Release Notes

Change an email’s theme on the fly

It’s now easier than ever to swap a theme on an email, with two new methods available. 

Swap the theme directly in the email builder: the theme name has been updated to include an options menu. Now, in addition to the quick link to jump to the theme editor, there is an action to “Change Theme”.

You can also switch the theme on an individual email from the workspaces page. On the specific email you want to update, click the 3 dots option menu in the row, and select the “Change Theme” action.

Note: as we’ve also recently launched the ability to assign themes to specific workspaces, the themes available to swap with will respect those admin settings.

 

UX delights

We’ve updated a few key touch points within the app to make your experience that much more enjoyable, including:

Assign a block to themes
The theme assignment modal for blocks has been overhauled. Remember how you have to remember what your themes are called to apply new themes to the blocks? I sure can’t remember all of those names! The modal has been updated to display all available themes, all the time, along with their assignment status (active, inactive). Easily toggle themes on and off with the status switcher.

Saving without a subject line
Saving an email with an empty subject line used to trigger an “you sure you want to do that?” warning, that would require a few clicks to close the modal, re-open the subject line editor, update the subject line, and re-save the email. We’ve updated the warning modal with a new input field, so you can add the forgotten subject line right there.

Previewing published emails
For published emails, the thumbnail preview gives you a glimpse into how the approved version looks. To take a closer look, you’d historically have to open up the email to see the full view. Now, you can click on the thumbnail to open up an expanded preview.

The commenting features we’ve all been dreaming of

Our commenting workflow in the email builder has undergone a serious upgrade. Collaborating with your teammates is now much much easier.

See feedback while editing
You can now see feedback from your team while you are updating a block’s content. No more flipping back and forth between tabs to double-check feedback!

On the “Collaborate” tab, there is a new toggle beside the feed filters. Flip this to on, and all annotation pins for open comments will remain visible as you navigate to other sections of the builder.

There is a second toggle to “Show Comments”, which is always available in the toolbar at the bottom of the email preview area. For folks who like to keyboard, we’ve introduced a new shortcut option; use Shift+C to toggle the annotation pins on and off at will.

Mentioning teammates
We’ve included a bit of a sneaky upgrade – @mention. When leaving a comment on an email, you can now specifically @mention one of your teammates within that workspace. They will receive an email notification.

Dark Mode testing, in-real-time

Both the email builder and theme editor have a new dark mode toggle. This will render the content with any dark mode styles that have been applied in the theme editor’s “Advanced” tab.

This preview works great for a quick confidence check on how your theme or email will look in dark mode, and will help you get ahead of any contrast or display issues.

Because email clients render dark mode differently from each other, we recommend continuing to device test emails to be confident about the final output. With our built-in Litmus device testing, we currently offer 27 dark mode options to test with.

Drafts are easier to manage

The drafts page in the email builder has received many small upgrades to make it easier to search and maintain the draft history, including:

• Sorting options are available to quickly find a draft amongst many
• Last modified date displays an exact date, vs an approximation
• Draft actions are now visible all the time

We now visually display the workflow stages that a draft must go through as part of the approval workflow. We’ve improved clarity about which stage each draft is currently in, and what’s left to do to get that draft to production. This applies to both single- and two-step approval workflows.

Single-step approval workflow

Two-step approval workflow

Email builder bits-n’-bobs

We’re always striving to improve the email building experience, from micro-interactions to advanced testing and compliance tools. Some new changes you’ll notice in your journeys:

The “From” metadata now displays above the subject line preview, showing sender name and sender email address. Never forget to fill it out again, and double-check that the email will be sent from the correct company address.

Our automated QA tool, Email Guardrails, has been grouped together with the email layers panel, above our live chat customer support. This includes a count of the number of warnings that are left to address, so you know at a glance what’s left to resolve.

We’ve added a new rule to our automated QA warning list. We will now display a warning to highlight if any blocks in your email have a newer version to update to. Keep your blocks up-to-date with the current block version, to ensure the email is always using the latest approved design. You will be able to update all applicable blocks at once, or navigate to each block specifically to update one-by-one.

Using our SMS builder, non-technical users can create data driven, personalized SMS marketing messages at lightning speed.

Dyspatch is the platform to centralize your email and SMS communications: create highly personalized customer journeys and guarantee brand compliance, customer loyalty, and conversions. 

Test both email and SMS communications together in one platform: confirm accuracy, branding, legal requirements, and accessibility requirements in one platform. Ensure your email and SMS communications are flawless before anything is sent to a customer

Related documents:

• Create complex, highly personalized SMS campaigns with our new SMS builder.

NEW admin dashboard

We’ve revamped our admin dashboard to highlight key platform usage. Get a contextual overview of your account limits and Dyspatch usage with real-time seat counts, monthly API call usage, and insights into your overall Litmus device testing usage.

Assign themes to workspaces

Theme management just got a major update! If you have themes that you need to reserve for specific platforms or messaging, then you’ll love our new workspace theme assignment feature. Now you can easily assign specific themes to only be available to specific workspaces, ensuring every email gets the perfect branding, and modules every time. 

