22.1.5. Manage Templates

What is a Template?

A template is a pre-configured message that can be easily sent by the User from the messaging interface. These are pre-configured by administrators on the manage templates page under the Natterbox Settings page.

A list of use cases for templates are as follows:

• Welcome Messages

• Closing off a ticket or case

• Post conversation messages - surveys etc.

• General information on a product or topic

Template Placeholders

A template placeholder is a value that can be edited by the User before sending the template. To add a placeholder you must provide a name for the placeholder which will show in the message content as well as the default value should the User not enter a value before sending.

The name of the placeholder has a maximum character limit of 64 as well as the value field has a maximum character limit of 64.

You can have a maximum of 5 placeholders on a template.

Template Types

The type of template changes what a User can do with the template before it’s sent. If this is on the WhatsApp channel it defines if you can send this outside the session period or not.

Flexible Templates

The flexible template type allows Users to fully edit any part of the template before it is sent, this will not edit the template itself for future use just for that message you are sending. Users can also edit any placeholders and keep the rest of the template the same.

Flexible templates have a limit of 5 placeholders and a maximum character limit of 1024 characters.

Structured Templates

The structured template type only allows Users to edit the placeholders with the rest of the message structure remaining the same.

Structured templates have the same limits as flexible templates in that they can have a maximum of 5 placeholders and a character limit of 1024.

WhatsApp Templates

Natterbox Templates align with Meta’s WhatsApp templates, when a structured template is created for the WhatsApp channel type this is sent off to WhatsApp for approval (see below for more information on the approval process).

An approved structured WhatsApp template can be sent outside the 24h session period imposed by Meta however a flexible template for WhatsApp can only be sent within the 24h session period.

More information can be found on WhatsApp templates on Metas official documentation here.

Creating a Template

To create a template you can first optionally create a folder for organisation (see below for more information) or you can create the template and simply have this in no folder.

Start by pressing the create button on the manage templates screen under Natterbox Settings page, then select “Create template”.

This will open the create a template window. On this window you can enter the following:

• Name: The name of your Template.

• Folder: The folder in which the template will be organised into.

• Status: The status of the Template. Active will display this to the user, Draft will not.

• Description: A description around the purpose of this template, only administrators can see this.

• Tags: Short tags to aid the User in searching for this template.

Once you have filled out the Template you can press the “Next” button in the bottom right corner.

Next you have the screen where you control which channels this template will be available for. If you are not using multiple digital channels then you can just configure the channel for the type you are using.

As well as you can set the template type for this template. If WhatsApp channel is selected, you will also need to choose the Meta WhatsApp template type.

Once you have filled out your channel details you can press the “Next” button in the bottom right corner.

Finally the last step is the template content itself, this will be the actual message that the template will contain.

You can add placeholders/macros onto the template, the User can then enter in the appropriate value for these before sending the template.

Once you have your template filled out, this should look like the below. To create the template press the “Create” button in the bottom right corner.