Setting up email notifications for use with gift certificates

---

Plan Availability: X Soho | ✓ Pro | ✓ Plus | ✓ Enterprise | ✓ Flex |
Plan Restriction: Trial accounts can send a total of 10 email to Customers.
Locate: Manage > Integrations > Gift Certificates
Prerequisites: 

• Plan that includes Gift Certificates.
• The Gift Certificates feature is activated within your account (Manage > Integrations).
• Admin permissions or restricted permission to Manage Notifications.
• The Gift Certificates feature is available to both those using items (Inventory > Items), a key feature of our classic version of Checkfront, and those using products (Inventory > Products), a key feature of our newest version of Checkfront.

 

New to Checkfront - Products ✨ Products (Inventory > Products) is the successor feature to (Inventory > Items) and is available in our newest version of Checkfront. Not yet on our newest version and interested in upgrading? Please contact our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

New to Gift Certificates or need to activate Gift Certificates for your account? Be sure to start with the first article in this series: Introduction to gift certificates.

In this article, we walk through setting up the email notification that is sent to the recipient when the gift certificate is purchased including how to customize the message using email variables.

 

---

If you've worked with Checkfront's system Notifications before, then you already have an idea of how this works.

After activating the Gift Certificates Integration, a new notification type becomes available in your account. This notification type is called Gift Certificates (or Giftcert for short).

By default, the system creates a simple email notification that is sent out to the recipient after being purchased by a Customer or issued by Staff. The subject of this notification is Congratulations, you have received a Gift Certificate.

 

To learn more about configuring staff-issued gift certificate notifications, check out the following article: Gift Certificates: Staff Issued via Email

 

---

To edit the default notification, navigate to Notifications (Manage > Notifications) in your Checkfront dashboard. The gift certificate notification is displayed within the list. Simply click on the subject of the notification to enter edit mode.

Once in edit mode, make any changes you need to the default template. You are able to change the email Subject line, specify the Reply To address, add or remove Recipients, select which items or products trigger the notification, and modify the body of the email. 

 

- Adding email variables to your messages

As with all Notifications in Checkfront, you can add or remove email variables to customize the message as per your needs.

When the email is delivered to the recipient, the variable you embed in the body of the email is replaced by the relevant data from Checkfront.

For example, if you include the email variable, {$COMPANY_NAME}, then this is replaced with the name of your company in the email. 

There is a Live Preview option in the right-hand menu from which you can see an example of the email variables in action. Try these out! 

Variable	Description
{$COMPANY_NAME}	Name of your company.
{$CHECKFRONT_URL}	Company's Checkfront URL
{$ACCOUNT_ID}	Name of the staff member or partner who is responsible for initiating the purchase.
{$CREATED_BY}	Who made the purchase - customer, staff, or partner.
{$GIFTCERT_CODE}	Gift certificate code used to make purchases by the recipient.
{$GIFTCERT_TOTAL}	The original value of the gift certificate. Remove this option (and other amount variables) if you want amounts to be hidden from recipients. This can be done in tandem with enabling the Hide amount on PDF setting within the Gift Certificate Template Builder or the Staff-side Issue Gift Certificate option.
{$GIFTCERT_BALANCE}	Remaining balance on the gift certificate. Remove this option (and other amount variables) if you want amounts to be hidden from recipients. This can be done in tandem with enabling the Hide amount on PDF setting within the Gift Certificate Template Builder or the Staff-side Issue Gift Certificate option.
{$GIFTCERT_TO_NAME}	Recipient's name
{$GIFTCERT_FROM_NAME}	Sender's name
{$GIFTCERT_MESSAGE}	Message entered at the time of purchase.
{$GIFTCERT_EXPIRY}	Gift certificate expiry date.

Also, check out our list of general Email Variables here.

You can include as many or as few of these variables as you like, it's totally up to you.

 

Depending on how you wish to use the Gift Certificate feature, you may decide not to send out a recipient email at all. If this is the case, then simply uncheck the This notification is enabled box and click Save.

 

You may also decide that some of the data these variables represent should not be displayed to the recipient. In this case, you can create a second gift certificate notification that does not get sent to the recipient, but to any of your chosen staff members instead.

Create a new notification via the Notifications page (Manage > Notifications). Select Gift Certificates as the Notification Type and then customize the recipient list as per your needs. This "staff only" notification can be sent out in addition to the gift certificate recipient email.

 

---

 

• If a Gift Certificate is purchased for a future date, then when does the notification get sent to the recipient?

  A Gift Certificate purchased for a future date has its notification sent to the recipient between midnight and 1 AM, system time, on the chosen date.

 

 

---

< Working with your gift certificates once created     |     Purchasing gift certificates >

---