In Impact Stack, action templates define the form set up and email configuration for an action. (We use theme to describe the code that controls the presentation of your action - logo, colours fonts etc.)
Every action type (petition, flexible form, donation page, email to target) will have a default template, set up at onboarding, usually called something like ‘Default petition page - do not delete’.
When you create a new content item, the system will look to this default action template to determine what fields to place in the form, and how to set up the emails. Once the item is created, you can make changes to it - add or remove fields, change what emails the action generates etc. These changes won’t affect the template, just your new action.
Setting up your default action templates means that your chosen form configuration will appear automatically, without your having to set it up each time. For example, instead of having to set up your email opt in configuration on every form, it will appear in the same way automatically.
As well as your default action templates, you can set up additional action templates that you might want to reuse. For example, if you run online events, you might set up a form configuration, outline email copy etc which will need to be broadly the same each time. By saving this as an action template you can reuse it for the next event, instead of having to set it all up from scratch.
To create a new Action Template
Create a new content item of the relevant type. For example, for an 'events registration' Action Template, create a new flexible form and configure it with the form fields and emails that you want for your event registrations. Save as draft, and make sure to give it a clear name (eg Event registration template). Then go to the Content (first) step, go to Advanced settings and switch the ‘Action template settings’ ‘This is a template’ toggle to ‘On’.
To use an Action Template other than your default
Once you’ve created an additional action template, you can apply it to a new content item on the form step. Scroll to the bottom, pick from the list of available templates for this action type, and click ‘Apply template’.
This will apply the form set up, email setup and any conditionals. Once you’ve applied the template you can edit the content item and the action template won't be modified.
NB It isn’t possible to apply a form template to a form which has already received submissions. So always apply a template to a newly-created item. Or, if you’ve submitted some test data, the system can delete that for you.
To change an Action Template
You can of course change your action templates at any time, for example you change the link to your privacy policy, or want to add a new standard field to your forms. Just open the content item, edit and save as normal. Any changes to the templates won’t affect existing actions, it will just change how new actions are set up when you create them.
If you want a copy of the content as well as the configuration
Action Templates will copy the form and email configuration, and any conditional set up into a new action. If you want a full copy, including the content, thank you page etc, contact support with the node ID of the item you want to copy, and ask them to clone the node for you.
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