Configuring options for email notifications

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Learn how to set up email notification options, including how to add the subject, name the notification, select the type, deliver the email, specify the from and to address, choose the recipient, add iCal requests, format the message, choose the items/products it sends for, and add notes and images.

New to Email Notifications? Read the first article in this series for an introduction to the Email Notifications feature.

 

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Where can I find this feature using the top menu?

Manage > Notifications > Email > Email Notification

What prerequisites are there?

• Admin permissions or restricted permissions to Manage Notifications.
  
  

Which Checkfront version supports this feature - classic, new, or both?

• The Email Notifications 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 get in touch with our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

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In the previous article, we introduced you to Email Notifications. Now, let's look at the configurable options available to you. Click on the name of any email notification to access the Email Notification settings page.

 

This is the subject of the email. The field is editable, so you can input a custom subject.

The subject line can include standard system email variables or custom variables you may have created in the field editor.

For example, you may wish to input a subject such as: Booking Receipt For {$BOOKING_DATE} ({$BOOKING_ID}). This automatically inserts the booking date and ID into the email's subject field.  

 

This is an optional, internal name field to assist with the identification of notifications by Staff.

The name is displayed as a column within the Notifications table (Manage > Notifications).

The field supports up to 100 characters.

 

This field lets you choose the type of notification you wish to configure - Booking Status, Inventory Level, or Gift Certificates. 

 

With this option, you configure notifications associated with the booking status. You can create multiple notifications for each status.  

Notifications trigger when the status of booking changes, for example, to PAID or CANCELLED.

 

Learn more about Booking Statuses here: Introduction to booking statuses

 

Inventory Level notifications are the email notifications sent out once your item/product availability reaches a certain level. 

There is no requirement to use such notifications; however, some business owners like to receive a quick heads-up once their items/products are sold out or close to being sold out.

You may also inform your Customers that a tour has reached a certain booking level and is, therefore, going ahead as planned or that an excursion is cancelled if certain participation levels are not reached. These email notifications are a great way to inform those that have already booked of the tour's status.

Once the Inventory Level option is enabled, it allows you to choose Item Quantity Threshold. This is the quantity whereby when an item's/product's available quantity drops below the threshold, a notification is sent out to those included in the Recipient list.

You can create multiple notifications for the same item/product as the inventory drops from one level to the next.

 

The Gift Certificates option creates a notification that is sent to the gift certificate Recipient and/or Staff after purchase.

 

Learn more about Gift Certificates, including setting up notifications, here: Introduction to gift certificates

 

 

 

By default, notifications deliver as soon as the event is triggered with the Deliver Immediately option.

Would you like to schedule the notification for a later time? Then, select the Scheduled option and choose to send the notification for a specified amount of time (hour, day, week, or month) either Before the booking or After the booking. You can then specify the start date, end date, or creation date of the booking accordingly.

 

Email notifications scheduled to be sent days, weeks, or months before or after the booking deliver at the same hour they were created. For instance, if a booking is created at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and the scheduled notification is 2 days before the booking, it is sent at 11 a.m. on the scheduled day.  On some occasions, mail can be delayed due to volume (including unscheduled mail), but generally adheres to the above time frame.

 

A new scheduled notification still applies to and sends for existing bookings if the booking status matches the one set in the notification.

 

Per Hour notifications can only be scheduled to send up to 48 hours before or after a booking takes place. These notifications use midnight of the scheduled date to trigger emails for day and night inventory.

 

Read the following blog post to learn how setting up follow-up email notifications can get you better reviews on Trip Advisor: The Secret to Improving Your Tripadvisor Ranking

 

This is the email address from which your notifications are sent. By default, this is the email address associated with your Checkfront account (Manage > Company > Contact Info > Email Address).

Select Change to set up a custom From address on outbound email via our integration with Postmark.

 

This is the email address that email recipients can reply to if they have questions or comments for your organization. 

This defaults to the Current Reply-To email setup in the Postmark integration if not customized here. This way, each notification can be configured to have a unique Reply-to address if needed.

