Wordlink is the method we suggest for creating Letter & Brochure templates.  

We have added these two processes together to create one training session but you can still access the individual tutorial pages here.  

Standard letters using Word

Brochures using Word

Setting up SMS Templates

You can set up SMS templates within Expert Agent so that when texting various contacts you have a list of pre-set messages to choose from.

From your template grid, click 'New Template':

The following window will appear:

2. Select 'SMS' as the template format.

3. Give the template a suitable name.

4. Select the relevant template type, depending on who the text will be sent to.

5. Click 'Next'.

You can then set up your text message:

6. Check the template name and type are correct, add any notes about use of the template, and if appropriate set a task to be automatically triggered by use of the text message (in this example, I've set a task for one day after the text has been sent to check whether we did receive a call back from the vendor).

7. Construct your message. You can both free type into the box and insert codes - you do this by finding the relevant code on the right hand side and clicking on it to insert. Bear in mind how long you are making the message (taking in to account when data is merged into the text how long it is likely to be) - you get charged one text credit per 160 characters, so ideally most messages will be a maximum of 160 characters.

8. Click 'Save' to save the new template.

This will now be listed in your template grid with a template type of SMS:

Sending SMS Templates

To use one of your SMS templates, you right click in the relevant record and go to 'Create Letter/E-Mail/SMS' in the usual way:

Find your template in the grid and click to create (2):

The message will then open for you to proof read, edit/select recipients and then send.

Expert Agent has two methods of generating Standard Letters and Brochures - "WordLink" and "HTML Editor"

We'd generally recommend WordLink but there might be reasons why you would want to use HTML Editor or even both

 1.   WordLink

As the name suggests, Wordlink uses Microsoft Word to edit and print letters. This is the easiest to setup because other than making sure you have either a version of Word (it must be Word 2007 or better) or a 3rd party word processor that reads and writes DocX files, there’s no setup). It is also the most powerful because it uses Word itself. It even seems to work well on a Mac (although we don’t provide support for Mac users).  You may wish to use HTML for email purposes.

See Creating Letter & Brochure Templates

Pros:

• No setup
• we supply sample letter and brochure templates
• no layout constraints - almost anything you can do in Word can be applied to a Wordlink template.
• Familiarity - no new wordprocessor to learn

 Cons:

• You need Word 2007 or better (if you don't have it - look at subscribing for Office 365 for a few pounds per month (but make sure you have the desktop version of Word).  We advise you use Office 365.  (How do I create Brochure Templates on a Mac?)
• Can be slow on an older PC - Word will need to start up, open a document on the web, import photos and display.
• Using Wordlink for emails isn't ideal - your message is sent as an attachment to a covering email rather than in the body of the email

2.   HTML Editor

If you first implemented Expert Agent before 2011, you probably use the original HTML Editor which uses HTML documents – essentially mini websites.

There’s no problem with sticking with this approach if you have developed skills and a set of your own letters.

The HTML Word processor can also be used for brochures (though we do not recommend this approach for new businesses or those creating new templates due to the complexity of setup and inflexibility inherent in this method of production).

see: The article called HTML 

 Pros:

• Very fast - doesn't need to load Word. No need to upload finished documents
• if used to send emails, the text is in the body of the email rather than an attachment
• The ability to email one page in a letter set - great for sales memos where one party will get a subset of the full output

Cons:

• HTML isn't ideal for print output - no margins, no headers or footers and fonts can jump around
• The editor itself (the best of a bunch of 3rd party components that we've tried over the years is a bit "buggy" and has a mind of its own sometimes.
• Complex layouts such as A3 Landscape or text over pictures is almost impossible
• Print quality suffers - outputs are 96dpi maximum rather than 600dpi or better in Word
• HTML is a frustrating, black art. Remove a bracket by accident and the whole document stops working
• For all the reasons above, we won't train you on HTML and we provide limited support for our HTML standard letters, brochures and reports - change them at your own risk

Please note that although you are able to change the header and footer of your financial templates you are not able to amend the block in which the financial transactions sit.

We therefore have created a number of different statement templates that you are able to choose from.

Please see Landlord Statement Examples for more information on this.