You can setup automated emails to be sent to your students in this cases:
- when invoice is generated
- when a due exists for specified number of days
- when the invoice is paid
- on student’s birthday
- when the students misses a specified number of classes
- when student joins your school.
All these “triggers” can be set if you go to “emails” and select “auto email” on the left menu. Before you set the triggers, you need to have email templates ready to use with those triggers. So, you will need to create a few email templates in “email” section (depending on how many triggers you want to add) with appropriate codes inserted.
Sending email when invoice is created
You can set that an e-mail notification is sent to the student when the system generates invoice for him (manually or automatically). First create an e-mail template. You can use new email codes “{lastinvoice}” – to display generated invoice amount, and “{lastinvoicepaypal}” to create a PayPal payment link for that last invoice. This way your students can pay the invoice via PayPal (you must enable PayPal integration in settings) directly by clicking the link that they receive in e-mail. If you have automatic invoice generation feature on (read more here), the emails are sent immediately after the invoice is generated by the system. If you don’t generate invoices automatically, the emails are sent after you generate them by clicking the “generate invoices” button in “invoices” page. After your template is ready, you go to “auto email” page and setup the trigger. You select “On invoice created” trigger and the template you created. You can track the sent emails in “sent” page or in history in “emails” page. They will marked with “[auto]” in the subject – meaning they ware generated and sent by the trigger you have set.
Sending due notifications automatically
If you want to warn your students about a due they have, you can set the “On invoice due” trigger. You will need to prepare a template probably with “{tdue}” code to display the total due amount. This trigger requires an extra parameter – the number of days due – meaning, after how many days (X), counting from last unpaid invoice date, you want to send the email. This trigger will not only send one email after X number of days, but will continue to send again after next X number of days if the due still exists.
Sending payment confirmations to your students
If you want to send payment confirmations after your student pays the invoice, you can use the “On invoice paid” trigger. To display the amount paid, in email template, you can use new code: “{payment}”. The email will be sent immediately after you add payment in “invoices”, or, if you use PayPal integration, when your student pays you via PayPal. If the payment is not automatically resolved, the email will be sent after you resolve the payment in “PayPal IPN” page.
Sending happy birthday messages
The system can send happy birthday email on student’s birthday. Use the “On birthday” trigger, be sure to create a nice colorful template, and you’l never forget a student birthday again 🙂
Send “we miss you” email
When a student misses a certain number of classes you may want to remind him via e-mail. Use “On missed class” trigger and specify that number of classes. For example, if you want to remind your students after each 5 missed classes (in a row), you set this parameter to 5.
Send welcome emails
The “on join” trigger is semiautomatic trigger – meaning, the emails will not be sent by the system, but only when you click the “send on join email” link that will become visible in student details page if you add this trigger. This way you can send the “welcome” email only by one click, without leaving the student details page. Find the “send on join email” near the “save” button. The “welcome” email can contain fields like {uid} and {password} to inform your students where and how he can login to students area.
Send membership expiration notices
You can use “on membership expiration” trigger to send emails when someones’ membership is about to expire or has previously expired. When using this trigger you need to set the number of days before or after the expiration date on which you want to send emails. For example, if you want to send email two days before expiration date set -2 as the number of days. If you want to send an email on that exact day when membership will expire, set zero. Or, if you want to send email 3 days after the expiration date, set the number to 3. You can have more then one “on membership expiration” triggers, so you can send emails before it expires, when it expired and after expiration. The system will use the “unsubscription date” field from members profiles when deciding if the email should be sent or not. So make sure you update this field when your members update their membership. On dashboard you will also have a “subscription expiring” reminder where you can monitor which members subscription will expire soon or has expired.
Send text messages (SMS)
You can also use our SMS sending feature to text your students. This is provided in collaboration with Clickatell or BulkSMS, leading text messaging gateways. Click SMS in your account to learn how to integrate.