Deep Dive – Success Email Receipt
When your Store has a Success Email template selected, a success email is generated for each successful transaction made through the public storefront. These transactions will most often be successful event registrations but, in the case of a merchandise store, can also be as the result of a standalone merchandise purchase. The email is only triggered when the transaction has been completed and the cart approved (normally after a successful card payment).
Note that an email is always sent for each transaction. If you do not select a template then default text is used (see below) but the email is still sent.
To check what (if any) email receipt template your store is using, go to Store Dashboard (ensure you have the correct store open by checking and selecting the store on the sub-header) -> Responses (tab) -> Email Confirmation.
How to check & select your default email template:
The exact details of the receipt email are as follows:
- SENDER: system@director.nz
This email address is always used for all communications originating from the Director system to ensure the highest possible level of deliverability. Our email address and domain mail server is not used for any other purpose which helps minimise potential spam reports or other abuse complaints which may reduce deliverability. If you want your entrants to be sure to always receive system generated receipts, ask them to add this email address to their “safe sender” list - RECIPIENT: cart owner email
The email receipt is sent to the cart “owner”. In the case of registration transactions, the cart owner is the person registered first within the transaction. It is important to note that receipts are NOT sent to any other registrants on the cart, only the owner/first one. - ORG RECIPIENT: as specified
The event organiser can receive an exact copy of each email receipt by entering an email address in the “Notification Email Address” field in Store Dashboard. Note that this email is sent seperately from the recipient above so the organisers email address will not be disclosed to the original recipient. - SUBJECT LINE: Transaction Confirmation // <store name>
The subject line of the email is made up of the bulletplate text “Transaction Confirmation // ” with the name of the store appended to it. This is not user configurable. - MESSAGE BODY: Your Template OR Default Text
The body of the email message can either be your own custom email template – which is selected per the instructions in the pull quote above – or, if no template is selected, Director will provide the following default message body:
Your transaction was successful. You can view all the information relating to your transaction on the success page:
<Success Page Hyperlink>
Default Email Body (where no template selected)
Custom Email Template
Your custom email receipt template can be any valid HTML document you have created on Director. You can create a document from scratch using the HTML Document Editor on the system, however most users will find it easier to take an existing document and copy/paste it into the editor and modify as needed.
Important! As with any HTML formatted document in the system, the WYSIWIG editor can help you with formatting but – for the best results – a firm grasp of HTML and web design skills will serve you well here.
When creating the HTML format body of the email receipt, Director takes the contents of the HTML template and does a number of string replacements. These effectively work like a “mail merge” to give you the ability to echo specific details from the transaction into the body of the email. These fields can be used anywhere in the HTML which means they can be used to generate personalised links (such as a button which links to the e-receipt or individual e-tickets).
Standard Merge Fields
These fields can be used anywhere in the email template to echo information directly into the text of the email …
- {{CartId}} : unique identifier for the cart
- {{StoreId}} : unique identifier for the store (can be useful in linking to the store header image)
- {{StoreName}} : name of the store in which the transaction was completed
- {{PersonFirstName}} : the first name of the cart owner (for registration carts, this is the first registration added to the cart)
- {{InvoiceDate}} : the local date on which the transaction was completed (in the format dd MMMM yyyy)
- {{CartTotal}} : total value of the cart in the format $#.## (e.g. $55.00)
URL Merge Fields
These fields can be displayed as plain text but are most often used within the HTML in an anchor <a> tag. For example, to create a hyperlink to the e-receipt, you could have the following in the message HTML
<a href=”{{EreceiptPdfUrl}}”>Download Your e-receipt</a>
- {{EreceiptPdfUrl}} : a link to the PDF e-receipt for this transaction
- {{SuccessUrl}} : a link to the Director success page (the page shown after the successful completion of a transaction). This page always contains links to the e-receipt and e-tickets for any registrations in the transaction
- {{PublicUrl}} : the URL of your public facing dashboard (where competitors can log in to their account). Most often this will be something like https://my.organiser.co.nz.
Cart Item Repeater Merge Fields
The Cart Item repeater section of Director’s merge fields functionality provides a way for you to echo details from each individual line item within a cart onto the receipt email. This means you can, for instance, show the full contents of the cart with each item purchased, quantity, line total and final amount. Tidy!
Important! This functionality also has a built-in, pre-formatted registration text and link to e-ticket. This is useful because this text will only appear on the Registration line item and not on any associated merchandise line items (try it, you’ll see what we mean!). See {{ItemType}} below for more information.
The cart item repeater works by enclosing a particular segment of HTML between a starting and ending tag, so that Director knows where to place the line items. The boundary tags are:
- <foreach_cartitem> : this is the start of the area to be repeated
- </foreach_cartitem> : this is the end of the area to be repeated
All of the HTML between these two tags will be repeated for each item in the cart. Typically, you will have a table row (<tr> … </tr>) or list item (<li> … </li>) between these tags and within your table row or line item, you will embed some of the repeater merge fields. The available fields are:
- {{ItemType}} : The product type of this item in the cart. This can be one of Registration, Merchandise, Admin, Freight. Where the product type is Registration, Director appends a pre-defined string to the merge field. So, instead of just getting “Registration”, you will get “Registration for [Registration Full Name] | e-ticket”. The word “e-ticket” will be hyperlinked directly to the PDF e-ticket for that registration.
- {{ItemDescription}} : The line item description as shown on the e-receipt
- {{ItemAmount}} : The amount paid for this line item (which is inclusive of quantity and any discounts)
- {{EticketPdfUrl}}: An alternative tag for linking directly to the e-ticket
An example of a repeater area to display the cart contents in a table is shown below:
<table>
<tr>
<td>Type</td>
<td>Description</td>
<td align=right>Amount</td>
</tr>
<foreach_cartitem>
<tr>
<td>{{ItemType}}</td>
<td>{{ItemDescription}}</td>
<td align=right>{{ItemAmount}}</td>
</tr>
</foreach_cartitem>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td align=right>{{CartTotal}}</td>
</tr>
</table>
Important! It pays to understand the differences between “normal” HTML documents – which are intended to be viewed through a web browser – and HTML emails. There are a great many restrictions and difficulties in producing HTML formatted emails which will work well in all scenarios – particularly Outlook and Gmail. For the best results, start with an off-the-shelf HTML format email template which is then modified to your needs by someone with HTML expertise.