Couple of things-Disabling emails and historical scheduling

I just noticed that I have a few emails disabled yet they show they will deliver when I go into individual bookings (I'd expect them to show "disabled").

Also, I want to send a follow-up email to everyone 21 days after their stay thanking them for their visit and reminding them of upcoming events in the town where my VR is located. I just came up with this idea and wanted to apply it to all historical bookings. Any simple way to do this besides manually setting it up?

Damon

Hi Damon,

First, thank you for all your continued questions and feedback. We really learn a lot by users like you. You might be surprised how often we reference users by name, and their various questions, in our company meetings.

When you disable the email template, that makes the system not create new scheduled emails based on that template in the future. It does not stop the current ones from going out UNLESS you select the "remove from current bookings" option that shows during confirmation. If you don't select that, all the existing scheduled emails based on that template will still go out.

Disabling the template basically means that the system will do what it normally does in that scenario. So if it's a scheduled template, nothing new will be created. If it's a regular template, the system will use the default system message.

There are a lot more options and rules coming to this area of the system. We're planning on refactoring quite a bit of this to be event driven. So at X Event in the system (booking create, booking paid in full, etc), you can define a number of settings: send system default, send x template, send nothing. Likewise with scheduled ones. Also new types of alerts like SMS.

You can certainly create a scheduled email template that sends emails 21 days after departure. However, when you newly create the template, it will only create scheduled emails for FUTURE bookings and skip over any ones that are past. The reason we've restricted this is because you don't want hundreds (or even thousands) of old bookings getting slammed with a newly created template that you didn't intend for everyone in the past to get.

It sounds like you're looking for a marketing tool to send newsletter type content out. I don't think any of our scheduled sending stuff fits that bill at the moment. I suppose if we allowed you to take a template and do a one-time in-place send to all bookings (or a filtered list of them), that would meet your need. Something to think about.

Hope this helps,

-Michelle

I love your system...it really enables us to run a professional business so you are welcome.

I'm really looking for a way to experiment with templates but no always send them out, and also use as a marketing tool. It is really close. I am concerned about the disable option as when I disable I don't want the particular email to be sent and I don't want to delete the template. Make sense?

Couple of questions...

Are you talking about disabling SCHEDULED templates? Or the REGULAR email templates?

I'm a bit confused on which you don't want sent.

When you disable SCHEDULED templates, they are not sent for any future-created bookings and you have the option of removing them from any already-created bookings. So disabling SCHEDULED templates definitely makes sure that nothing is sent.

Last night there were multiple emails sent out on scheduled emails I had disabled (but in the past they hadn't sent out). Maybe a quick phone call to talk this through?

What is your #? Maybe I can call you to work.

Damon

Hi Damon,

We typically do all support by email/forum, but I'll ask someone to give you a call.

I do see the emails you're talking about and the template that you disabled.

It looks like when you created the template, the "Add to current bookings" was selected, or when you last updated the template, the "Overwrite for current bookings" was selected. When that happened, the system scheduled emails to go out.

Then, when you disabled it, you DEselected the "remove from current bookings" which left all the scheduled emails in place.

-Michelle

OK. Now I'm wondering how to remove these currently disabled emails from going out because I don't want them to go out.

No need for a call if you can outline how to do that.

Sorry for being so dense...the enable/disable functionality is still confusing to me.

Hi Damon,

I didn't see this reply until recently - sorry for the delay.

Any time you click the 'disable' button on the template, the confirmation dialog that pops up will present you with an option to "remove from current bookings". You want to leave that selected. That makes sure that none of your current bookings will get that email.

If you want to clear them later, I believe this will work:

1) Go back to the email template that is disabled
2) Re-enable it but do not select the "add to current bookings" option
3) After it's enabled, click to disable it and DO select the "remove from current bookings"

That should delete any emails that are out there on current bookings for that template.

Hope this helps,

-Michelle

I think that solved my issue. Thanks!