Action buttons in Connect messages
Newsletters can now carry action buttons — one click takes a parishioner straight into a parish workflow. In a Newsletter, look at the quiet Add: row under the blocks — Heading, Text, List, Button, Picture, Divider, and last of all Action. Click Action and pick:
- Join a group — mints a share link for the group you choose (it also appears, revocable, in that group's Share links panel).
- Complete a form — links a *published* Form Writer form.
- Open a file — links an image from your uploads library.
- Manage my preferences — each recipient gets their *own* preferences link, automatically.
- Open a link — any https:// page (a video, the diocese, your giving provider).
Safe by design
- Adding a button never sends anything, and clicking one never signs anyone up by itself — every destination page still asks the person to confirm whatever they're doing there.
- Links must be real web addresses (https://). Nothing executable is ever stored in a message.
- At Review & send, Vianney re-checks every button's destination — an unpublished form, a revoked join link, or an archived group shows a loud warning *before* you confirm.
- Test sends use the very same buttons, safely: they can't submit forms, join groups, or change anyone's records.
Texts and templates
Text recipients get each button as a plain "Label: link" line (the preferences button instead points them to their email or the parish office, since that link is personal). Buttons survive Save as template and duplicating a draft with their meaning intact.
Templates are governed now
A saved template is no longer just a file in a drawer. Each one carries a state — draft, approved, or archived — and each approval takes an immutable version snapshot, so the exact wording and buttons behind any past send stay readable forever. When you start a draft from a template, the draft records which template and which version it came from, so the source of a message is identifiable long after the fact.
The rule that matters at the keyboard: a template shared with a group or the parish must be approved before anyone but its author can start a draft from it. Click Use on an unapproved shared template and Vianney simply won't find it for you — approve it first, or work from your own copy. Archived templates are selectable by nobody until they are restored. See The Connect Template Library.
Personal touches, and a preview for plain messages
Buttons aren't the only thing the composer gained. A quiet Personal touch menu at the foot of the page inserts {{first_name}}, {{last_name}}, {{household_name}}, or {{parish_name}}, and each recipient sees their own values at send time — with a Fallbacks… control for what prints when a record is blank. And a plain message can be read through a recipient's eyes at the Review step, where See it as a recipient swaps the frame for one real rendered copy addressed to a clearly named sample person. Details are in Sending a message with Connect.