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Automated and Manual Emails

Cobot automates essential emails and gives you freedom to send manual emails to your members, guests and visitors.

Amanda avatar
Written by Amanda
Updated over 2 months ago

Keeping your members informed is crucial to keeping your space running. Cobot makes this easy with Automated Emails, Email Templates and Manual Email functions.

You can also use Cobot to email your members directly about things like holiday hours or new events.


Automated Emails

Cobot has automated the most common transactional emails to help alleviate the workload surrounding critical actions such as membership confirmation, invoicing, and more.

Available Templates

Edit and customize the following templates under Customize » Emails.

ALL AUTOMATED EMAILS CAN BE DEACTIVATED

by unchecking the 'Send this Email' box at the bottom of each template.

Type

Template Name

Description

Automated

Membership Welcome Email

Sent after a new member signs up and doesn't require admin confirmation.

Automated

Unconfirmed Membership Welcome Email

Sent if a new member signs up but needs admin confirmation.

Automated

Sent to member after admin confirms them, or if they have signed up successfully.

Automated

Membership Cancellation

Sent to member when their membership is canceled.

Automated unless deactivated

Sent to member whenever a new invoice for them is generated.

To deactivate, go to Setup » Invoice Settings » uncheck "Send members' invoices by email".

Automated

Sent to member after an automated invoice payment has failed once or twice.

Automated

Sent to member after an automated invoice payment has failed three times (we stop trying after that).

Automated

Membership Payment Pending Authentication

Sent to member when membership payment is pending authentication.

Automated once activated

Birthday Notification

Sent to your member on their birthday.

Only sent if the corresponding feature switch (under Customize » Features » Other) has been activated.

Automated unless deactivated

Comment on Help Desk Issue

Sent to admins when a member leaves a comment on the help desk unless Email notification is deactivated in individual admin settings (under Setup » Administrators).

Manual

Connect Membership to User Account

Sent when admin manually invites a member to connect to their member portal.

Automated

Sent to the member when an admin updates their Community Profile.

Automated

Sent to the member when an admin publishes their Community Profile.

Automated

Community Profile Set to Private

Sent to the member when an admin sets their Community Profile to private.

Manual

Payment Reminders

Option to send an email to individual members when a payment is late on an invoice.

Only visible when "Mark invoice as late x days after charge date" is activated in the Invoice Settings.

Manual

Second Payment Reminder

Option to send an additional email as a second payment reminder.

Manual

Third Payment Reminder

Option to send an additional email as a third payment reminder.

Automated

Sent to the visitor when they make a new booking via the Public Visitor Portal.

Automated after feature activated

New Pending External Booking

Sent when a new external booking is made.

Only sent when "Approval required for visitors" is activated in the Resource settings.

Automated after feature activated

External Booking Approved

Sent when an admin approves an External Booking.

Only sent when "Approval required for visitors" has been activated in the Resource settings.

Automated

Cancel External Booking Confirmation

Sent to the visitor when a cancellation of their booking has been requested by themselves or 3rd party.

Automated

External Booking Canceled by Admin

Sent to the visitor when their External Booking has been canceled by an admin.

Automated

(External) Booking Changed by Admin

Sent to the visitor if an admin changes their External Booking.

Automated

External Booking Canceled by Visitor

Sent to the visitor after they cancel their external booking.

Automated

(External) Booking Reminder

Sent to the visitor 24 hours before their booking takes place.

Automated

Drop-in Pass Purchased

Sent when a visitor purchases a drop-in pass from your products.

Automated

Event Ticket Purchased

Sent to visitors when they register and purchase a ticket for an event via your Event Calendar.

Editing Templates

Your Cobot email templates are already formatted with all the basic information your members and guests need. You can easily edit them to add your own flare and additional information like how to reach your space and what to expect once they arrive. Head over to Customize » Emails to get started.

IMPORTANT NOTES BEFORE YOU EDIT

Each template pulls key information from Cobot with simple ”short-code” programming. Words surrounded by {{curly braces}} are replaced with data from Cobot and the specific member profile.

You will see a list of which short-codes will work in each email template below each box.

For example:

  • The placeholder {{first_name}} will be automatically replaced with the first name of the member receiving this email. If you delete these short-codes, then Cobot will not pull this data.

Text surrounded by {{#condition}}like this{{/condition}} is only displayed if the condition is true. {{^condition}}don’t show this{{/condition}} does the opposite.

  • Example 1:
    The invoice number is {{number}} results in: The invoice number is 123.

  • Example 2:
    The invoice {{#paid}}has been paid{{/paid}}{{^paid}}has not been paid{{/paid}} results in The invoice has been paid if paid is true; otherwise, The invoice has not been paid.

Now that we have that covered, let’s talk about how you can make your emails sound more like you. Once you are in your template, add any additional information you might want to share.

PRO TIP

Keep your templates neutral as these are going to everyone who is set to receive that specific email. It is not possible to make different emails per plan type, for example. To share specific plan information with your members, include that in your plan settings.

