IBIS Technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Customise your email templates
• Email design guidelines
• Booking confirmation emails
• Agent confirmation emails
• Itinerary confirmation emails
• Receipt emails
• Pro forma invoice emails
• Reminder emails
• Thank-you emails
• Send different email templates per product 
• Block certain products from sending reminder/thank you emails
• Customise your from email address
• Sent email log report

Customise your email templates

Your system will come pre-loaded with default email templates. If required, you can customise your templates to ensure they will work for different products or brands.

There are many options for additional coding to display certain blocks of text or images depending on which date the booking is for or which product is chosen. E.g. if your summer cruise includes a picnic lunch but your winter cruise includes hot fish & chips; you can use one email confirmation that will display the correct lunch information depending on the date of the booking. Additional configuration fees apply to customise your email template. 

There are  2 options for customising the emails and making them more specific to your brand.

1. IBIS can make the changes for you. Send us a header graphic, images, layout, links to your website and general design of the template. This could be provided in Word. Contact us for a quote for your customisation [email protected]. 
2. Your graphic or web designer could create something more in keeping with your brand guidelines. We will provide the default confirmation email template which can be reformatted to suit your requirements. Your confirmation email must be re-submitted to IBIS as a finished file, including the database merge fields configured as per our template.
   
   Please ensure your designer is aware that designing a confirmation email is not the same as designing a standard HTML web page. Close attention must be paid to the formatting to ensure none of the graphics are stripped or changed when viewed in different email programs. Various email testing programs are available such as Email on Acid (http://emailonacid.com) or Litmus (https://litmus.com) which your designer can use to ensure email formatting will work across various email programs. We also recommend you test sending a confirmation direct from your IBIS system to ensure it works okay.

Email design guidelines

The sky is the limit with respect to customising your templates, but there are some rules we recommend you adhere to:

• Email width - 600px 
• Header graphic height - 150 – 200px
• Image sizes - The image size in pixels is up to you (provided it's not wider than 600) but the minimum recommended resolution is 72 dpi. 
• General email size - up to 102 KB
• Fonts - use a web-safe font

Additional design recommendations: 

• Assume that any images will be blocked by email clients and that users may not see critical information if it’s contained within media elements. 
• Review any links added to your emails, avoiding any websites that might be flagged as spam.
• Make most of your email’s content text, and minimize the amount of HTML you include. Your company branding and maybe a pop of colour can do wonders for engagement, without going overboard.

Booking confirmation emails

Your default booking confirmation template will send automatically when customers book online through your IBIS E-Commerce website. If desired, you can create customised templates to be used when different products are booked. Customised templates can be associated with products in the Online product rules screen.

You can manually send booking confirmations from the Booking and Scheduler booking screens or bulk send booking confirmations from the Departure screen. If you have more than one template configured, users will need to select the template from a list.

The standard fields we display on the default confirmation are listed below:

• Name: booking name
• Reservation Number: book ID
• Activity: product name
• Date: product date
• Time: product time
• Options: a summary of the options the customer has selected in the booking
• Add-ons: a summary of the optional add-ons chosen such as lunch
• Comments: prints the voucher note
• Departing From: pickup location formatted as '{location} at {time}'.  If a pickup note has been configured, this will appear underneath the pickup location.
• Promotion Code: This will only show if there has been a Promotion applied to the booking
  
  

Agent confirmation emails

The standard template for activities/tours booked through booking agents is similar to the booking confirmation however it has the addition of the agent name and voucher number, and all financial details are removed. 

Agent confirmation emails can be sent from the Functions menu on the Booking screen. There is no option to automate the sending of an agent confirmation email and the correct template must be selected (if more than one is available).

Itinerary confirmation emails

You can send an itinerary email that will include details for multiple bookings. An itinerary email can be sent from either the Scheduler booking, Customer tour or Manage tour screens. 

You may choose to send an Itinerary template for bookings made on your IBIS E-Commerce website. If you have product-specific itinerary email templates set up, the template used is based on the first product that is added to the cart. You can change the default customer email style to Itinerary in IBIS Online under the System settings > E-mail notification section. Be aware that ONLY itinerary email templates will be sent for reservations if you make this change so ensure you have your templates set up correctly.

The itinerary email templates have the same merge fields available that are used in the booking confirmation email. 

Receipt emails

Your IBIS system is configured with a default receipt email template. If a gift voucher, admission or event ticket is contained within the transaction, a PDF will be attached to the email containing the relevant voucher/tickets.

You can send receipt emails manually from the Point of sale screen by adding the function button Email/print A4 receipt to your Point of sale menu. The correct template can be chosen before pressing Send. 

For any IBIS E-Commerce sales, these receipts send automatically after a sale is complete. If you operate one or more brands from within your IBIS system and want to ensure you send the correct branded receipt email you will need to ensure the following:

1. Make sure the name of the receipt email starts with the brand name (talk to IBIS to confirm your brand name)
2. When sales are made on a specific IBIS E-Commerce site, the brand associated with that site will be checked and a receipt with the same name searched for
3. If a receipt template is found with the brand name, that template will be sent
4. If no receipt template is found with the brand name, it will send the first receipt template in your list of templates

Pro forma invoice emails

IBIS can send a pro forma invoice from the Booking screen. This is useful if you have agents that prepay by credit card but want an invoice sent prior. It can also be used for agents that prepay directly into your bank account. Our default template has most things you need, but you will probably want to add a banner graphic and customise the text. 

Once you have a proforma email template loaded, you can then send the email directly from the booking screen.

