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builtmighty

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Magento gives you the option to automatically keep in touch with your customers when they undergo certain activities within your site, such as subscribing to newsletters or creating an account. Personalizing your email templates is a great way to maintain the voice of your brand and take control of the way your store interacts with your customers. If you’d like to personalize some of these responses, it involves a three-step process.

  1. First you want to create a batch of different email senders from whom your store emails will be sent.
  2. Next you will customize and create your various email templates.
  3. Finally, in the last step, you assign those templates to particular actions and specify the sender (and sometimes recipient, depending on the action).

Step One – Designating the Email Sender:

This is where you choose what email addresses are available to send response emails to customers. For example: when a customer receives an email response for creating a New Account, you can specify both the name of the person sending it and the address that the email will come from.

  • Navigate to System > Configuration
  • Click on Store Email Addresses (under the General heading in the right hand menu).

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  • You’ll see five bars labeled as below.
    • General Contact
    • Sales Representative
    • Customer Support
    • Custom Email 1
    • Custom Email 2
  • Click the arrow at the right of each bar to expand it. Each section has the same two fields:
    • Sender Name: Here you can set the name of the sender. For example, for Sales Representative, maybe you’d like to put “Linda”. Now, all emails send on behalf of the Sales Representative will appear to be from Linda. (Why? Well, you can give your store a more personal touch this way. Customers might respond better to an email from Linda than one from “Sales Representative”.) The name you type here is also the name that will appear in the appropriate drop-down menus throughout your admin panel.
    • Sender Email: This is where you list the email address associated with this position. The email you put here is the one that will send emails so, if a customer responds to an auto email, their response will end up in the inbox of the email address you put here.

Step Two – Editing Email Templates:

In this step you will create and personalize the email templates that are automatically sent to your customers. Magento allows you to send a wide variety of email responses to your customers for performing various functions within your store.

  • System > Transactional Emails
    • Click the Add New Template button. You’ll find that there are two sections to the New Email Template page that opens.

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    • Load default template:This is the first section, where you’ll determine the template that you’re creating.
    • Template*: The options in this drop-down menu consist of pre-existing email templates that are included by default with Magento. Select the template that corresponds with the action you’d like to utilize it for.

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    • Locale*: For users who have non-English (United States) Locales installed, this is where you can load your selected template in other languages. As an extra note: if you’re trying to load templates in other languages, but it isn’t working, that’s probably because you haven’t configured your store to that language.

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    • Now click the Load Template button. The data for your selected template will load into the Template Information fields below (in the appropriate language).

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    • Template Information: In this second section, the template loaded above will populate each of the fields. Now you can make any edits that you like.

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    • Template Name*: Create a name for the template. Whatever name you type here will be the one that appears throughout the back end of your site in various drop-down menus.
    • Template Subject*: This will appear in the subject line when the customer receives the email. You can keep the subject originally populated into this field, or enter a new one.
    • Template Content*: This is where the body of the email goes. You can enter new content, or use the preexisting information from the loaded template. Make sure that you use HTML to style your text. If you’re not totally amazing with HTML, it’s sometimes wiser to work within the preexisting template and just edit the content text, as opposed to starting from scratch.
      • Use the Convert to Plain Text button at the top of the page to view your body content without HTML tags. Return to HTML by hitting the same button, which is now the Return Html Version button.

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    • Hit Preview Template to view your email template the way that your customers will see it.
  • Save Template! Your template will now appear as an option in drop-down menus throughout the back end of your site and will also be added to the template list. However, you aren’t finished yet. Yes, you’ve created a new template. However, that template still has to be assigned to a specific action, so Magento knows when to send it out.

Step Three – Assigning Email Templates

In this step, you’ll tell Magento which email template to send for which action performed, as well as specifying the sender for each email template. This all occurs within the Configuration option in the System menu, but each template is assigned within a different part of Configuration.New Account Template

  • System > Configuration
    • Under the Customer heading on the right hand menu, click Customer Configuration.

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    • Click the arrow on the right side of the Create New Account Options bar in order to expand it.

