How to improve an email notification

  • 18 July 2018
  • 8 replies
  • 1022 views

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Some functionality has changed: You can now find an overview of all your notification emails in a dedicated setting under Email - System Emails.

Just like any text which is visible in your community can be changed via what we call a "phrase", you can also adjust the emails via our "phrases tool".

Should you not be familiar with phrases at all: A phrase is basically the universal label for a piece of text. If you know the phrase, you can use it to tell your community what to display e.g. in a button. If you want to read more about this, then have a look here.

As the notification emails are not visible within the front-end of your community, you cannot simply activate the phrase tool and change it by clicking on it. You will need to do this via the control environment.

 

Tip: To prevent any issues, we recommend to use your staging environment for a first try. Not sure where to find it? Ask our support team and we will give you access.


Let''s go through the different steps in detail:

1. Determine which email needs to be changed

Should you not be able to tell which phrase to search for, then you can find a list of all the emails which your community sends below, including the corresponding phrase.

Account activation email
Module: forum.mail.useractivation
Key: body

⚠
This notification will not be used if you are using an SSO login (so a login via your own company environment). Then the user will not receive an activation email.

Account activated email
Module: forum.mail.useractivated
Key: body

New reply
Module: Mail
Key: post_create

New topic
Module: Mail
Key: topic_create

Question has been marked as answered
Module: Mail
Key: topic_answered

Mention
Module: Mail
Key: mail.user.mentioned.body

Private message
Module: Mail
Key: pm_create

Password reset email
Module: Mail
Key: passwordlink

Reported post
Module: Mail
Key: post_report


2. Locate the phrase

Once you know which phrase you would like to change, go to the control environment of your community, and go to [Settings] - [Phrases]. You will see an overview of the phrases which have been activated/changed on your community. Go to the search bar in the top right and type in the Module name of the phrase which you would like to edit (most of the times you can simply search for "Mail"). You will now see the email popping up:

 

fac6d918-cc6f-4a35-8fed-6723714bd906.png


3. Extract the HTML code and add it to a HTML editor

Now simply click on "Edit" and copy the code to your clipboard (the code will be displayed in the small box on the bottom left). To perform changes to it, you will need to add it to an HTML editor.

There are several ones out there which are for free and let you do the changes rather easily, one that we can recommend is htmlg. On the left side you will see the preview, on the right side you will have to add the raw HTML code that you have copied in the previous step:

 

fd525040-0fc7-4714-a372-946d4361b978.png


Now change what you would like to see changed in the left window, the website will automatically adjust the HTML code for you!

4. Minify the code

Once you have done all the changes, you should minify the code. This basically means that the HTML code is being reviewed and shortened by a tool, so that it is not too "heavy", which could cause issues.

To minify the code you can visit websites like Minify code: paste it into the box, click on "Minify" and then copy the improved code afterwards.

5. Add the minified code

Now the only thing you need to do is to paste the code back to the phrase, and save it. Done! ? Your email should be looking much better now!

Please don''t forget to test the email once you have updated it, to make sure that there are no issues.

Do you have questions or issues around updating your notification mails? Let us know in the comments!

 

Important: Each notification supports different “variables”, e.g. to automatically include the username or the url. Make sure to not mix up the variables between notifications. The topic below includes a document with all templates and variables we currently support.

 

 

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8 replies

Hi @inSided CSM , could you send me a printscreen were i can find:

go to undefinedeneral settings] - undefinedhrases]




Thanks!
Userlevel 2
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Hey Tanja,



strange, guess something went wrong while copy/pasting the topic...



It's in control, under "General" - "Phrases":





I will fix this in the post now.



Note: If I remember correct, then you need to have Admin level to see this option. ;)



Cheers,



Julian
aah, thats why i dind't had the option.



i have changed the settings of my account from admin to community manager...

