I'm hoping someone can help me with the new Version 4.3. I'm glad "manual" is gone and saw that there's a way to give general payment instructions. I've got that all set up.

My question is in regards to the event e-mails. Perhaps I'm screwed with the simplification of event e-mails, but humor me:

People Paying Online: Should only get 2 e-mails. A receipt from PayPal and a Confirmation from our website (will get these around the same time).

People Paying Manually (On-Site): Should also only get 2 e-mails. The first will be a Confirmation from our website. The second will be the payment receipt once we receive their payment.

 

Is this even possible with the new version? I don't think so. 

 

• If I enable invoices, receipts, and confirmations, people paying online will get 4 e-mails at the same time (An invoice, a receipt, a registration confirmation, then another PayPal receipt) and on-site people will get only 1 e-mail immediately (an invoice) then 2 more e-mails when I get payment (receipt and registration confirmation).
• If I enable confirmations and receipts, people paying online will get 3 e-mails at the same time (confirmation, receipt, and PayPal receipt), and people paying on-site will get nothing when they register (!) and then 2 e-mails (confirmation, receipt) when I get their payment.
• If I enable invoices only, people paying online will get 2 e-mails (invoice and PayPal). People paying on-site will only get 1 e-mail (the invoice) and I suppose I could manually send them a receipt (boo).

The scenarios go on and on  but I can't seem to find a good compromise. I get complaints all the time about too many e-mails with event registrations. The new version has actually made this more difficult for me? How is this possible?

Any other suggestions? 

 

 

I reviewed your notes and I think your scenarios are correct. The thing is that at the time of registration system can't know if the person would pay online (right away or later) or manually. Thus, it is not currently possible to send/not send registration initiation and invoice depending on the selected payment method. 

I understand your point about reducing the number of emails and I would appreciate suggestions you might have on how this might be changed in the future. I will move this thread to the wishlist forum.  

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

One other note - I do think that only sending the invoice is the best option for now. You can easily send receipts when you are recording manual payments, just a couple of clicks. 

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I think you're probably right, but this just means that I need to re-do the invoice e-mail to make it look like an event confirmation, but instead of it being custom to the event, it will just have to say something like "You are now confirmed for the following events:". Basically it just makes things less pretty- a fine fix for now but would definitely prefer something nicer.

 

Of course the eventual nice solution would be to have admin-defined payment options (for me, I would only need Pay Online and Pay On-Site) and then admin-defined e-mails for each registration workflow. I know you guys just eliminated all this to simplify e-mails but I'm not sure that anything was really fixed with doing that.

 

What I would love (!) would be to have under the "registration e-mails"  column would be to have a list of all combinations of registration types / payment types with rows of check boxes as to which e-mails they receive. So for example, Students that come to our events are free registrations, so they don't need invoices, they just need an event confirmation. People paying online also don't need invoices, only event confirmations. People paying on-site need both invoice and event confirmation.

 

I don't like that invoices and receipts are all or nothing- everyone gets them or no one gets them.

I agree and I'm all for this concept - I nearly died when I saw the flurry of emails with the new release, that and it took me a while to get my head around exactly what was sent when and how to best customise emails to take this into account.

There is some informat ion I only make available when people register so I had to make sure peoeple were getting all the information they need and only when they need it - its been driving me crazy (altho I think I finally may have got it right)

Definitely  need the ability to customise what registration emails are sent when on a more granular level so we don't bombard people unnecessarily! 

Cheers

Kerrie-Anne 

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Kerrie-Anne
My Social Circle - Social Events & Activities Network
www.mysocialcircle.com.au

Thank you for comments, we will think what we can do here.

The key problem to us as the new payment workflow we do not know how member is going to pay - online or offline. Invoices are generated independently of payment option. Here I see that workflow should be different: for manual payments members need invoices but for online payment no invoice is required, only receipt from payment system. 

Another problem is that event confirmed email is only sent when invoice is closed (paid). But if invoice is to be paid on-site then member will not receive confirmation email before event. You can use a workaround in this case: admin can close such invoices manually with a payment with a special tender (i.e. to-be paid on site) and then check such payments during event. The problem is that we do not know how to distinguish on site payments and check payments that come by mail. Also keep in mind that member can change his mind and pay online. 