Our new theme management is a game-changer for agencies handling numerous brands and clients, or enterprise organizations managing multiple projects and sub-brands. Try out our new theme assignment updates and see how Dyspatch can make email production both intuitive and effective today.

Assign Integrations to Workspace

ESP integrations can now be assigned to specific workspaces in the admin portal. This will support teams that manage many integrations, and global teams where each region is exporting to a different platform.

Only integrations that are assigned to the workspace will appear for email builders to select from when exporting a published email. This ensures that emails are always exported by the right team to the right platform, eliminating the risk of emails being sent to the wrong service.

In addition, default sender profile metadata can be filled out for each ESP integration. When installing or editing an integration, fill out the sender name and sender email address. This information will be automatically exported along with published email content, so you don’t have to manually add important email metadata every time a new email is created.

Resolving comments

Comments can now be resolved in the email builder; resolve feedback that has been actioned upon so annotation pins in the email preview only show what feedback is left to address. In addition, the comments feed in the sidebar has been updated with filtering options to help users focus down when an email is going through a feedback cycle.

Plain text auto-generation

We’ve introduced an admin setting to automatically generate plain text for all emails. This eliminates the need to manually add plain text for every email, and keeps the plain text in sync with the HTML version as the email content is updated. This will not affect any emails where plain text was already entered.

Dynamic Data Toolbar in the email builder

Previewing dynamic data and switching between customer profiles in the email builder is now easier than ever with a new toolbar that appears at the bottom of the email preview area. This simplifies the process of previewing how an email will appear with different data sets applied, enabling effective testing of dynamic, personalized emails in Dyspatch.

Layout builder updates – more options added for title, text, button

We’ve added more options for customizing your email content. You can now change the font size of your text or title, providing greater flexibility in email design.

Variable format warnings 

To prevent errors when exporting your Dyspatch emails, we’ve added warnings for custom variables that use syntax that does not match our standardized DML variable syntax. DML is built to handle exporting variables correctly to many different ESP syntaxes; if you code your emails using your preferred variable syntax, our guardrails will alert you to potential issues, ensuring better email integrity.

The dark side of the app

Dark mode users rejoice! In the name of reducing eye strain, Dyspatch has now added a dark mode switch.

Our app will inherit its state from your Mac OS or Windows preferences, ensuring a consistent experience with your other dark mode-friendly applications. Toggle the switch anytime to set it manually.

Check it out, and while you’re at it, let us know what you think of our unique dark mode Dyspatch logo!

 

Improved email consistency with image replace

Within the Dyspatch image library, you can now update an existing image while maintaining its current file path URL using the “replace image” action. This will update the image globally, and reflect in the inbox automatically, without requiring you to update or resync existing emails.

Easily update images as you iterate on email designs, without having to worry about creating clutter in your image library. Replace image is a powerful feature for branding or document updates; easily update your logo or other shared assets on the fly. Your changes will not only apply to new emails, but previously sent emails will reflect the updated assets as well. 

 

Expanded headline support

Typographers rejoice! Dyspatch has updated the dys-title styling options in the Theme Editor to support styling each heading level independently. By default, all dys-titles will reflect the theme’s H2 styling; you can update your theme to set different styles for H1 – H6 elements to more accurately reflect your brand guidelines.

Advanced features, unlocked!

A couple power features that were previously reserved for internal use only have been added to the Dyspatch app. These were developed internally to enable our dedicated services team to work more efficiently when onboarding new customers, and we’re excited to share them with you:

• Rendered code preview in the block builder
  When developing your email blocks, you can now toggle a preview of the ESP or CRM specific code you will be generating when exporting your email.

• DML block builder in the Dyspatch email builder
  Use DML directly in the Dyspatch email builder to quickly create new modules, without having to switch over to our block builder. Build new bespoke modules in context; easily save them to the block library to reuse in other emails.

 

With our new Adobe Marketo Engage integration, teams can create and collaborate on emails using the Dyspatch no-code email builder, then effortlessly sync their emails directly into their Marketo Engage accounts. Teams will save valuable time creating and testing emails, and ensure every email is on brand and personalized to connect with your audience.

• Learn more 

New Dashboard

Dyspatch users both new and old will be delighted to see the love we’ve given to our workspaces dashboard. With our newly designed workspaces dashboard you will now be able to quickly access your favorite and most recently updated emails, as well you will be able to quickly list emails by status including emails that are currently being localized, in review, or recently published. 

Save and re-use your custom layouts in Dyspatch

Custom layout designs made in our no code email builder can now be saved as re-usable email blocks. Allowing you to speed up your module creation workflow, and build out your email design system. 

Duplicate data profiles

Data profiles are an integral part of building and testing your dynamically personalized emails. With this added functionality you can duplicate your existing data profiles to create new customer profiles and variations for testing all of your email use cases. 

Phrase TMS support added

Our Phrase localizations integration has been upgraded to support Phrase TMS as well as our existing Strings integration. Phrase TMS offers robust translation management capabilities, and advanced workflow automation. While Strings focuses on simplicity and ease of use, making it ideal for smaller projects or teams.