I use my account for sending automated private messages wen mij users rise in ranks.. This is not possible with an admin account..🤔
Userlevel 2
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I use my account for sending automated private messages wen mij users rise in ranks.. This is nog possible with an admin account..🤔



yeah, I have noted this as well... Already had a chat about this with my colleagues to get this changed (because I have the same "challenge" here), thanks for bringing this back to my mind. Will chase them again about it. 😉
The first thing in our email templates is an image link, and I imagine others here have a similar setup. As such, I noticed the email preview showed the image URL instead of something useful. I did some searching and found a clever way to specify the email preview text. Seems to have worked for me!



Here's how: https://litmus.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-preview-text-support



Edit:

I tried to put the snippet here using the code tag but the forum ate it. 😐
Userlevel 2
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Hey Drew,



thanks a lot for sharing, I did not know that this was possible! I hope that this will also help others out there trying to get the best out of their notifications.



And yes, the community interprets the "<" as part of (incomplete or incorrect) code and thus "hides" it... However we are looking into ways to improve that in the future.



Cheers,



Julian
Hey @Julian ,



When creating new versions of your email templates, do you have any suggestions on how to best test these emails?



I know you mention the test environment above, but do you have any steer on the actual process for testing them? Is it just a case of doing each of the actions in the test environment, or is there an option to send 'test' emails for each of the phrases?



Thanks,

Ed
Userlevel 2
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Hey Ed,



very good question! I often have to test these when we are building new communities...



We do not have an option to trigger notifications without an action by a user. But you can test these emails within minutes by fake activity, it's really simple. I have written out all necessary steps below, follow them for a quick test of all notifications.



General tips:


  • If you are not keen to do everything in the staging environment, then you can even test it on production. I usually do that in a hidden area on the community, so that testing activity remains hidden from regular users.
  • Use two accounts: one (fresh, unregistered) account for the front-end and another account which you are logged in with in your control environment. Then you can easily test notifications by having these two accounts interact with each other.
  • Check out this topic for an overview of all regular notifications, I now have added examples of notification emails from our own community.

Here the steps I take:



1. Activation email (confirming email address to activate account)



Communities which are using SSO-login (so a login via the company website/account) can ignore the first step. This email will only end up in your inbox when you are using our standard (inSided) login...



Use an email address that is not registered yet. You can also (temporarily) change the email address in your own account, so that you can register again. Just remember to revert these changes once you are done with testing.



After registering your email address, you will receive the email which asks you to activate your account.



2. Account activated email (confirmation of activation)



Tip: If you are using the SSO-login method, or if you already have a second account, then you can also set the primary role of your account to "Awaiting email confirmation". If you then go to the homepage, you will see a prompt where you can trigger this email to be send again. Just don't do that with your primary account, because then you are not a Moderator any more and it will kick you out of the control environment.



After performing the steps above, or after clicking on the activation link in the email, you automatically will receive the "account activated" email.



3. "New topic" notification



If you are using a hidden forum to test, give access rights for your test account. Then visit the hidden subcategory with your test account and click the "subscribe" button in the top right corner.



Then proceed in the control environment with the other account. Create a question in the subcategory. This should trigger the "new topic" notification.



4. "New reply" & "@ mention" notification



Now open this topic with your test account, and post a reply. Then go to the control environment and reply in this topic as well. Include a @-mention of the test account. The test account will then receive two notifications, one for a new reply and one for the mention.



5. "Topic answered" notification



Open the topic again via the test-account, otherwise this notification will not be send. After you have done that, go to the control environment and mark a reply to the question as the answer.



This should trigger the notification that the topic has been answered.



6. "Private message" notification



Again in the control environment, click on the "private message" button in the topic to send a private message to the test account. This will trigger the notification.



And with this you have tested all notification emails that customers will see. There is a last notification (about reported posts) which I have not covered here. If you want to test this as well, just click on the options in a topic and click on "Flag". If you send the report it will automatically send a notification to all email addresses that are listed under "Email alert" in the control environment.



Hope that this helps. If you have questions, just let me know!



Cheers,



Julian

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