Maintain email template modules in cloned emails

[Sarah_Samuels]

Hi all.  We have created an email 2.0 template made up of a series of modules in a newsletter format.  We have included every possible module that we would want in an email campaign, with the intention of removing ones we don't need in specific campaigns.

When we clone an email, however, we lose the functionality of being able to drag modules back in. 

Is there a way around this?  We ideally don't want to have to use the large template in place of cloning, but occasionally need to add modules to cloned emails.  Curretly this means we start from scratch.

[Gerard_Donnell4]

Hi Sarah Samuels​,

This is not the expected behaviour. You should have the ability to drag and drop modules or delete modules just as if it was a brand new email.  Who created your template?  Do you know if it contains any errors or warnings when you go to approve it in the design studio template library.  My guess is that there is some type of minor error that is causing it to behave in that way.

Thanks,

Gerard

[Sarah_Samuels]

Hi Gerard. Thanks for the reply, i thought that may be the case.

Our digital agency created the templates a while ago, but they are by no means marketo experts.

We don't get any error messages.

Do you know of any marketo template designers/ specialists who could take a look maybe? Or could this be something for Marketo support?

Cheers

Sarah

[Brooke_Bartos1]

I don't think this is something that Marketo Support typically helps with. A few agencies I know of for template help:

• Grazitti Interactive (they built most of the older ones that were in templates.marketo.com)
• Email Monks
• Hoosh
• Perkuto

There are a couple of others on launchpoint.marketo.com, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.

[Dave_Roberts]

Hey Sarah-

If you're comfortable posting the HTML for the template you're working with, I'd be happy to take a look and see if I can help you thru this.

Here's what I think might be normal to expect of your email 2.0 template:

• You should be able to create a new email using the template and the "modules" tab should be active in the new email asset. If you cannot access the modules tab to drag-and-drop modules onto the canvas, there might be something going on with the template / syntax.
• If you can see the modules, and use them, that's even better! From there, you should be able to drag-and-drop your way to layout success, bringing in as many copies of each module (in whatever order you like) -- it sounds like you've pulled all of the modules into the canvas.
• If you wanted to "clone" the content for that email, you could just clone the email itself (rather than the template, or creating a new template from the email). This should preserve the content you've added to the email if it's changed from the default content in the template.
• There is also a mktoAddByDefault="true" or ="false" attribute that can be added onto your modules in the template html. A value of "true" means you'd want that module to appear on the canvas "automatically" when you started a new email. This is useful for headers/footers (commonly repeated, or "always on" pieces). This is another way to preserve a layout across many versions -- you could, for example, set the header and footer to "true" and no matter what new email you created on that template, they'd always include the header and footer by default -- which would be kind-of like creating a new email, dragging in the header and footer and then cloning that email every time you wanted to start a new asset.
• There is another way to edit the HTML of an email with the editor that might be causing this kind of issue. If you're using the "Edit Code" functionality in the Editor to tinker with the HTML (or taking it out and editing in another program, then dumping that back into Marketo) you might be breaking the actual asset from the template and that would also cause the modules tab to be "locked". Here's a link to some info on that from the marketo docs: Edit an Email's HTML - Marketo Docs - Product Documentation (** note the warning in the top, center box "Editing code outside the editable elements will break ..." ).

Could you walk us thru the process you're stepping thru to clone the email, etc. It sounds like you've got a working template if you're able to create a new email and drag new modules in there. From there, are you approving the email, then just cloning that email asset as a new email and the modules tab is no longer active (but it still works in the email you're cloning from)?

Happy to help take a peek at the code or help get you moving in the right direction here, maybe this is something that the community could benefit from as well.

Cheers!

-Dave

[Sarah_Samuels]

Hi Dave, thanks so much for the detailed response!

I have actually found the problem now.  It's because I changed the code in the template prior to cloning it, hence breaking it away from its template.  This email was then used as a template for a number of clones!

So I started from scratch, didn't alter the code and cloning now works as normal