If you spent time coding your email templates in the past, get ready to take a big sigh of relief. The Email Builder gives you complete creative freedom, with no coding involved (unless you want to) and you can save your build as a template! There are three unique screens (Blocks, Sections and Styles) used to configure your email with simple drag-and-drops. Blocks - Drag-and-drop email content directly to quickly structure your email. Sections - Create or re-use groups of content, streamlining email building. Styles - Customize the style of your email from the text to the buttons. Blocks Blocks are the content components themselves. To add an element, simply drag it from the Blocks bar to its resting place in your message. Content Components Once you place a component, you can click on it for editing. Try implementing Lava to add a personal touch, change how round your button corners are or insert image and video with ease. After placing a component, you can edit it by clicking on the section it's in. The options associated with that component are displayed on the right side of the screen. Notice that the section you’re editing is highlighted with a blue border, and you can view your changes in real time. If you want more of a component or layout, once you have selected one, click ti ti-copy. If you decide you don’t want that element after all, click ti ti-trash. Column Layouts Column Layouts group content in an elegant format. They can be edited to display unique column spacing and alignment. Each layout can be saved as a Section for re-use. That means not only is the format saved, the content is saved as well. More on that below. At any point while working in the Email Builder, you can send a test email to yourself by clicking the Send Test button. Click ti ti-eye to see both desktop and mobile previews of your design. Click to save a draft of your email. Select the ellipsis (ti ti-dots-vertical) in the top right to save your built email as a template. NoteRSVP Button SetupWe should pause a moment here to note the RSVP button, indicated by the ti ti-check icon. This element is used to send RSVP requests to groups, and it requires some setup in advance. For full details check out the Group RSVP section of the Rock Your Groups guide. NoteAdding Videos to EmailBecause of how different email clients work, we can't reliably embed a video within an email. Using the Video component will let you provide a link to a video, with an associated image, but the video can't play from inside the email itself. Instead, viewers are redirected to your video hosting provider (e.g.: YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia). Sections Sections house groups of content that speed up and structure your email building. Drag one in, and you've saved yourself from some serious work. When to use a section: If you have a unique paragraph with lots of LavaWhen using a common "Hero" sectionFor an often-used header or footer This can be done quickly by selecting a column and clicking Save, the following screen will pop up. Save yourself some trouble by adding a Name and a Usage Summary, which describes the intended use of your section. Styles Styling is where you, well... style your email. Each change you make here will affect the entire email, giving you consistent style from top to bottom. This allows you to select the overall design of your email and provide default values for things like heading, text and buttons. Body Settings - Configure the color, alignment and spacing of the body.Background Settings - Change your background color or upload an image to alter your email's backdrop.Text Styling - Edit text font, size and color globally, or refine styling for each heading.Button Styling - Globally alter button color, font, padding, size and even corner radius.Divider Styling - Change the style, color, alignment and size of each divider. Templates You can now save your built email as a template, no more HTML coding! Communication is rinse and repeat, when you save this template it will take a screenshot as a thumbnail, and you can access this layout in the future with ease. To start, select the ellipsis in the top right (), then "Save As Template" to open the "Save As Template" screen. 1 Category - When you have a lot of templates, categories simplify the search process. To add a new one, navigate to Settings > Communications > Communication Template Categories and click ti ti-plus. 2 Starter - Starter Pins the saved template to the top of the selection screen for the chosen Category. We suggest you only make your most used templates a starter, the 20% of the templates that you use 80% of the time. Emailing a Login Link As you're crafting your communication you may find it necessary to include a link that will automatically log the person in to your website. This is easy to do using the PersonTokenCreate Lava filter. Simply add ?rckipid={{ Person | PersonTokenCreate }} to the URL of the page you want the person to visit. The example pictured below will log the person in and take them to the external site's homepage using a URL of https://yoursite.org/page/1?rckipid={{ Person | PersonTokenCreate }}. A link like the one pictured above can be added to your email by using the button near the top of the editor. Unlike the example above, you'll want to provide friendly text for the link (e.g., "Click Here") instead of the URL itself. Using the URL as pictured above would result in a very long and ugly looking link in the recipient's email. You can optionally add parameters to your PersonTokenCreate filter, to control: How long the token is validHow many times it can be usedWhich page it should be used for Check out our PersonTokenCreate Lava documentation for full details. Depending on your Security Settings a tokenized link may not be able to be generated for all of your recipients. Out of the box, a person token can't be created for people with an Extreme level Account Protection Profile. When everything is set up and looks the way you want, click Next to go to the SMS Editor screen. If your communication will be sent by email only, the wizard will skip this screen. The SMS Editor is similar to the Email Editor. This is where you design how your SMS message will appear. When everything is set up and looks the way you want, click Next to go to the SMS Editor screen. If your communication will be sent by email only, the wizard will skip this screen. The SMS Editor is similar to the Email Editor. This is where you design how your SMS message will appear.