The Connect Template Library
The Template Library tab in Connect is where your parish's reusable content lives: the wording you don't want to write twice. Save a good message once, and everyone can start from it next time — with a clear record of who approved it and what it said.
The listing is a table, like All Messages: one row per template, with columns for the template's name and subject, its Type (email, text, or both), its Tags, its Source, its Status, and who created it. Actions sit at the end of each row.
The three states
- Draft — being worked on. A draft you made is yours to use straight away; nobody else can see it or start from it yet.
- Approved — vetted and live. Anyone in its scope can now pick it and start a message from it. Approving takes a permanent snapshot of the wording at that moment.
- Archived — retired. It stops being selectable for new messages, but it stays in the list flagged as history and past sends keep their record. Restore brings it back — as a draft if it was shared, so somebody has to approve it again before others see it; a personal one comes straight back as approved.
Who approves
Approving, archiving, and restoring need the Approve library content permission. Out of the box that is the priest and the parish administrator; the front office keeps full use of Connect but not the approval grant. If your parish wants the office to approve content, grant it in Settings → Role access — see Roles and what each can see.
When you hold that permission and something is waiting, an orange N pending approval button appears in the toolbar; click it to see just those.
The rule that bites at 9am
A shared template must be approved before anyone else can start a draft from it. Click Use on an unapproved parish or group template and Vianney won't offer it to you — it isn't selectable yet. Archived content isn't selectable by anybody. The same rule applies wherever a template is chosen, including a group's welcome template.
- Personal templates never need approval — only their creator can see them, so there is nothing to vet.
- Approval controls *visibility to others*. It has nothing to do with sending: Use only ever opens a draft, and every send still goes through the usual confirm on the Review step.
Finding something
Above the table sit a search box and a row of filters:
- Source — All sources, Mine, Parish, or Starter.
- Status — All statuses, Approved, Pending approval, or Archived.
- Channel — All channels, Email, Text, or Email + Text.
- Topic, Language, and Audience — these only appear once some template carries them. Click Tags on a row to set them.
The starter templates
Five templates from Vianney ship with every parish, shown as starter in the Source column and credited to Vianney. They are warm, generic, and deliberately free of dates and local details:
- Welcome to the Parish
- Parish Event Announcement
- Call for Volunteers
- Holy Day & Seasonal Schedule
- Pastor's Weekly Note
They arrive already approved, so you can click Use on one today. They are read-only, though — to make one your own, use Duplicate.
Making a copy
Duplicate copies any template you can see into a new one you own. Vianney asks whether the copy is for the whole parish or just for you (OK for the parish, Cancel for just me). The copy notes where it came from — the row reads "adapted from a starter template (v2)" — and it is entirely yours from then on.
If Vianney later improves a starter you copied, your copy does not change. A quiet Newer starter version available badge appears on the row and does nothing else; the wording your parish approved stays exactly as your parish approved it.
Version history
Click Versions (n) on a row to unfold its history. Each entry is an immutable snapshot — its name, subject, who took it, and when — and a snapshot is taken at each approval. That is what makes it possible, a year later, to see exactly what a message said when it went out. A template that has never been approved simply shows "No versions yet".
Tips
- Save a message as a template from the composer with Save as template, then come here to tag and approve it.
- Tags never change a template's status, so tidying a label can't quietly un-approve vetted content. Rename is different: on a shared template it counts as an edit, so the template drops back to a draft and needs approving again. Rename it before you approve it, not after.
- Archive rather than delete when a template has had its day — archiving keeps the evidence trail for anything you sent from it.
- Starting a draft from a template records which template and which version it came from, so the source of a past send stays identifiable. See Action buttons in Connect messages.