Getting Started with Templates

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What are templates?

BigChange enables a wide variety of template documents and emails to be created and easily customised to your needs.  This flexibility means that polished templates for repeat actions such as quotations, invoicing, and even marketing campaigns can be simply created, saved and then issued as required. Templates essentially streamline your workflow and save you time. Templates appear as an option at various points across the site when creating documents or sending messages which are likely to be repeat activities.

This article will explain how to create templates, as well as demonstrating how they can be used in different areas of BigChange. If you require any additional information or assistance on any part of this guide. 

You can submit a support request by using the messaging feature; this can be accessed either by selecting "Submit a ticket" from the top menu navigation bar on the Help Centre home page, or by selecting the messaging icon located at the bottom right of your screen.

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What can templates do for you?

There are three main uses for templates in BigChange: Emails, PDFs and SMS.

Emails

You can save a huge amount of time by creating a template(s) for emails that you regularly send out from BigChange.  Example areas that might really benefit from the creation of a template include the following:

  • Job confirmation: Include a job confirmation link in your email, which allows your customers to confirm a scheduled job. Once they have confirmed the job using the link, your schedule will automatically update to reflect its new status, i.e. the red outline will change to a green outline on your Schedule > Display > Daily. This is also useful when viewing your schedule in List view, as it allows you to filter by a customer’s activity stage, for example ‘confirmation unsent’ or ‘unconfirmed’.
  • Batch email: There is a More/Send all feature that allows you to send the same email in a single batch from your Schedule (List view) or Contact list. You can use a template to create a message that will be formatted with the same text and graphics for everyone but with specific sections personalised to the recipient by the use of keywords.  This feature also allows you to use a template to send out a ‘marketing’ email to all/chosen contacts.
  • Customer alerts: Use a template to create a personalised email that is sent via an automatic alert to your customers. For example, an alert can be set so that an email is sent to the customer when there is a status change on their job, e.g. the engineer marked themselves as ‘on the way’. For more information on how to do this, there is a useful section on Alerts Templates in the Alerts article.

PDFs

You can create a template for any basic job card or PDF document that you regularly send out or save from BigChange.

  • Create a bespoke Job card: Rather than using the standard jobcard , create a customised jobcard template that can include any job details you want, as well as responses to worksheet questions that have been provided for a particular job.

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  • Financial documents: Create professional-looking, branded templates to send out your financial documents, for example quotations or invoices, that can include line items etc.

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SMS

Templates can also be used to create messages to send out as text messages, however, when using this format please bear in mind that there is a limit of 160 characters per SMS. This is a universal standard, not a BigChange one and if the character count exceeds 160 the system will automatically break down the message into additional texts.

Please note, there is a cost of £0.05+VAT per SMS issued.

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Example Template Ideas

To help you understand some of the ways in which templates can be used, here is a selection of the different document types you can create:

Create a template for... What is this?
Job confirmation message Create a template message for all or individual job types.  These can be set up to automatically send your chosen message as a job confirmation email - extremely useful as you can use a keyword to include a ‘job confirmation link’.
Header and Footer Create your perfect headers and footers and then save them as a ‘standard’ template.  When you want to create a new template, simply press duplicate and the headers and footers will already be in place.
Job Card (for single or multiple jobs) Create custom job cards, either standard for your business or for specific job types.  Use keywords to add the elements of the job you would like to display and you can format it to replicate the look of your other documentation.
Third-party worksheets/workflow You can create a document to be issued to third parties, eg a customer satisfaction survey.
Financial Document Use templates to create a consistent look across all of your financial documents, e.g. invoice, quotation, etc. These can be set to automatically insert relevant information using keywords.
Alerts When creating an alert you have the option of using the standard message or selecting your own template with the appropriate usage. Ensure that the template you create is appropriate for the format you intend to use, whether SMS, email or PDF, eg a brief SMS to a customer with an engineer’s eta.
Frequent emails Where the same email is regularly issued to customers, eg issuing a job card upon job completion, you can create a template email that accompanies it.  If you use this in conjunction with automatic document sending, this makes this a personalised, no-touch process.

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Uploading the Document To Use as a Template 

When logged into BigChange as an Administrator, go to Account Settings > Settings > Quick Links Menu > Templates > Add.

  • Give the new template a name
  • Select Template type and choose Word Document. You will now be prompted to attach your Word document, either by dragging and dropping, or selecting the file in your file manager.

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  • Once the file has been uploaded, Save and Close.

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  • Re-open the Template and add the correct usage from the Usage tab on the top right. In this example, we created an invoice and so will select:
      • Financial Document
      • Any type
      • Invoice.

