Overview
It is always recommended to review your email notifications prior to launch.
Please note that if you are also doing a migration that email notifications may be temporarily turned off to avoid emails inadvertently going out to members and directing them to the new forum accidentally.
Please test your email notifications using your staging site. If you have not yet received access to your staging site, contact your CSM.
A note on subcommunities:
If your forum uses subcommunities, the branding (logo, colours) will remain the same for all subcommunities. The exception to this rule is if your subcommunities are separated by language. If so, the notification will be sent in the language that incurs the action.
For example:
If Valérie is in the French subcommunity of my site, with her language set to French, and she comments on my English post, writes on my wall, @ mentions me (assuming that I would receive notifications for these actions), I will receive the notification in French.
The Look & Feel
Email notifications can be sent as plain text however branded email notifications are recommended as they look more inviting and professional. By enabling HTML Emails, you can upload your logo and choose branded colours for your text, button and background.
An email without HTML (as seen in Gmail)
An email with HTML enabled
You will enable HTML emails in your Dashboard from Settings > Email and toggle on the following;
You can add a logo as a banner, customize text colour, background colour, etc.
Outgoing Email Address
You will find your default outgoing email address under the Technical Settings section further down the left hand sidebar of your Dashboard. Technical > Outgoing Email.
Here you can update who the notifications will be sent from - this will default to the account owner however we recommend updating this to a general Name and Email address like My Community Name and info@mycompany.com. You can choose to use a noreply email address or one that can receive responses, that is up to you!
Default Email Notifications
The following email notifications are enabled by default however you can choose to customize which notifications will be enabled for all users in your community. Simply communicate this to your CSM.
Note: The notifications available will depend on the addons/plugins you have enabled. For example; if you have enabled the Badges plugin, you will see additional notification options like “Notify me when I am awarded a badge.”
Turned ON by Default
- Notify me when people comment on my bookmarked discussions.
- Notify me of private messages.
- Notify me when people answer my question. *requires the Q&A plugin.
- Notify me when people accept my answer. *requires the Q&A plugin.
- Notify me when my rank changes. *requires the Ranks plugin.
Turned OFF by Default
- Notify me when people write on my wall.
- Notify me when people reply to my wall comments.
- Notify me when anyone applies for membership *requires permissions to approve members when Registration is set to Approval. Normally restricted to Admins/Mods.
- Notify me when my ideas’ status change. *requires the Ideation plugin.
- Notify me when the status changes on an idea I’ve voted on. *requires the Ideation plugin.
- Notify me when I earn a badge. *requires the Badges plugin.
- Notify me when a badge is requested *requires permission to award badges + Badges plugin.
- Notify me when people comment on my discussions.
- Notify me when people mention me.
- Notify me when people comment on discussions I’ve participated in.
Users will be able to edit these permissions via their profile.
Updating your Notification Preferences
Please note that screenshots and directions below are from a desktop view of a simple Keystone themed forum. Please consult your CSM for any clarifications.
1. Select Edit Profile from the user menu.
2. Select Notification Preferences from the preferences on the left side of window.
3. Once you've applied your preferences be sure to Save Preferences on the bottom of the screen.
Verbiage
It is important to review the email notifications verbiage to ensure that there are no surprises prior to your launch. While elements are hardcoded and cannot be changed, some strings can be updated. Details of what can and cannot be updated is detailed below. If you are unsure whether something can be updated, please contact your CSM.
Notification Emails
Notification emails are largely hardcoded, but there are a few elements that can be customized:
- Adding the full body of the Comment or Discussion in the email notifications.
- Adding a prefix (i.e. a string of text) that would appear before the hard-coded notification.
- Updating the email subject line to include the category name.
- Updates to certain strings; such as Check It Out.
For example, by default the CTA (Call to Action) in the notification email reads ‘Check it out.
If this is not in keeping with your branding, you could update this to be more formal or fun!
Note: Please see Appendix for full list of default verbiage.
Welcome Emails
The type of Welcome email that your users will receive depends on how they register to your community (Basic, Approval, Connect/SSO), and if your community requires email confirmation.
Note: If you are using an SSO plugin, users will not receive a Welcome email by default, however this can be enabled by your CSM upon request.
It is recommended to create a test user to test out the Welcome email and ensure it is to your liking.
Regardless of your method of registration, the Welcome email can be customized to say whatever you would like. Many of our customers use this as an opportunity to welcome users to the community and point them towards interesting discussions and features in the forum to help get them acclimated.
If you would like for your Welcome email to be customized, simply provide your CSM with a copy of what you would like it to read. This can be provided with basic HTML such as links, images, lists and bold or plain text.
Any changes to font, font size or some specific customizations may only be available via custom work. Contact your CSM for more info.
Deliverability
Ensuring that email notifications are received is paramount to everything else.
Emails are sent via a 3rd party transactional email service (SendGrid) that employs a full time postmaster and ensures that their sending IP addresses are always in good standing with ISPs.
If notifications are not getting through your corporate email server, add “include:sendgrid.net” to the domain SPF record.
Read full article on Deliverability and Whitelabelling
Appendix - Default Verbiage
For each email notification, by default the subject will be [Forum Name] as set in your branding settings + the first line of the body of the email. The Forum Name will also appear at the head of the email, if you have HTML emails enabled, your logo will appear.
Notifications
- Notify me when people comment on my discussions
- Notify me when people comment on discussions I’ve participated in
- Notify me when people comment on my bookmarked discussion
{username} commented on {discussion name} .
Excerpt of the post
Check it out: {forum link}
Note: Changes made to this string will apply to all the above notifications.
- Notify me when people mention me
{username} mentioned you in {discussion name}
Excerpt of the post
Check it out: {forum link}
- Notify me when someone writes on my wall
{username} posted on your wall.
{wall comment}
Check it out: {forum link}
- Notify me when I earn a badge
{Your username} earned the {badge name} badge.
{badge description}
Check it out: {forum link}
- Notify me when my rank changes.
Congratulations! You've been promoted to {rank name}.
Check it out. {forum link}
Welcome Email
Welcome Aboard!
Hello {username}! You have successfully registered for an account at {Forum Name}. Find your account information below.
Username: {username}
Email: {email}
When Confirm Email is enabled, the confirmation text is added as a suffix;
You need to confirm your email address before you can continue.
Confirm My Email Address: {confirm email link}
Reset Password: Sent when users request to reset their password
We’ve received a request to change your password at {Forum Name}. If you didn’t make this request, please ignore this email.
Change My Password: {Reset Link}
Membership Approval: When using the Approval Registration Method, users will receive the following email when a moderator has approved them for membership
Hello {username}
You have been approved for membership.
Sign In Now: {Sign in link}
Invitation: When using the Invite Registration Method, users will receive this email when they are invited to join the community
Hello!
{username} has invited you to join {Forum Name}.
Join this Community Now: {forum link}
