Configuring options for email notifications

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Locate: Manage > Notifications > Email > Email Notification
Prerequisites: 

• Admin permissions or restricted permissions to Manage Notifications.
• 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 contact our Technical Support team for more information. Discover more product-related help articles here: Products (New).

 

In this article, we look at each of the Email Notifications options.

New to the Email Notifications feature? Be sure to read the first article in this series for an introduction!

Read the full series of articles, accessed at the side and bottom of this page, to learn more about the full capabilities of the Email Notifications feature.

 

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In the previous article, we introduced you to Email Notifications. Now, let's take a 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 your own custom variables which 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 date of the booking and the booking ID into the email's subject field.  

 

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

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

The field supports up to 100 characters.

 

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

 

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

Notifications are triggered when the status of a booking changes, for example, to PAID or CANCELLED.

 

Learn more about Booking Statuses here: Introduction to booking statuses

 

Inventory Level notifications are the emails 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 wish to 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 emails 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 can be 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 are delivered as soon as the event is triggered with the Deliver Immediately option. 

Do you want to schedule the notification for a later time? Then, select the Scheduled option and choose to send the notification Before booking or After booking. You can then specify the start date, end date, or creation date of the booking accordingly.

 

Scheduled emails are delivered 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, then it is sent at 11 a.m. on the scheduled day. See follow-up emails for Trip Advisor for more information.   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.

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 would like to attach an iCal event request to the notification email.

When the Customer receives the email, they can click on the included iCal link and have the booking added to their personal 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 emails.

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

 

- - HTML Emails

HTML emails allow you to provide rich content in your receipts and notifications.

HTML emails are recommended when embedding an invoice or if you require 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 emails in Checkfront, then include a <body> tag in your notification. You can also include some default styling.

 

- - Text Emails

Text emails cannot contain any formatting elements such as bold, colors, 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) that the Customer has booked.

For example, when a tour booking has been completed and updated to PAID status, you may wish to send out a notification consisting 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 have the ability to 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 actually input the body of your email. You can type whatever you like in here, including email variables (described in the next article). The editor provides the ability to format your text with bolding and italics, etc. using a standard text editor.

 

You can 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, first 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 individual 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, simply 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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