Note the format will be PDF by default:

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This process can be repeated for JobCards as well as Financial documents. When an invoice is raised using this template, the finished document will look like this:

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Using Your Templates

Setting a Default Template for Financial Documents

Once you've created your customised designs for financial documents, you need to set them up as your default preferences.

Go to Account Settings > Settings > Financial > Financial documents & sales opportunities.

Please note, this section has recently been amended, with options here now showing Automatic Reference and Edit.

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Selecting Edit will open a popup allowing you to view more details through tab settings, including the option to choose a default template for this document type, from your list.

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Using your template

Now you have created a template, you have the opportunity to use it across the site for a variety of tasks.  We have included a couple of examples below to get you started: Example 1- An email template for sending out job confirmations to your customers

  • Select to create a new template and in the body of the template, you need to write the email message you wish to be sent out to customers when confirming their job.  This can include keywords for the job's details (for example time, date and reference).

  • To allow recipients to confirm their job, you will need to insert the keyword for job confirmation link. To do this, select Insert keyword and under the Jobs tab, scroll down and find Confirmation link.

  • Once you have finalised the content of the template, you need to set the Usage; select the Usage tab, followed by Add.  For the template to be available as a job confirmation email, you need to choose Email as the default format and then select Job confirmation as the type. The option to choose a job type will then appear; select Any type or choose a particular job type and then select Save.  This Usage will now appear on the list of usages.
  • Now navigate to your Schedule and from the Daily View, select the job you wish to send a job confirmation email for.  Select the option Send confirmation and an email pop-up will appear allowing you to customise the message.  Above the text box, select Templates and then choose the template you have just created from the drop-down list.  You will now see your template appear in the text box, and any keywords will be populated with up-to-date information, including the link for job confirmation. Your message is now ready to send.
  • Your contact will receive the email and they can select the job confirmation link to confirm their job/appointment. Once they have done this, the status of job will automatically update and you will see that the job's outline on the schedule will change from red to green.

Example 2- A PDF template for creating a job card for a completed job. 

  • Create job card in the Microsoft Word Add-In: Please see the separate section above for a detailed explanation of how to do this. 
  • Validate and Import the JobCard and Add Usage to your template: Select Usage tab and +Add appropriate usage; in this case, choose PDF as the default format and choose Job card (single job) as the type.  You should then select whichever job types this job card is associated with (i.e. which job types use the worksheet that you have inserted details about in this template).
  • Save and Preview your Job Card: Back to the Templates tab, select Save.  Find your new template from the list view and select Preview. This allows you to double-check you are happy with the final look (note keywords will not yet appear - they will be populated when using the template for a real job).
  • Choose your template to create a job card for a job: From your schedule, select a job that uses the job type/worksheets used for your template.  From the job's pop-up, select to view the Job card and a new pop-up will appear allowing you to select your template from a drop-down list. A preview of your template should appear and you can then choose to either download (PDF), attach to the job or email a copy of the job card.

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FAQs/Top Tips

  • Set your font

Double-check the font/formatting in your template is correct by highlighting it all (ctrl+A) and resetting it.  It may be necessary to highlight the keywords separately to reformat.

  • ‘Standard template’

Create a template called ‘standard template’ with your perfect header/footer (e.g. your logo in the header and your contact details in the footer) – once this is saved, every time you need to create a new template with your branding, you can simply choose to duplicate this one and you will just have to update the ‘body’ section. This gives you consistent branding across all your messages and documents.

  • How can I get a URL for a picture?

Flickr, or a similar site, will allow you to host an image and will give you a link location that you can use.  The best way to retain an image for use is by adding it to the file library or uploading it to the attachment tab of a contact within your CRM:

Select the image in the Attachments tab and it will open in a new window, providing you with the image's URL.

  • Send automatic alerts to customers for on-the-day reminders of their job

Use a template to set-up an alert that gets sent out to customers to remind them of the job/appointment that day (do this by using the status change from a resource to job ‘accepted’, which is generally done by an engineer first thing in the morning).

  • Online payment link in Keywords

Please note, only customers with a linked Judo account will have this option as a keyword.

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Videos

Microsoft Word Add-In

 

Keywords for PDF File Names

 

Setting an Image Size in Templates

 

Setting a Default Template for Financial Documents

 

Introduction to the Microsoft Word Add-In: Recording of Live Tutorial

 

Templates (Basic Level): Recording of Live Tutorial

 

Templates (Intermediate Level): Recording of Live Tutorial

 

Customised Templates: Recording of Live Tutorial

 

Sub-Templates

 

Group Job Templates & Contact Group Templates

 

Template Usage

 

Template Version Control

 

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