Reminder emails

You can send reminder emails to your clients to notify them of their upcoming booking details in advance by having an email template of type 'ReminderEmail' set up in your system. Several fields in IBIS can be merged into your  template so these emails can be personalised, similar to your booking confirmations:

• Booking Name 
• Booking Number
• Product
• Price options such as Adult & Child
• Check-in time and meeting point 
• Pre-arrival check-in link (if you are using IBIS Check-in)

If you wish to send these emails manually, you must copy the template and create either a 'Booking' or 'Itinerary' template type so you can send from the appropriate screen. 

To automate the sending of reminder emails: 

1. Open the System Settings screen in IBIS Online and go to the E-Commerce Notifications section. 
2. Set the 'Reminder email - send?' setting to True.
3. Specify the 'Reminder email - when to send' format as follows: 24 time | number of days in future.
   • What time would you like the emails sent? If you are based in Australia use AEDT time.
   • The number of days before the departure would you like the emails sent. E.g. 1d or 7d
4. You can also specify the 'Reminder until time before departure' setting to send reminders to any customers who have booked online after the 'when to send' cutoff time setting has already passed (i.e. the customer booked last minute, after the reminders were sent, but before the booking departure date). If this is not set, no reminders will be sent during this window.
5. 
   

If you wish to prevent sending reminder emails for specific accounts, you can untick the send Reminder email setting in the Accounts screen.

Thank-you emails

You can send follow-up 'thank you' emails to your clients to prompt them to follow you on Facebook, complete a survey or rate you on TripAdvisor.

Legal obligations for sending Thank-you emails 

Under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act you must have permission from your clients to send them a follow-up email. This permission cannot be inferred from a single transaction. You must also provide an easy way for your clients to remove themselves from any mailing list. 

We strongly recommend that you incorporate some text into your terms and conditions and any waivers you may have your clients sign to obtain this permission. We also recommend adding the following text into your follow up email:

Please reply to this email with 'Unsubscribe' in the subject line to remove yourself from our mailing list.

The following merge fields are available to customise your thank-you emails:

• Booking Name (the full name in the Name field of the booking)
• Booking Number
• Customer Email (stored in the 6. Address tab or completed on the check-in website)
• Product (the product name the booking was made for)

You can manually send a thank-you email from the Functions menu on the Booking screen. To automate the sending of thank-you emails follow these steps:

1. Open the System Settings screen in IBIS Online. 
2. Under the E-Commerce Notifications tab, set the Thank you email - send setting to either:
   
   • Per booking - sends an email for every active or checked-in booking. Sends the template "BookingThankyouEmail". 
   • Per person - sends an email to all customers on the booking who have completed the IBIS check-in. Sends the template "BookPersonThankyouEmail".
     
3. Specify the thank you email - when to send format as follows: 24 time | no. of days post departure.
   • What time would you like the emails sent? If you are based in Australia use AEDT time.
   • Number of days after departure you would you like the emails sent. E.g. 1d or 7d
4. To prevent sending multiple emails to customers who book regularly or several products at once, specify the number of years, months or days to wait between re-sending in the thank you email silence days field.
5. If you are sending thank-you emails per booking, specify which accounts you want to send thank-you emails for by ticking the 'Send thank you email' settings on the Accounts screen. If this is not ticked, no emails will be sent. Some booking agents don't provide the customer's email address and put their own email address in, therefore you might want to disable sending the bookings from that agent Thank You emails.
   
   

The send thank-you email process is triggered automatically when the first person logs into IBIS for the day. If no one logs into your system, no emails will be sent. 

Send different email templates per product 

If you have different brands in your system or very different products such as spa treatments and pool reservations, you can send different confirmation and thank-you emails for individual products when they are booked online through the IBIS E-Commerce platform.

Make sure every product that is sold online has the appropriate template attached to it or else the system will use the template marked 'default' in your system.  

1. In IBIS Online click Setup> Online Sales > Online Product Rules. 
2. Select the product then click Edit.
3. Enter the name of the template in the appropriate field - Booking confirmation, Thank you, or Agent email. The name must match the template name set up in the Email Templates screen exactly or it will not work.

Block certain products from sending reminder/thank you emails

If you have certain products in your system that you do not wish to send a reminder or thank-you email for, you can now block this product from receiving an email. 

1. In IBIS Online click Setup > Online Sales > Online Product Rules. 
2. Under the 'Thank you email' or 'Reminder email' setting add the words no-email instead of adding a template name.
3. Save your changes.

Customise your from email address

Confirmation emails are sent via the IBIS server and as such, the default address used is '[email protected]' to prevent spamming. If you prefer that your company email address be used instead of the default 'no reply' option, you must provide IBIS with a legitimate email address to use as the 'reply to' so emails coming from our mail server using a different domain name aren't treated as spam. You will need to update your records with your Domain provider. If you wish to know more about why these changes need to be made, please visit the SMTP2GO website.

Your own domain name instructions:

If you want to use your own domain name ([email protected]) in the FROM email address field, you will need to open up your DNS provider's interface and add the CNAME records listed below to the DNS zone of yourdomain.co.nz. Please inform IBIS support to advise you are doing this and we will add your domain name to our SMTP2Go configuration.

Sent email log report

IBIS logs all emails sent from the IBIS application either via your website or via the reservation screen. If you need to view the email log history you can view your sent email history using the Email log report in IBIS Online. Browse to Setup > Logs > Email log to view.

• All emails sent on the date selected will display. Use the filters to select a specific option or if you use the CTRL+F function to open the Find tool on your browser, then search by any of the following: Customer Name, Booking ID, or you can note the Email ID saved in your Booking history and search for the email id sent.
• Click the Email ID link to view the email sent to the customer.