It's all about building things in Salesforce. Salesforce has multiple builders introduced after the era of Lightning. There is a builder for creating a Process(Process Builder), a builder for creating apps in lightning (Lightning App Builder), a builder for creating a Report or a Dashboard (Report and Dashboard builder), a builder for creating communities(Community Builder) and to build automated process using flows(Lightning Flow builder) and the list goes on.

What's the new Builder?

Every builder serves for a functionality to ease the way to build things in Salesforce. Mostly it's a drag and drop process where the components are dragged and placed on the page. The new builder that was introduced by Salesforce in the Winter'21 release is the Email Template Builder. It is a new way to enrich email templates with more content that is more engaging to the customers. 

Email Template Builder Layout

Why Email Template Builder?

Email templates are of two types in Salesforce. You have the classic email templates which are used in Salesforce classic and then you have the Lightning email templates introduced for lightning experience. Both classic and the lightning email templates were created with content along with merge fields including text, custom HTML, and visual force pages. Salesforce wants to bring all these components together in one builder and side by side refresh the look of how emails were created in Lightning Experience.

How do I get started?

To get started with creating new email templates using the Email Template Builder you need to enable a system permission 'Access Drag-and-Drop Content Builder' in your user profile or permission set. 

Access drag-and-drop content builder Permission

Once you have this system permission enabled you can search for the Email templates in the App launcher, fill out the details to create a new email template, and click Save. You will get a new button on the record detail of the page 'Edit with Builder'. Clicking on this will take you to the new Email Template Builder.

Features of Email Template Builder

• Drag and drop components into the email template which include button, HTML, image, rich text, and rows.
• Images can be added using the Image URL directly or from Salesforce files.
• Merge picker fields are supported in the Email template builder.
• You can specify the number of columns using the Row component.
• HTML content can be added to style and format the Email template as per your taste but there is a character limit of 10k for each HTML property you add.
• Only 250 components can be added to one email template.

Limitations of Email Template Builder

• Email Template Builder is not available for previously built Email templates in Classic and Lightning.
• Internet Explorer 11 is not supported while using the Email template builder.
• No API support to integrate with the HTML.
• .SVG image type is not supported by the Image component of the Email template builder.
• Image size can be up to 25 MB.