OPVII

Customizing Message Templates

Edit the wording of your texts and emails, and personalize them with merge tags. It sits under Flows & Automations in the knowledge base. Related guides are listed at the end, and the whole library is searchable from the index. If this does not answer your question, our team picks it up from the contact page.

Get Started See Pricing

Searchable Library Updated In Place Humans On The End

Browse The Library

Every guide, grouped by topic, with a count on each one.

Search Every Article

Titles, categories and article bodies, filtered as you type.

Ask Our Team

A person answers, usually inside one business day.

Flows & Automations

Customizing Message Templates

Edit the wording of your texts and emails, and personalize them with merge tags.

Last updated October 22, 2026

Templates are the actual words your attendees receive. Use this to change the wording, add personalization, and avoid the two things that quietly break a text message.

Where Templates Live

There is no Templates row in the sidebar. Templates ride the tab strip on the Inbox page.

  1. In the sidebar, under Messaging, click Inbox.
  2. In the tab strip, click Templates.

The page is titled Template Library. Your email and text wording sit side by side in two panels, Email Templates and Text Templates. The Inbox sidebar row stays highlighted while you are here, which is expected.

Edit An Existing Template

  1. Find the template in either panel and click the pencil button, tooltipped Edit.
  2. For a text, the fields are Name, Message and Active. For an email they are Name, Subject Line, Email Body and Active.
  3. Name is internal, for finding it again. Attendees never see it.
  4. Click Save Template, or Save Changes on an email.

You should see Template saved. or Email template saved.

Create One From Scratch

Click New Text Template or New Email Template. Or click Ready-Made Templates for nine starters you can preview and add in a click, then edit: Registration Confirmation, 1 Week Reminder, 1 Day Reminder, Final Reminder (Day Of), Directions & What To Expect, Thank You, Thank You + Feedback, Feedback Request and We Missed You.

Personalizing With Merge Tags

A merge tag is a placeholder in double curly braces that fills in per attendee when the message sends. Click a tag on the Insert strip in the editor to drop it in at the cursor.

The tags offered for a text message are:

  • {{first_name}}, which falls back to there when you do not have a first name
  • {{business_name}}
  • {{event_name}}, which falls back to your upcoming event
  • {{event_city}}
  • {{event_time}}, the full date and time
  • {{event_time_only}}
  • {{event_date_only}}
  • {{event_address}}
  • {{feedback_url}}
  • {{manage_url}}, a link to the attendee's own self-service page
  • {{confirm_ask}}, a short request to reply yes or no

An email offers the same core set plus {{confirm_url}}, {{decline_url}} and {{confirm_buttons}}, which renders a block of buttons.

Use single braces and nothing happens: {first_name} is never read as a tag. Spaces inside the braces are allowed but the insert buttons do not add any.

Two Older Tags To Avoid

{{class_time}} and {{class_address}} still work at send time, but they are leftovers from when events were called classes. They are not on the insert strip and they render as blank in the editor's preview, so a template written with them looks broken while you are working on it. Use {{event_time}} and {{event_address}}.

Keeping A Phrase Only When You Have The Value

Wrap optional text in a block so it disappears cleanly when the value is empty:

{{#event_address}} at {{event_address}}{{/event_address}}

Written that way, an event with no address gives you "See you Tuesday" rather than "See you Tuesday at ".

The 160-Character Limit On Texts

A text template is capped at 160 characters, and three things count toward it:

  1. Your words.
  2. Your merge tags after they fill in, which is almost always longer than the tag itself.
  3. The registered sender prefix and the opt-out line, both added automatically at send time.

The editor measures the finished length for you. The counter reads like 128/160 Sent with a segment count, and the hint explains that your registered sender ID is added automatically and counts toward the limit.

If you go over, saving is refused with a message naming the finished length and how many characters too long it is, and asking you to shorten it.

Emoji Are Not Accepted In Texts

Saving a text with an emoji or an unusual symbol is refused with Emojis and special characters aren't accepted in text messages right now. Please use standard letters, numbers, and punctuation only. Emails are not restricted this way.

Previewing

Click the eye button on a row to preview a saved template. In the Preview & Add dialog you can type your own values for First Name, Event Name, Event Time, Event City and Event Address and watch the copy fill in.

How To Tell It Worked

  • The toast confirms the save.
  • The template's status dot reads Active. A template set to off is not used by any flow.
  • The preview shows your merge tags filling in rather than sitting there as literal text.
  • On the Flow Progress board, each step shows the real copy that will go out.

If Something Goes Wrong

A Tag Came Through Blank

OPVII strips any tag it cannot fill rather than printing it. A blank usually means you do not hold that value: no address on the event, no feedback form attached to the flow. It can also mean you used {{class_time}} or {{class_address}}, which do not preview.

A Tag Came Through As Literal Text

Check the spelling and that you used double braces. Only the tags listed above are recognized.

You Cannot Save A Text

It is one of the two refusals above: too long once personalization fills in, or it contains an emoji.

Your Edit Did Not Change What Attendees Received

Confirm the flow's reminder actually points at the template you edited. Open the flow, click the reminder, and check Send The Message. Messages already sent are not rewritten.

Where To Go Next