Use Ontraport’s time-saving task templates for any recurring tasks you want to delegate to your team.
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Creating task templates
Course Instructor
- Best practices for customizing your task templates
- Tips for using merge fields to keep your tasks organized
- How to set up task notifications so no balls get dropped
- How to change what happens next to a contact based on the outcomes of a task
- How to add a form to completed tasks so your reps can easily update contact records
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Transcript
Task templates are amazing time savers. I'm going to show you how to use and get the most out of this Ontraport feature so you're not creating the same task over and over again. Plus, you’ll need to create task templates if you’re going to use them in Automations, and you are so...
The four steps you’ll follow are:
Let’s dive in.
You’ll start by customizing your template basics with the task editor.
Task templates are created and stored in the Messages collection where your emails and SMS messages live.
First, you’ll click “New Message.” Then, select “Task,” which brings you to the task editor.
Start by naming your task in the upper left corner. Because we’re creative geniuses, name this one “Call New Lead.”
Next, give the task a subject line. It’s the same concept as a subject line in an email. Let’s say, “You got a new lead: give ‘em a ring!”
Alright, so far so good. Now things are going to get a little tricky. Here we have a due date.
Normally with a different task system, you’d put an actual date in here — like, “Do this by Friday the 13th.” But since this is a template that’s going to get assigned every time you get a new lead, this due date is bound to change.
So instead of a hard date, we’re going to give a reference deadline like, “Do this within 1 day after it’s assigned.”
There are a bunch of fields here that are going to be dynamic like this. For example, the task owner is the person responsible for getting this thing done. You can choose to assign all these new lead tasks to one user, like Raye Mathouse here.
Or make this field dynamic by assigning the task to whoever owns the contact.
That comes in handy when you’re using a lead router to assign new contacts to different people on your team. You want to make sure the right contact owner follows up with the right lead.
If you want to make task owners dynamic, choose a role to assign them to. Maybe you have three people in your outbound SDR team, and you want to split up these tasks between them. When you assign a task to a role, the system will hand them out round-robin style to the users in that role.
Now you’re starting to get an idea about how these templates work. So this next section is going to tackle the body of the task.
Remember that you’re using this template for lots of different contacts as they come in. So, you’ll use merge fields to insert contact data into the body of the task.
Let’s say you’re asking a team member to call up a lead. You don’t want your rep fumbling around to track down contact information. So it’s a good idea to have a few things on hand: the lead’s name, phone number, and maybe any extra tidbits of info they left in your form, such as a note or whatever else you may have asked.
While we’re talking about merge fields, keep in mind you can add those to the subject line too.
Copy and paste the merge field up there. If you change your subject line to something like, “Call new lead: [First Name] at [SMS Number],” you’ll see key info when it comes through.
Next, I’ll walk you through task notifications. This is where you can set up how task owners get notified when they’ve got something to take care of.
Now, tasks will always show up in the tasks collection. This lets you fire off an email or an SMS message as well. If your team likes to work out of email, you can send them a notification when they’re assigned a certain task. An email will pop up with your preset subject and body.
The coolest part? Your reps can complete tasks right in the email without even logging into Ontraport.
But if your team is on the go, you could send task assignments via text through the user’s SMS number.
To get fancy, send a reminder the day before tasks are due. Or you could even get hardcore and send a notification to the task assignee’s manager the day after it’s due.
Of course, when the task is completed, you’ll stop receiving notifications.
Next, let’s move on to task outcomes. Task outcomes, as we talked about earlier, will show up on the task completion. It’ll ask ‘what happened?’ and whoever is completing the task will pick between the options you set up here. These are totally optional, but if you want to change what happens next to a contact based on the outcomes of this task, then this is how you do it. So, let’s add a couple outcomes here.
Click “Add” to insert each outcome. Let’s create an outcome for “no answer,” “not interested,” and another for “interested and qualified.” If you want to learn more about automating what happens next, check out the other task videos. For now, we’re going to leave these here.
You also have the option of including a form in the task body once it’s completed. Sometimes part of a task is to get new information from a contact. Instead of relying on your team member to go to the contact record to update it, you can put a form on the task completion screen instead.
Here’s a scenario when you’d use a form. After a sales call, your reps could fill out a quick questionnaire. Items could include asking what was the lead’s biggest pain point or what product the lead is interested in. This form will record these new pieces of info directly into the lead’s contact record.
Only legacy forms will appear in this dropdown. But head over and create a list selection about the pain points in the notes field. Then save it into a form and select it here in this task.
Alright, now that you’re all done with this, I’m going to show you what our task looks like when it’s assigned and completed.
Check out this task I created for my contact Moira Rose. The subject and body are all filled out. When I click to complete the task, the outcomes I set up earlier are here in this dropdown. The form I just created in the last step also shows up for me to fill out.
Great, let’s do a quick recap of the task template basics. First, you used the task editor to build the task. Next, you explored some nitty-gritty details in the task body and set up task notifications. Finally, you created task outcomes so your reps are ready to go.
Awesome! Now you’ll be able to organize your manual to-do list in a breeze!
The four steps you’ll follow are:
- Customize your template basics with the task editor
- Build the task body
- Set up task notifications
- Create task outcomes
Let’s dive in.
You’ll start by customizing your template basics with the task editor.
Task templates are created and stored in the Messages collection where your emails and SMS messages live.
First, you’ll click “New Message.” Then, select “Task,” which brings you to the task editor.
Start by naming your task in the upper left corner. Because we’re creative geniuses, name this one “Call New Lead.”
Next, give the task a subject line. It’s the same concept as a subject line in an email. Let’s say, “You got a new lead: give ‘em a ring!”
Alright, so far so good. Now things are going to get a little tricky. Here we have a due date.
Normally with a different task system, you’d put an actual date in here — like, “Do this by Friday the 13th.” But since this is a template that’s going to get assigned every time you get a new lead, this due date is bound to change.
So instead of a hard date, we’re going to give a reference deadline like, “Do this within 1 day after it’s assigned.”
There are a bunch of fields here that are going to be dynamic like this. For example, the task owner is the person responsible for getting this thing done. You can choose to assign all these new lead tasks to one user, like Raye Mathouse here.
Or make this field dynamic by assigning the task to whoever owns the contact.
That comes in handy when you’re using a lead router to assign new contacts to different people on your team. You want to make sure the right contact owner follows up with the right lead.
If you want to make task owners dynamic, choose a role to assign them to. Maybe you have three people in your outbound SDR team, and you want to split up these tasks between them. When you assign a task to a role, the system will hand them out round-robin style to the users in that role.
Now you’re starting to get an idea about how these templates work. So this next section is going to tackle the body of the task.
Remember that you’re using this template for lots of different contacts as they come in. So, you’ll use merge fields to insert contact data into the body of the task.
Let’s say you’re asking a team member to call up a lead. You don’t want your rep fumbling around to track down contact information. So it’s a good idea to have a few things on hand: the lead’s name, phone number, and maybe any extra tidbits of info they left in your form, such as a note or whatever else you may have asked.
While we’re talking about merge fields, keep in mind you can add those to the subject line too.
Copy and paste the merge field up there. If you change your subject line to something like, “Call new lead: [First Name] at [SMS Number],” you’ll see key info when it comes through.
Next, I’ll walk you through task notifications. This is where you can set up how task owners get notified when they’ve got something to take care of.
Now, tasks will always show up in the tasks collection. This lets you fire off an email or an SMS message as well. If your team likes to work out of email, you can send them a notification when they’re assigned a certain task. An email will pop up with your preset subject and body.
The coolest part? Your reps can complete tasks right in the email without even logging into Ontraport.
But if your team is on the go, you could send task assignments via text through the user’s SMS number.
To get fancy, send a reminder the day before tasks are due. Or you could even get hardcore and send a notification to the task assignee’s manager the day after it’s due.
Of course, when the task is completed, you’ll stop receiving notifications.
Next, let’s move on to task outcomes. Task outcomes, as we talked about earlier, will show up on the task completion. It’ll ask ‘what happened?’ and whoever is completing the task will pick between the options you set up here. These are totally optional, but if you want to change what happens next to a contact based on the outcomes of this task, then this is how you do it. So, let’s add a couple outcomes here.
Click “Add” to insert each outcome. Let’s create an outcome for “no answer,” “not interested,” and another for “interested and qualified.” If you want to learn more about automating what happens next, check out the other task videos. For now, we’re going to leave these here.
You also have the option of including a form in the task body once it’s completed. Sometimes part of a task is to get new information from a contact. Instead of relying on your team member to go to the contact record to update it, you can put a form on the task completion screen instead.
Here’s a scenario when you’d use a form. After a sales call, your reps could fill out a quick questionnaire. Items could include asking what was the lead’s biggest pain point or what product the lead is interested in. This form will record these new pieces of info directly into the lead’s contact record.
Only legacy forms will appear in this dropdown. But head over and create a list selection about the pain points in the notes field. Then save it into a form and select it here in this task.
Alright, now that you’re all done with this, I’m going to show you what our task looks like when it’s assigned and completed.
Check out this task I created for my contact Moira Rose. The subject and body are all filled out. When I click to complete the task, the outcomes I set up earlier are here in this dropdown. The form I just created in the last step also shows up for me to fill out.
Great, let’s do a quick recap of the task template basics. First, you used the task editor to build the task. Next, you explored some nitty-gritty details in the task body and set up task notifications. Finally, you created task outcomes so your reps are ready to go.
Awesome! Now you’ll be able to organize your manual to-do list in a breeze!
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