The Netbillingsystem automatically sends emails to your customers on your behalf. There are two steps to setting up these automatic emails. You create the emails to be sent (or use the pre-set emails supplied by the Netbilling system), and you must choose when those emails are sent.

Since the system delivers pre-set emails to you automatically, you can skip to choosing which emails are sent when. This is done by visiting WEBSITE EMAILS, and associating emails with the events that send them.  (For more information about WEBSITE EMAILS, click the arrow to the left of  WEBSITE EMAILS in the menu.)

If you would prefer not to use the Netbilling supplied emails in your WEBSITE EMAILS, you can create your own. You can either copy an existing email and edit it, or create your own from scratch. In either case, you begin by going to EMAIL EDITOR in the setup area. Once you have created a new email (or copied one) you can choose to edit it. This will bring up a screen where you can control the contents of the email.

Most of the process of creating your own email requires no special work; it's like typing a normal email. But, if you want to put something in an email that is different for each email (such as the name of your customer) you can't just type that information in, you must instead insert an email field.

Email field are placed in an email where you want information to be pulled from your database to customize the email. For example, if you want the name of your company to appear in the email, you would insert the variable ${COMPANY_NAME} into the email. The email system would then grab whatever you configured as your company name in the Contact Info section of your Netbilling gateway account.

There are four data sources from which the email manager can capture information. Not all data sources are available for all emails, so use only the data sources that make sens for the kind of email you are making.  The four data sources are ACCOUNT, TRANSACTION, SITE, and SUBSCRIPTION/MEMBERSHIP.

For example, if you are creating an email to welcome a new member to your subscription site, it might make sense to use all four data sources.  The user has just paid (TRANSACTION) to be a member (MEMBERSHIP) of your (ACCOUNT) website (SITE).

On the other hand, if you are creating an email to act as a receipt for a product purchase, then ACCOUNT and TRANSACTION information may be appropriate, but MEMBERSHIP and SITE information would not be available.

If you are unsure what data sources to use, copy an existing email, or visit the WEBSITE EMAILS screen.  Both these places can help you to learn which data sources are appropriate for the kind of email you are making.

ACCOUNT

This information is always available to all your emails.

This is the specific information about your Netbilling account that you have entered into various parts of your configuration like your company name, address, and telephone numbers. This information is static and is always available to the email manager.  While you could just type your contact information directly in an email, it is smarter to use these fields so that ALL your emails will automatically be updated if you change your contact information later.

TRANSACTION

This information is only available in emails that are a result of a transaction, such as a transaction receipt or a subscription signup.

This is the information that comes through the system for a given individual transaction. This would include items like the credit card number, the card holder's first and last name, and their billing address among others. This information is specific to a single transaction and once that transaction is finished, the information is no longer available to the email manager.

SITE

This information is only available to emails that are associated with a SITE. This means most transactions can use this information - but in certain places (such as the Virtual Terminal) you can choose to omit the SITE. If you do, this information will not be available.

This is information that comes from your WEBSITE CONFIG screen and includes information such as the site tag, the name of the site, the webmaster's email or the url of the site. This information is static and is always available to the email manager.

MEMBERSHIP

This information is only available to emails that are associated with a Subscription or Membership.

This is information that specific to a membership, but not part of the transaction data.
This would include the username, password, length of membership, and expiration date. This data is pulled from a single membership signup, and then is no longer available to email manager.

Below, we have listed all the information that is available in the different data sources for you to create your own, completely original email. Just remember, that when you create a completely original email template that you choose the data sources that you choose make sense for the email you have chosen. For example, if you are not using the subscription features, avoid the membership fields.

(a) primarily intended for end users
(b) primarily intended for agents

ACCOUNT DATA SOURCES

ACCOUNT FIELDS

TRANSACTION FIELDS

SITE FIELDS

SUBSCRIPTION/MEMBERSHIP FIELDS

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