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    • Default Group: This option sets the default group to which customers are assigned when they create an account.
    • Default Welcome Email: Select the default welcome email you want to send from the drop-down list. The new templates you’ve created will show up as options.
    • Email Sender: This drop-down shows you the various sender options available. If you click “General Contact” for example, the New Account Email will be sent from General Contact and the accompanying email address. If you recall, we set these earlier in step one. The Senders you set up will appear here.
    • Require Emails Confirmation: Do you want your customer to be required to confirm their email address? If so, this will send them back to the site in order to confirm their account email. The default setting for this field is “No”.
    • Confirmation Link Email: Chose the welcome/confirmation required email template you’ll send your customers if you chose to change the previous setting to “Yes”.
    • Welcome Email: The email template you set here is the follow-up email that will be sent to your customer after they confirm their account, if you required email confirmation.
    • Generate Human-Friendly Customer ID: Magento’s default setting for this option is “No.”
  • Save Config!

Forgotten Password Template

  • System > Configuration
      • Under the Customer heading on the right hand menu, click Customer Configuration.

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      • Click the arrow on the right side of the Password Options bar in order to expand it.

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      • Forgot Email Template: Select the template that you would like to send from this drop-down menu. If you created and saved a new template, it will appear in the drop-down menu for you to pick.
      • Forgot Email Sender: This drop-down menu displays the various senders/email addresses you can send the email from. Remember when we set these earlier in the tutorial? Now you can have Linda send your Forgot Password Email to your customers if you like.
    • Save Config!

    New Order Template

    • System > Configuration
      • Under the Sales heading on the right hand menu, click Sales Emails.

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      • Click the arrow on the right side of the Order bar to expand it.

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      • Enabled: Set this to “Yes”
      • New Order Confirmation Email Sender: In the drop-down you’ll be able to select the Sender.
      • New Order Confirmation Template: This is where you select the email template that will be sent out to the customer in response to their order. The Order Confirmation Email is sent to the email the customer enters when placing their order.
      • New Order Confirmation Template for Guest: Enter the email template that you would like sent out to guests when they complete a sales transaction.
      • Send Order Email Copy To: Enter the email address you would like to get your store’s notification sent to.
      • Send Order Email Copy Method: Enter the method by which you would like to receive your copy of the email. (Bcc or Separate Email.)
    • Save Config!

    Do you want to assign other email templates? Below is a full list of where to go to go in the back end of your site to edit your email settings and set the appropriate templates. All of these options are reached through System > Configuration.  Also, make certain to click the Save Config button after you make any changes.

    An additional note: After you’ve finished assigning your email templates, it’s a good idea to test them in order to make sure they’re operating the way that you want them to.

    Share Wishlist Options Template

    • Under the Customers heading, click Wishlist.
      • Expand the Share Options section.

    Payment Failed Template

    • Under the Sales heading, click Checkout.
      • Expand the Payment Failed Emails section.

    Email to a Friend Template

    • Under the Catalog heading, click Email to a Friend.
      • Pick your settings in the Email Template section.

    Subscribe and Unsubscribe Newsletter Template

    • Under the Customers heading, click Newsletter.
      • You can choose your settings for both Subscription Confirmation and Unsubscription Success in theSubscription Options section.

    Other Order-Related Templates

    • Under the Sales heading, click Sales Emails. We’ve already set your New Order Template options, but there are other email options you can set within the other Sales Emails sections.
      • In Order Comments you can set your Order Comment Email Templates. (For guests and registered users.)
      • In Invoice you can set your Invoice Template settings. (For guests and registered users.)
      • In Invoice Comments you can set your Invoice Comment Template settings. (For guests and registered users.)
      • In Shipment you can set your Shipment Template settings.
      • In Shipment Comments you can set your Shipment Comment Template settings. (For guests and registered users.)
      • In Credit Memo you can set your Credit Memo Template settings. (For guests and registered users.)
      • In Credit Memo Comments you can set your Credit Memo Comments Template settings. (For guests and registered users.)

    Scheduled Import Settings Error Template

    • Go to the Currency Setup option under the General heading.
      • Expand the Scheduled Import Settings section. You can enter your Error Email settings at the bottom of this section.

    Contact Us Template

    • Under the General heading, click on Contacts.
      • Expand both the Contact Us section and the Email Options section.
        • In order for the Email Options to work, you need to have Enable Contact Us in the Contact Us section set to “Yes”.
        • Now set your Email Options.

    Log Cleaning Error Template

    • Under the Advanced heading, click on System.
      • Expand the Log Cleaning section.
        • At the bottom of this section you can set your Error Email settings.

    Product Alert Template

    • Under the Catalog heading, click Catalog.
      • Expand the Product Alerts section.
        • You can set your Product Alert email settings here.
      • Expand the Product Alerts Run Settings section.
        • At the bottom of this section you can set your Error Email settings.

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