The legacy emailer tool is almost on its way out but still required in some areas of the system. You can use the Emailer tool in IBIS to email invoices from the Invoicing screen, stock purchase orders and ticket confirmations directly from the system, without having to open your email program. 

The Emailer settings are specific to each computer you are using which means you will need to set it up for every computer you wish to email from. To send emails from IBIS you need to know details about your SMTP server – this is the server that manages your outgoing emails. Your IT person will be able to tell you this.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Setup the emailer tool

  1. The first time you use the emailer tool, click on the Setup tab and complete the fields outlined below.

    Emailer

    From Address

    When the recipient reads the email and clicks 'reply to', this is the address that the reply will go to

    Blind Carbon Copy

    This address will receive a copy of the sent email without seeing all the other recipients' addresses.

    SMTP Server Name

    This is the name of your outgoing SMTP mail server. You may be able to determine this from your email program settings or you may need to contact your IT consultant to find out.

    SMTP User Name

    This user name is usually provided to you by your email provider for authentication. Usually, it is your email address but check with your IT person for these details. The setting is used for SMTP authentication (permission to be able to use your email account to send the email) and is also common with web-based email providers like Gmail.

    SMTP Password

    An optional field to be used for SMTP authentication rules (permission to be able to use your email account to send the email). This is used for web-based email providers like Gmail. Your IT provider should be able to give you these details.

    Port

    Your IT provider should be able to give you this optional field if you are using SMTP authentication to send emails (permission to be able to use your email account to send the email). This is used for web-based email providers like Gmail and you may need to try all three of their port numbers (25, 465, 587) to find out which works for you.

    Use SSL

    Secure Socket Layer. Tick if using a web-based email provider like Gmail.

    Footer / Signature

    This text will be added to all emails sent. If you do not want a footer, leave this blank. If your footer has multiple lines, use ';' to denote a line 


    IBIS does not retain copies of sent emails. If you want to keep a copy for your records, ensure your email address is in the blind carbon copy field.


  2. Press Save when your changes are complete.
  3. You will need to create at least one email template before you can send an email.  See the next section for how to create templates.


Set up an email template

You can create different email templates within the Emailer tool which allows you to manage bulk emails more efficiently. Using merge fields ensures a template email is still customised for the recipient. You will find different merge fields available to you depending on where you configure your email template. E.g. When adding a new template from the Ticketing screen, you will see merge fields available to the Ticket, whereas the Invoicing screen will display details related to the account or invoice.

  1. From the Emailer screen, click on the Template tab.
  2. Click the New button.
  3. Enter the name of the new template. This will be entered into the subject field and the email body by default, edit if required.
  4. Under the Template tab, type the email text into the window.
  5. Insert {{merge fields}} by right-clicking on the white space in the main body of the email to show a list of all the merge fields available to you.
  6. If you want to do a repeating section (for example 1 x Adult, 2 x Child) then you need to use special syntax at the start and end of the section. See examples below.
  7. To see the data a merge field corresponds to, click the Data tab and scroll along until you find the field that you are looking for.
  8. Save your changes.
  9. To preview your email, click the Email tab. You must save the template before seeing your changes in the email tab.

emailer template


Set up an email template with a repeating block

Example email template using a repeating block:

Dear Operator, 


We have booked the following with you, please see attached ticket for your records:


CUSTOMER NAME: {{BookName}}

BOOKING:
{{Repeat_Start}}
{{Units}} x {{OptionName}}
{{Repeat_End}}

PICKUP FROM: {{PrimaryPickup}}

ON: {{StartDateTime}}

BOOKING ID: {{BookNum}}

 

This would display like this:

Dear Operator, 


We have booked the following with you, please see attached ticket for your records:


CUSTOMER NAME: SMITH

BOOKING:
1 x Adult 

1 x Child

PICKUP FROM: Railway Station

ON: 18/12/2013 10:15:00 a.m.

BOOKING ID: 123456

 

Troubleshooting

If you use Gmail as your mail server, you may need to allow less secure apps to send from the emailer too. 


You will need to allow message relaying.


If you are having issues sending, an error message appears at the bottom of the screen in the send results. Click to open to see the full details.


When trying to send an email, if you get an error 'Bad file name or number' this is likely to be a permissions issue. Ibis tries to save the PDF file in the folder detailed in the Export directory folder in the Company tab of your Global Settings screen. If your user does not have permission to either view or create this file, you will get this error, so change the folder to something that you can access. Be aware that this is a global setting, so if more than one person is emailing pdf files from Ibis or producing printed matter such as Itineraries, this folder will need to be accessible to all of those users.