Topol’s Comments feature lets users leave contextual feedback and tasks directly on blocks or sections within the email editor. This turns your template into a workspace where ideas are exchanged and resolved quickly—without leaving the editor or switching to external communication tools.
Why are Comments so useful?
The comments feature was specifically designed to enhance and expedite team collaboration. It is common for a Topol Team to include members responsible for generating ideas, some focused on design, and others on the actual creation of templates. Without the Comments in Template feature, collaboration among these roles could be quite cumbersome.
Imagine a scenario where you have created several structures within a template according to a given design that needs to be reviewed and approved by another team member. First, you must inform that member that your work is complete. However, you also need to specify which structures they need to check and what changes have been made to them. Your colleague must then notify you that they have reviewed them and provide feedback for each one separately. If this doesn't feel complicated enough, imagine multiple people working on the same template and continually introducing changes, with several individuals constantly reviewing the updates and providing feedback. Maintaining such communication via an external chat service must be complete chaos.
The Comments feature is an elegant, easy-to-use, and powerful solution for this situation. Similar to adding comments to a social post, the Comments feature allows all team members to add comments to specific content blocks or entire structures. These comments can serve as simple commentary on changes, tools for voting, or specific tasks that need to be addressed. Let's explore such a workflow in more detail.
How to Use Comments in the Template Feature
Adding comments
Hovering over each content block or structure reveals a variety of control tools, including the Comments feature, which has its icon located in the top right corner.
You can also open the Comments panel by clicking the same icon located in the top right corner of the Editor UI.
There is a difference between these two methods of displaying the Comments panel:
If you open it by clicking the Comments button at the top right corner of the Editor UI, you will see all unresolved comments and be able to select any of them to display the relevant conversation. Initially, this panel will be empty.
If you open it by clicking the Comment icon attached to a specific section or content block, you will jump straight to the conversation regarding the comment made on that section or content block (if it already exists). Here, you can add, view, and interact with all replies made to the original comment. We will discuss these options shortly.
If there is no comment on this section or content block, you can easily add one by typing in the input field and pressing Enter or clicking the yellow arrow.
Please note that you can not add comments to the template, only to specific sections/blocks.
Submitting a comment
Once submit your comment, three things will happen:
All other teammates will see the Comment icon in the top-right corner of this template within the template list. This icon indicates that there is an unresolved comment assigned to this template, and they should check it out.
Upon opening the template, the Comments button in the top-right corner will now be accompanied by a flashing yellow dot, indicating a new, unresolved comment. This dot appears as soon as another team member adds a comment and will remain visible even if you are currently working on the template - there is no need to refresh the page.
All of your teammates will receive an email in their inbox informing them that a new comment has been added to one of the templates.
Reviewing the comment
If your teammate opens the Comments panel, they will see a list of all comments associated with this template. Any new (unread) comment is indicated here by a yellow flashing dot, just like on the Comments button. When you hover over any comment, the structure or content block it is associated with will be highlighted in the Editor.
Each comment includes the following information and options:
Profile picture of the commenter
ID of the commented structure (for internal purposes), which will be temporarily highlighted while hovering over the comment
Name of the commenter
Date of the comment
Content of the comment
Options to reply directly by clicking anywhere on the comment body
The options button for a single comment (1) contains the following:
Mark as read or unread (after interacting with the comment, the yellow dot will disappear; this option can restore it).
Delete the comment and the entire conversation thread associated with it.
Checkmark button (2) does the following:
Mark the comment as resolved, which hides it from the Comments panel. Clicking this button again removes the resolved status.
The options button for the whole Comments panel (3) contains the following options:
Sort by date - all the newest comments will appear at the top of the panel.
Sort by unread - all unread comments will be positioned at the top of the panel.
Show resolved - display all hidden resolved comments or hide them again.
Replying to comment
If you click anywhere on the comment body, it will be automatically labeled as read and will open a conversation to this comment.
In a conversation, you have the following options available:
Upvote or downvote the initial comment or any reply. This feature is ideal for creating a simple opinion survey, as it allows all your team members to interact with it.
Reply to the comment. Like voting, all your teammates can also respond to every comment in a thread. Each response can also be upvoted or downvoted.
When you create and send a reply message, a new conversation thread linked solely to this comment will be generated. All actions that occurred when someone initially posted a new comment (everything described in the section on Submitting a comment) will repeat. To return to the list of all comments and access their conversations, click the arrow at the top-left corner of the conversation panel.
Following the reply threads
If more comments have been made in the meantime, your Comment panel can look like this:
Here, you can see three separate conversations, each concerning a different initial comment. Clicking on each of them will display the entire conversation associated with it, allowing you to review the discussion, upvote or downvote each reply, or create your own response.
Resolving the comment
If the issue has been resolved, anyone can mark the comment as resolved by clicking on the checkmark icon. As soon as you do, the comment will disappear from the Comments panel for everyone. You can later display and access all resolved comments using the "Show resolved" option, as discussed in the "Reviewing the comment" section. They will then appear with a green checkmark icon:
Conclusion
As you can see, Comments is an incredibly helpful feature that enhances team collaboration. We strongly encourage you to use it regularly, as it benefits every team, regardless of its size.
If you feel lost, do not hesitate to reach out to our support team, who will be happy to assist you with this feature and any others.