 

The Recipient setting allows you to determine who receives the email notification.

To send the notifications to the Customer, select Customer.

To deliver the message to your Staff, select one of the available accounts or All Staff to reach everybody with a Staff account.

Check Attributed Partner to send a copy of the message to Partners who have made the bookings.

The notification can be sent to Staff members, Partners, and the Customer at the same time.

 

Learn more about Staff and Partner accounts here: Introduction to Staff accounts Partner Accounts: Introduction

 

Check the Attach an iCal event request to this email box if you want to attach an iCal event request to the notification email.

When Customers receive the email, they can click on the included iCal link and add the booking to their calendar.  

 

The iCal event notification option is only available if the iCal integration (Manage > Integrations) is enabled.

 

You have the option of sending both Text and HTML email.

When both options are provided, the Recipient's mail client determines which format to display based on their preferences.

 

HTML Email

HTML email allows you to provide rich content in your receipts and notifications.

HTML email is recommended when embedding an invoice or requiring special formatting. However, it's recommended that you supply both text and HTML. 

While editing an HTML email, you can switch between text editor and source mode by clicking on the < > button in the toolbar.

If you wish to override the default CSS included with outgoing email in Checkfront, include a <body> tag in your notification. You can also include some default styling.

 

Text Email

Text email cannot contain formatting elements such as bold, colours, or other HTML elements. If your Customer's email client is set to prefer text, then it sees this version.  

 

The Apply To field enables you to create notifications for a specific item(s)/product(s) only. This is particularly handy for businesses that need to send out different information depending on the item(s)/product(s) the Customer has booked.

For example, when a tour booking has been completed and updated to PAID status, you may send out a notification of details on the tour and its meeting location, etc. You may then have a different email for a hotel room booking that has been updated to PAID. You don't need any information about tour meeting places, etc., but rather directions to the hotel and information about the check-in process.

You can select an entire category or click on the arrow to the right of each category to slide out a list of individual items/products (see above). These items/products can then be chosen individually, allowing you to create notifications on a per-item/per-product basis.

 

The Email section is where you input the body of your email. You can type whatever you like here, including email variables (described in the next article). The editor can format your text with bolding and italics, etc. using a standard text editor.

 

You configure both the HTML and plain Text notifications from this section.

Use the tabs at the top to switch between the two views.  

 

When pasting existing text into the text editor, the formatting is carried over in some instances. There are two ways to remedy this: When you copy text from a different document, paste it into an external text editor and then paste this “plain text” into the Checkfront editor. This removes any of the font types or size styles attached. You can remove carried-over text styles from within your current editor by directly editing the HTML as needed from the editor’s < > menu button.

 

The optional Internal Notes field allows Staff to input a short description of the notification, which can be configured to display within the notifications table if needed.

The field supports up to 280 characters.

Internal Notes do not display to the Recipient.

 

When different items/products, with different notifications, are added to the same booking, the Customer receives an email for each item/product rather than one notification containing all the information.

 

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To add images to a notification, you need to host the image elsewhere online and add an <img> tag to the HTML of your email, which points to the address of that hosted image.

The following is an example of how you incorporate images hosted elsewhere (e.g. where your website images are stored). 

1. Access the Notifications area (Manage > Notifications).
2. From the Email tab, click + New Notification or click on the Subject to edit the notification.
3. Next, scroll down to the Email section and select to edit the source code (< >) from the HTML tab.
4. Here you can paste an image tag into your code, which points to where the image is hosted, for example:
   
   <img src="https://cdn-production.checkfront.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/About-header2-720x456.png" alt="Checkfront" style="height: 100px; width:100px;">
   
   
5. Align the image left, right, or center using standard HTML code in the editor.
6. Then, scroll down and Save your changes.
7. You can view a Live Preview of the notification via the left-hand menu option.

 

In the next article, we look at the available email variables and how to use them.

 

 

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< Introduction to email notifications     |     Working with variables in email notifications >

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