting — their name, your name, the team, and today's date.
- Edit anything you like, then select Send.
Picking a template replaces whatever was already in the box.
Deal fields and empty fields
A template can include deal fields (like the property address) if it's used on a deal's Texts & Calls tab, where those fill in from the deal. Texting from a contact's profile has no deal, so the composer shows "This template uses deal fields (…) — they'll be blank here." and leaves those spots empty — fill them in by hand before sending. If a field is simply empty (say the contact has no first name on file), you'll see which one was left blank.
If a filled-in template runs past 1,600 characters, Send stays off and the composer asks you to shorten it.
Common issues
- The Template list is empty — your team hasn't saved any text templates yet. Admins see a Create one in Settings link; everyone else should ask an admin.
- A template is missing from the list — it was archived. An admin can restore it from the Archived tab.
- Can't create or edit a template — only team admins can.
Email has the same idea: see Emailing from a deal for the Template picker in the email compose window.