Core Docs - Engagement - Communication Wizard

Rock Version: v19.0
Last Modified: 2026-04-01 11:01 AM

When you think of a robust, efficient, all-in-one communication platform... your mind may have drifted towards your daily drivers like Brevo, Mailchimp and Beefree. You may like their features: a drag-and-drop email builder, templates, customization, personalization, analytics, etc. You may have even jumped between services to get the feature list you desire. Are you tired of jumping? Are your legs wearing out? No more jumping. Rock has you covered on all communication fronts.

Why choose Rock for communication?

Communication Wizard v2 
Our new Communication Wizard comes packed with more spells than ever: an easy-to-use interface and a beautifully simple, yet powerful, drag-and-drop email editor. The SMS and Push Notification editors have also been refreshed—now with emojis!

The wizard works just like you'd expect, guiding you step-by-step with forward and back buttons. Let’s walk through how to send a communication using the wizard.

Build a Communication

To begin a new communication, go to People > New Communication. The first screen you'll see, pictured below, is where you'll pick who you want to send the communication to.

There are many ways to arrive at the Communication Wizard,

Click Next to advance to the Choose Template screen. This is where you’ll select the email template you want to use to create your communication. You can imagine how, after you’ve created a number of templates, having a Template Image Preview (i.e., thumbnail) will help you easily locate the template you want.

Use the category filter dropdown to help you locate your template. If you don’t see a template listed, you may not have permission to use it, or it might not be set up for use with the wizard.

Rock ships with these three templates out of the box, but the list will expand as you create your own. Remember, these templates are a starting point for your communications, later, you can customize them to your heart's content.

Once you have a well-crafted email, SMS message or push notification, you can use it as a template. To learn more, see the Templates section below.

Starter Templates
To save your template under Starter Templates, find your desired template in the Communication Templates settings and check the box "Is Starter". Also you can select Starter when saving a new template. Pick the 20% of templates you use 80% of the time.

After selecting your template, click Next to advance to the Email Settings screen. This is where you specify the sender, the subject and any files you want to attach to the message.

CC, BCC and Personalization
If you use the CC or BCC fields, be aware that each communication is personalized for each recipient, so each email is unique. That means your CC/BCC recipients will receive many messages. Be careful about providing a value here as the recipient can get overwhelmed.

Click Next to advance to the Email Builder. If your communication will be sent by SMS or Push only, then the wizard will skip this screen.

Email Builder

If you spent time coding your email templates in the past, get ready to take a big sigh of relief. The Email Builder gives you complete creative freedom, with no coding involved (unless you want to) and you can save your build as a template! There are three unique screens (Blocks, Sections and Styles) used to configure your email with simple drag-and-drops.

Blocks - Drag-and-drop email content directly to quickly structure your email.

Sections - Create or re-use groups of content, streamlining email building.

Styles - Customize the style of your email from the text to the buttons.

Blocks

Blocks are the content components themselves. To add an element, simply drag it from the Blocks bar to its resting place in your message.

Content Components

Once you place a component, you can click on it for editing. Try implementing Lava to add a personal touch, change how round your button corners are or insert image and video with ease.

After placing a component, you can edit it by clicking on the section it's in. The options associated with that component are displayed on the right side of the screen. Notice that the section you’re editing is highlighted with a blue border, and you can view your changes in real time. If you want more of a component or layout, once you have selected one, click ti ti-copy. If you decide you don’t want that element after all, click ti ti-trash.

Column Layouts

Column Layouts group content in an elegant format. They can be edited to display unique column spacing and alignment. Each layout can be saved as a Section for re-use. That means not only is the format saved, the content is saved as well. More on that below. 

At any point while working in the Email Builder, you can send a test email to yourself by clicking the Send Test button. Click ti ti-eye to see both desktop and mobile previews of your design. Click  to save a draft of your email. Select the ellipsis (ti ti-dots-vertical) in the top right to save your built email as a template.

RSVP Button Setup
We should pause a moment here to note the RSVP button, indicated by the ti ti-check icon. This element is used to send RSVP requests to groups, and it requires some setup in advance. For full details check out the Group RSVP section of the Rock Your Groups guide.  

Adding Videos to Email
Because of how different email clients work, we can't reliably embed a video within an email. Using the Video component will let you provide a link to a video, with an associated image, but the video can't play from inside the email itself. Instead, viewers are redirected to your video hosting provider (e.g.: YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia).

Sections

Sections house groups of content that speed up and structure your email building. Drag one in, and you've saved yourself from some serious work.

When to use a section:

This can be done quickly by selecting a column and clicking Save, the following screen will pop up.

Save yourself some trouble by adding a Name and a Usage Summary, which describes the intended use of your section.