So in general it's not that  easy to change current behaviour - it covers a lot of different scenarios and we cannot hurry here. 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team

My members are complaining about the volume of emails they receive for one event registration.  For instance, they register, and they get a pending registration notice.  Then they get an invoice emailed to them.  Then they pay online and get a payment receipt as well as a registration confirmation.  It's annoying!

How can I set it so that they ONLY get the pending registration and invoice if they choose manual payment?  Right now we use PayPal, I am thinking upgrading to PayPal Pro will help with this problem?

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Sommer Cronck, Executive Director
Technology Alliance Group (TAG) for Northwest Washington
www.tagnw.org

I will merge your post with existing thread discussing this. 

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

I'm working on this now - trying to analyse our workflows and reduce number of emails to send  in total. There is no timeline for fix yet, sorry. 

As a workaround: if you only accept onilne payments, you can switch off sending of pending emails and invoices. You can also switch off payment receipt in WA if you're sure that your payment processor sends one itself. 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team

My members don't enjoy all of the emails they get in regards to transactions.  For instance, if Joe Smith wants to register for an event, he gets an email telling him that he registered.  Then he gets an email invoice.  Then he gets an email receipt.  It's confusing people because often, they go through each step all at once, then check their email and see something telling them they need to pay (not understanding it was sent before they did pay).

Is there a better way to handle this?  Perhaps delay the invoice a certain amount of time (don't send instantly) so if they did pay in that moment, the invoice comes through as "Paid"?

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Sommer Cronck, Executive Director
Technology Alliance Group (TAG) for Northwest Washington
www.tagnw.org

Apricot Kernel:

I'm working on this now - trying to analyse our workflows and reduce number of emails to send  in total. There is no timeline for fix yet, sorry. 

As a workaround: if you only accept onilne payments, you can switch off sending of pending emails and invoices. You can also switch off payment receipt in WA if you're sure that your payment processor sends one itself. 

Sorry for my double-post - I didn't know the first one got moved and posted again.  Oops!

 

How do I switch off sending pending emails and invoices?  I've looked for that setting but couldn't find anything.  I also couldn't find anything to specify accept online payments only, which seems to be the starting point.

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Sommer Cronck, Executive Director
Technology Alliance Group (TAG) for Northwest Washington
www.tagnw.org

To switch emails - go into Event details or Membership level details, you will see checkboxes to disable/enable sending particular emails (you can also click on Help icon in the top right corner while being on a particular screen - this will suggest you relevant help articles). 

To switch of invoices and payment receipts - go into Settings and then to Invoice or Payment receipt page. Again, you will see checkboxes and also can use Help icon.

About accepting only online payments - we have no settings to force accepting only online payments. This is just a matter of your payment instructions (you put a text that you accept only online payments). See also http://community.wildapricot.com/permalink/24344/24342/ShowThread.aspx#24342 for relevant comments 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team

Hey Chief,

I realize this is an older thread, but I think the original posting describes my issue/concern for our membership flow (which is same as events).

As an admin I have the choice to send users an invoice and/or a receipt with each membership application/renewal.  But the choice applies to all users whether they pay now or pay later.  I would be prefer that different payment methods be treated differently:

• users that chose immediate payment (CC or paypal) will get a receipt
• users that chose offline payment (mail check) will get an invoice
  

Currently, I'm sending an invoice for all transactions, but the invoice states that they have a balance due even thought they are seconds away from making a credit card payment.  The user then gets a receipt from our payment processor.  This has led to some user questions why their emailed invoice says they have a balance due if they've made a payment.

Some options that come to mind:

• send the invoice only after the user chooses not to pay online
• have a "pay later or manually" button on the user's invoice listing screen that would trigger the invoice to be sent

If you have other options/work around to this, I'd appreciate the suggestion.

Dennis

Dennis, thanks, much appreciate the ideas. I will move your comment to a current thread where we are discussing this. 

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

As the administrator, I don't need to receive a copy of the invoice or a receipt of payment (other than what I get from PayPal).  Event Registration - Pending and Event Registration - Confirmed copies ARE important to my work flow. 

You can switch off admin copies of invoices and receipts under Settings - or am I missing something?

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Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot