Snippets help your team respond faster by inserting dynamic fields or reusable text into replies - saving time and keeping responses accurate.

This guide will walk you through the different types of Snippets in eDesk, how to set them up and how to use them.

Before you start

  • You’ll need to have access to Snippets in your Settings in order to view, create and edit snippets.  If you don’t have access, you can request it from an Admin user within your account.  

01 What are Snippets?

Snippets are a handy shortcut for including customer/order information or even common phrases in the messages that you send to customers.

There are two types of Snippets in eDesk:

1. System Snippets

These are dynamic fields that automatically pull in details from a ticket or order. You can add them to any message or template. There are two subtypes:

  • General System Snippets:
    Inserts ticket or customer data like:

    • Customer name

    • Customer email

    • Agent name

    • Channel title

  • Order-related Snippets:
    Useful for including order details such as:

    • Order number

    • Product name

    • Shipping address

    • Tracking link

    • Dispatch/delivery dates

You can find a full list of our System Snippets here. 

Note: As Amazon does not provide PII (Personally Identifiable Information) over the API, PII snippets like #customer_name# or #shipping_address# will not work on Amazon messages.

2. Text Snippets

These are reusable blocks of text that you or your team can create for common phrases or responses. They can be inserted into any reply and are particularly useful for Live chat responses.

There are two types of Text Snippets:

  • Company Snippets
    Created by Admins and shared across the team. Great for standard responses or brand tone consistency.

  • Personal Snippets
    Created by individual users for their own use only. Ideal for saving your own frequently used phrases.

02 How to use Snippets

When replying:

When replying to a message in the Mailbox or in Live Chat:

  1. Click into the Reply box or Chat conversation.

  2. Type # to bring up a list of available snippets.

  3. Start typing the name of the snippet you want to insert.

  4. Click to insert it into your message.

  5. The snippet information will automatically populate in your reply. 

In Templates:

Snippets can also be used in message templates to automatically pull in customer and order information, such as:

  • #consumer_firstname#
  • #tracking_code_link#

To add a snippet to a template:

  1. Go to Settings > Smart Tools > Templates and create or open a template.

  2. Copy and paste the desired snippet from the list on the right-hand side or use # and start typing the snippet name in Message field of the template.

The snippets will populate automatically with the correct customer or order details when the message sends.

Note: If you're using order-related snippets, you will need to include an Order Status under Usage Conditions to create the template. 

For more on creating manual usage templates, click here. 

03 How to create Text Snippets

To create or edit snippets:

  1. Go to Settings > Smart Tools > Snippets. Click + Add Snippet

  2. Click the Company Snippets checkbox if you want to make the snippet available to all the users in your eDesk account.
     

  3. Give your snippet a Name and add the Text for your snippet. 

  4. Click Save. Choose the Type: Personal or Company.

  5. If you want to create a link to your Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn page, choose one of these instead from the Type dropdown. A share link will then be displayed. 

  6. You can edit a snippet at any time by simply clicking back into it, amending the text and clicking Save changes. 

Your snippets are now ready to use in messages and chats.

  • System snippets will appear automatically as you start typing their name.

  • Company snippets will appear with an our_prefix (e.g. our_greeting).  

  • Personal snippets will appear with a my_ prefix (e.g. my_greeting).  

For example, if you’ve created a personal snippet called “greeting”, simply start typing 'greeting' and it will appear in the suggestions. Click it to insert the snippet text into your message.

Tip: You can combine system snippets inside text snippets. For example, a personal snippet could say:
Hi #consumer_firstname#
How are you and how can I help you today?
When used, #consumer_firstname# will automatically populate with the customer's name if available.

04 Deleting Snippets

  1. Go to Settings > Smart Tools > Snippets and view the list of snippets in the My Snippets or Company Snippets tab.  
  2. Click the ellipsis ... in the row for the snippet and choose Delete.

Further reading 

To find out how to create manual templates, click here.
To find out how to favorite your most important tickets, click here.