The NETbilling system 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 and to whom 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 the Email Manager under by clicking the Site Tag link and then clicking the "email" link for the specific site for which emails need to be configured, and associating emails with the events that
send them.
If you would prefer not to use the NETbilling supplied emails with your site,
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 Site Tools 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 the 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 be sure to use only the data sources
that make sense 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 Email Manager page by clicking the 'Site Tags' link in the left-hand menu and clicking the "email" link on the right of the page next to the specific site. Both
these resources 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 Site Tags Configuration 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
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