A drop sends one template to many people. A custom tag is a placeholder in the template's email, such as {{note}} or {{their_feedback}}, that you (or an agent) write on the drop. What you write replaces the tag in the email. Everything else in the email stays the same.
Custom tags are always shown as the tag itself, braces included, such as {{their_feedback}}, so you can tell them from a title or a form label. They are different from your workspace's tags, the labels you put on documents, which are plain words with no braces.
Personal emails are being turned on one workspace at a time. Until yours has them, a drop sends the template to everyone as it is.
Add a custom tag to a template
On the template, open Insert and pick {{note}} (personal note) under Custom tags. This puts {{note}} in the email and adds the tag to the template. A personal note is optional: when you leave it empty for someone, their email goes without it, and no blank line is left where it was.
You can add other custom tags too. Pick Custom tag… in Insert, or Add custom tag on the template, and type its name between the braces, such as their_feedback. Words work too: "Their feedback" becomes {{their_feedback}}. Under it you see the tag as it shows on drops. Describe it: the description is the hint shown on every drop where it is written. A custom tag can be required or optional. Until a required one is written, Send sends nothing.
In the email, a custom tag is written as its name in double curly braces, such as {{their_feedback}}.
The personal note is different from the contact's notes. The contact's notes are your team's context on the person, and an agent writing a personal note reads them. The personal note is written for this one email.
On the drop's page
Under From, a Custom tags line shows each custom tag the email uses, as the tag: dashed while it is not written yet, tinted once it is, and "optional" beside an optional one. They are placeholders in this drop's email, not the workspace tags you see beside it. The line says how far they are written, for example "Written for 3 of 5 people · 2 to go" on an Individual drop, or "0 of 2 written · one text for everyone" on a group email. While a required one is empty, it also says: "Send sends nothing until every required custom tag is written."
- Write custom tags opens the writing page: on an Individual drop, of the first person not sent yet who still needs a required custom tag, at that box; on a group email, of the one email. Once every required one is written it reads Review custom tags.
- Preview shows the email in a window, with what you wrote highlighted.
- After the drop is sent the line reads "Sent to 5 people", and Open the email (group email) or Open the emails (Individual) shows what was written, read-only, with the email.
A template with no custom tags says so in one line: every email is the template as it is.
The People table lists everyone on the drop. On an Individual drop each row shows its Custom tags: "Written" when every required custom tag has text and at least one has text, "Not written" otherwise. The Custom tags not written filter shows everyone who reads "Not written". Write, or a click on the row, opens that person's writing page with the first empty box ready to type in. Once their email went, a click on the row opens the same page, read-only, with Open the email as sent.
The writing page
Each person on an Individual drop has a writing page, and a group email has one for its one email. Both work the same way:
- the left side lists the custom tags, in the order they first appear in the email. Each one shows the tag itself, "custom tag · required" or "custom tag · optional", the template's description, and a box that says what it replaces, such as "Write what replaces
{{their_feedback}}". Under an empty required one: "Required: until this is written, Send sends nothing." What you type is saved as you go, and the top says so: "Saves as you type", "Saving…", then "Saved" and when. The top also says how many are written, such as "1 of 2 written · 1 required left", and Next empty tag takes you to the next empty box; - the right side shows the email as it would go now, with what you wrote highlighted. It shows what you type at once and stays in view while you scroll through the tags. A sample link stands in for the real link, which is made when the email is sent.
If a save does not go through (no connection, for example), the page says "Not saved" and which tags, keeps your text in its boxes, and has Try again. If someone else changed the same custom tags since you opened the page, it says so, and Reload to see theirs replaces what you typed.
Below the tags, Back to the drop to send takes you to the drop's Send once the required tags are written.
Each custom tag has its own highlight. Point at a tag's row, or click in its box, and its places in the email are outlined while the rest fade. Click a highlighted place in the email to jump to its box. A required tag you have not written shows in the email as the tag itself, {{their_feedback}}, with a dashed outline. An empty optional tag has no place in the email, because its line is left out: the chips above the email list it, and say so. Write it and its place appears. On a phone, Show in email under a tag scrolls to it, and a Back to button at the bottom of the screen takes you back to its box.
On an Individual drop the top of the page has Previous person, Next person and Next person to write, so you can go through everyone without going back to the drop. Once the drop is sent, the page shows what was written for that email, read-only.
The highlight is only in the app's previews: it is never in the email, a dry run or a private preview link.
Anyone who can edit the drop can write custom tags. Only the drop's owner sends it.
Preview without leaving the drop
Each row of the People table has Preview, which opens that person's email on the same page, as it will go, or as it went. Above the email, a chip for each custom tag in it: point at one to see where it is. Previous and Next, or the arrow keys, move through the people as the table shows them, so with Custom tags not written picked you go through just those. Write custom tags opens their writing page. Escape or a click outside closes it.
Show someone a preview
On a person's writing page, Copy link makes a private link to their email's preview. Anyone with the link can see that one email, without signing in, for 1 hour, 1 day or 7 days. It always shows a sample link, never the person's own. Revoke links stops every preview link to that email.
A group email has no private preview link: it shows everyone's address, so it is shown only in LinkDrop.
Send everyone at once
A drop has one Send button, above the People table: Send 8 emails on an Individual drop, Send 1 email to 5 people on a group email. It sends everyone on the drop not yet sent, or nobody. Only the drop's owner sends it.
You can click it whenever someone is not sent yet, on both kinds of drop. If a required custom tag is still empty, nothing is sent, and it answers right there. On an Individual drop:
"Nothing was sent. 2 people still need custom tags written: Dana Lee, Sam Ortiz."
Beside each of them are the tags they still need, Write custom tags, which opens their writing page at the first empty box, and Remove from drop. It ends: "Write their custom tags or remove them, then press Send again." On a group email:
"Nothing was sent. The group email still needs {{their_feedback}} and {{deck_changes}}."
with Write custom tags, which opens the group email's writing page, and "Write the group email's custom tags, then press Send again." The answer empties as you write them. Then click Send again. An empty optional tag, such as a personal note you left out, never holds anyone up. Anyone who can't send sees a line above the people saying what is still needed: how many people still need custom tags written, or, on a group email, which tags.
Once everyone is sent, Send reads Nothing to send, on both kinds of drop.
When nobody is missing anything, LinkDrop asks before anything goes. The question names who goes, the template version, the Gmail address it goes from, and who is left out and why.
Each person is emailed once. People you add after a Send are Not sent, so the next Send sends just them.
People removed from a list
If someone is removed from a list after you wrote their note, they stay on the drop, greyed, as "Removed from" and the list's name. Their note is kept, and Send leaves them out. To send them after all, add them again by hand with Add people; or remove them.
Remove someone
On a person's writing page, Remove from drop takes them off. Their custom tags and their preview links are deleted. A list on the drop does not bring them back. Adding them again by hand does. You cannot remove someone whose email was sent.
With an agent
An agent connected to LinkDrop can do the same: write custom tags for two or three people, or once for a group email, and show you each preview. It can add people and remove them. Its Send goes to everyone not yet sent, the same as yours; if a required custom tag is still empty, nothing is sent and it is told who and which tags. It always asks you before anyone is sent, and the question names who goes.
In a group email
A group email has one set of custom tags, written once for everyone on its own writing page (Write custom tags on the drop's page), not on each person. Its Preview shows the one email with what you wrote highlighted. Once it has gone, its text can't change, and anyone you add later gets the same text.