You can further customize your emails by making your text bold, italicized or underlined. You can make Headings, add quotations and also add hyperlinks to easily direct members and guests to your website or other web based docs.

Just highlight any word and choose from the pop up menu.

IMPORTANT NOTE: SAVE YOUR WORK!!

Once you have created your super cool and engaging emails, scroll down to the bottom of the template page and hit save. If you fail to do this, your changes will be lost.

Membership Renewal Reminder Emails

Cobot has a free add-on that allows you to set up reminder emails for your members. These automated emails are sent a set number of days prior to the invoicing billing date to remind your members of their upcoming charges.

Check out this guide for more details.


Free-Form Emails

In addition to your automated emails, Cobot has an email feature, built for short, transactional emails. These could be emails written for a specific person or group of people on a non-recurring basis.

Cobot is not meant for Newsletters or longer format emails. We suggest using our Mailchimp or Zapier integrations to set these up.

What is allowed

What is not allowed

  • Personalized welcome emails & Notifications
    e.g. for mail/package delivery, guests, billing adjustments, etc.

  • Newsletters

  • Cobot-related communication
    e.g. plan updates, changing prices of resources, etc.

  • Marketing emails sent to many people at once

Sending Emails to Members

Regardless of how you send messages, Cobot will email your member directly to the email address they have on file (usually the one they signed up with), and post the message to their activity feed in their member portal.

There are a few ways to send messages to members

Emailing members individually

Go to Manage » Members » Click on member name » Send Message.

You can also see all of the messages sent to this member from here.

Or, go to Manage » Messages » new message and search the member name in the "To" field.

Sending Group Emails

You can send group emails in a few ways:

  1. By sending emails from the 'Messages' tab - use this option when you want to email a general list of members.

  2. By sending emails from the 'Members' tab - use this options when you want to email a specific group of members, such as everyone on a certain plan.

Email groups of members from the 'Messages' tab

Under Manage » Messages » New Message, type in the member names you want to send the group email to in the 'To' field. Click on as many as you like.

If you want to send an email to a specific group of people, like those on a particular plan, scroll down to learn how.

Email groups of members from the 'Members' tab

Easily email a group of members, such as everyone on a specific plan, or everyone in your cancelled member list at once.

  • Go to Manage » Members and type something in the search field. Use search prompts like the name of a plan, company, or confirmation status.

    • Click Bulk Actions » Send Message to List. The number beside the 'Send Message to List' button will adjust based on your filtering.

  • When your email is ready, click the Send Email button!

FUNCTION TIPS AND TRICKS

  • Remove any addresses' you do not want to include by clicking the x next to the member name.

  • Highlight any of your text to see formatting options.

  • All members and admins included in an email will be on bcc. Other members will not see who else has received the email, nor will anyone receive a response except for the original sender/admin.

  • If you see an error message like "Can't send emails to...," it means that Cobot tried to send an email to that address but received an error. After the problem is fixed, we will need to enable the address manually, so please contact support.

  • All emails a member receives will also have that email posted to their activity feed in their member portal. You can see a history of their messages from within their member profile and under Manage » Messages.

Sending Emails to non-members/guests/visitors

Most of the emails that are sent to non-members are tied to one of our super awesome external features. Click on the links below to learn more about the email flow for each:

Whenever a non-member utilizes one of the above features, they are added as a Contact. You can manually email any non-member from your contact list. Just click on their name and then the email address on their contact card.

Click here to read more on how the contact list works.

You can see a history of all messages sent to your non-members under Manage » Messages.


Sending Invoices by Email

Cobot automates the task of invoicing your members for their membership, booked resources, extra time passes, and other types of charges.

It also automates invoicing to your non-members when actions like a booking is made via your External Booking Portal.

Read on to learn more about these features.

Member Invoices

By default, Cobot creates invoices for all of your member charges. These include membership fees, booking charges, time passes and booking extras. Invoices are posted to each individuals member portal for easy access.

Invoices are NOT, however, automatically emailed to your members.

  • To enable this, go to Setup » Invoice Settings » Check the 'Send invoices by email' box » save. Now all members will receive an email with their detailed invoice at the end of their billing periods (it is not possible to turn this on for only some members).

For more on invoice settings and how member invoicing works, check out this guide.

Non-Member/Guest/Visitor Invoices

There are a number of ways your non-members can receive invoices via email. Usually these are automated after a purchase or booking takes place.

Check out this guide for more on how non-member invoice works.


Sending Newsletters

Cobot is not meant for Newsletters or longer format emails. We recommend Mailchimp or a similar service for sending newsletters and other marketing materials. Newsletter apps make sure your emails get delivered, plus they allow you to track the success of your email campaigns.

Check out our Mailchimp add-on under Add-ons » Mailchimp Newsletters. When active, it immediately adds your members to your MailChimp mailing list.

Check out this guide for more details. Or, check out Zapier to connect Cobot to another Newsletter app.


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