Styles

Styling is where you, well... style your email. Each change you make here will affect the entire email, giving you consistent style from top to bottom.

This allows you to select the overall design of your email and provide default values for things like heading, text and buttons.

Templates

You can now save your built email as a template, no more HTML coding! Communication is rinse and repeat, when you save this template it will take a screenshot as a thumbnail, and you can access this layout in the future with ease. To start, select the ellipsis in the top right (ti ti-dots-vertical), then "Save As Template" to open the "Save As Template" screen.

Preview As

By selecting the ti ti-eye icon, you can preview any communication in Rock. To add a personal touch, you can even view it as a specific person in your database, or even a segment, giving you the opportunity to test personalization features such as Lava or Adaptive Messages.

Preview As Person

Select an individual with the handy picker and see exactly how it will look in their inbox.

Preview As Segment

When a segment is selected, the system will display a preview using a random person from that segment. Note that this individual may not be an actual email recipient. They may also belong to multiple segments, which could influence how personalization appears in your preview depending on your settings.

Emailing a Login Link

As you're crafting your communication you may find it necessary to include a link that will automatically log the person in to your website. This is easy to do using the PersonTokenCreate Lava filter.

Simply add ?rckipid={{ Person | PersonTokenCreate }} to the URL of the page you want the person to visit.

The example pictured below will log the person in and take them to the external site's homepage using a URL of https://yoursite.org/page/1?rckipid={{ Person | PersonTokenCreate }}.

A link like the one pictured above can be added to your email by using the  button near the top of the editor. Unlike the example above, you'll want to provide friendly text for the link (e.g., "Click Here") instead of the URL itself. Using the URL as pictured above would result in a very long and ugly looking link in the recipient's email.

You can optionally add parameters to your PersonTokenCreate filter, to control:

Check out our PersonTokenCreate Lava documentation for full details.

Depending on your Security Settings a tokenized link may not be able to be generated for all of your recipients. Out of the box, a person token can't be created for people with an Extreme level Account Protection Profile.

When everything is set up and looks the way you want, click Next to go to the SMS Editor screen. If your communication will be sent by email only, the wizard will skip this screen. The SMS Editor is similar to the Email Editor. This is where you design how your SMS message will appear.

When everything is set up and looks the way you want, click Next to go to the SMS Editor screen. If your communication will be sent by email only, the wizard will skip this screen. The SMS Editor is similar to the Email Editor. This is where you design how your SMS message will appear.

SMS

Click Next  when you are ready to move on. If you're sending the communication via a Push Notification, then you'll see the Push Notification Editor screen instead of the Email and SMS screens described above.

Push Notifications

SMS and Push Templates
Emails aren't the only medium that benefits from a template, SMS and Push Notifications can do it too. Go to Settings > Communication > Communication Templates and press ti ti-plus to create a new template. Fill in the SMS or Push section with relevant details. Next time you send an SMS or Push Notification with your new template, you can skip a few steps.  

With the last of the communication methods configured, click Next to go to the Confirmation screen. This is the last stage in the process before we actually send the communication.

Sending a Communication

This screen will give a snapshot of your communication's final look, when it is getting sent, and who will see it.

After clicking Send, the communication is on its way to your faithful audience, but it doesn't stop there.

Re-Send the Same Communication
Your time is valuable, you don't have to churn out duplicates of the same email. Instead, click the ti ti-copy button from the Communication History page. This will take you back to the beginning of the Communication Wizard, keeping the settings and design options of the original communication.  

Pretty cool, right? With the Communication Wizard, you’re going to be rocking email and SMS messages in no time.

Communication Templates

Communication Templates make it easy to send polished, on-brand messages every time. They help your team stay consistent and efficient—so you can focus on what really matters. Instead of rewriting the same message for the hundredth time, just use a template and give your fingers a break.

As you build your template collection, finding the right one can get tricky. That’s where categories come in. By filtering templates by Category, you can zero in on exactly what you need.

To begin, go to Admin Tools > Settings > Communication Templates, then press the ti ti-circle-plus button to create a new template.

Once you click Save, your template is ready for use.

Organizing and Securing Templates

Categories help you group templates by theme—like General, Children's Ministry or Finance—so it’s easier to find what you need.

If certain templates are especially important, you can restrict access using security settings. From the Communication Template List page, click the ti ti-lock icon to choose who can View, Edit or Administrate each template.

Keep in mind: you'll only see templates you have Edit permission for on your My Settings page.

Using the Communication Template Preview Image
When selecting a template from the Communication Wizard or My Settings, a preview image helps you quickly recognize the template’s purpose. If you're using the Email Builder, Rock will automatically generate a screenshot—no need to upload one manually.