Subject Field in Emails

[Buzby]

In all versions of Sellerdeck we have had our own unique emails set up, and the subject line would reflect this as Titan Jewellery: order JB56JJ80000046: Order Update and about a dozen other different emails all with unique names.

In Swift we have lost the ability to have the name of our email in the subject field. It seems that any of our emails now come pre-populated with the text User Defined after the order number. The text can be removed in Text > Design > Email > User Defined Email Subject, however any changes now show across all emails sent, so again this is no good. Under the description of User Defined Email Subject it states Subject line of the user-defined email sent from the desktop. May be edited before sending the email. The trouble is we want this as automated as possible. We do not want to be typing the content of the email over 100 times a day, every time we send an email.

Any solutions how this function can be reinstated back into Sellerdeck?

[Phil H]

Thats odd. I recently installed swift on my test site and the order emails (order/mail tab) are of the format 'company name: order number: email type (e.g order received email, order awaiting payment, payment received, order shipped etc). Not sure whats happened. I would suggest installing a test site then going to layouts and reverting back to the original and pick up the correct code/see whats changed.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Phil

[MrsBee]

Hi Jason, I'm having exactly the same issue (although I don't have a solution unfortunately, sorry!)

[brucet]

Hi Jason

Your email caused me a bit of a puzzle because the Design Text setting 'User Defined Email Subject' was only added in v18.0.5, but you appear to be using v18.0.3. It may be that you've been given the v18.0.5 Swift snapshot and it's somehow added the v18.0.5 variables - but they won't work in your version. I may be barking up the wrong tree, but it's worth checking with the person at Sellerdeck who sent you the link.

Sellerdeck supports four different offline email types - Order Received, Payment Received, Order Shipped and User Defined. Previously it wasn't possible to change the default subject lines for those - that ability is added in v18.0.5, using the above setting and three other equivalents.

If you've been using around a dozen different email types, you must have some kind of customisation or plugin to enable that, as far as I know. I which case that may need to be re-applied. It's a bit hard to tell without knowing what it was.

[Buzby]

Hi Bruce,

many thanks for the reply, although this is more confusing.

I haven’t had any customisation, and this system works in my v14, v16 and v18.03 websites.

Where this issue has arisen is in v18.05 with Swift. This is the only version that doesn’t allow us to have predefined email subjects. This isn’t a live site, only in development at the moment.

[MrsBee]

Bruce, this changed in my Swift site when I installed v18.0.5 too.

Prior to that, if I selected one of my own custom emails from 'Mail | New | Layout', the name of the selected layout would automatically be added into the 'Subject' field. Now, however, it just adds whatever text I have specified in 'Design | Text | Web Site | Email | User Defined Email Subject', meaning that I have to edit the subject name every time I send a custom email (I use a few different custom email layouts too) which is frustrating.

[brucet]

OK. It's going to be related to the changes in v18.0.5 that I mentioned above. It's very unlikely to have anything to do with Swift, which doesn't - and AFAIK couldn't - affect the email functionality. If you can explain what method you used to create more than four email types, I will try it out myself and we can look for a workaround.

[Phil H]

Given the above comments, it works for me, but I had upgraded to 18.0.5 BEFORE going to Swift. Maybe if you have upgraded to 18.0.5, licence a new NON swift site then check the email subject. THEN apply the .acd swift design and see what happens. It might give us a clue as to what is going on.

[Buzby]

Hi Bruce,

I am doing this blind, not near a pc so describing from memory.

On a customers order if you open up the email screen.

Click edit on the email choice screen

Select an email and copy

Now rename that email for what you want to call it, and edit the content. We’re call this one Payment Cancelled

Now when you select this email to send the subject line will be. Order Number : Payment Cancelled

If you do this in 18.05 it will say Order Number : User Defined

if you remove, or change User Defined in Sellerdeck text screen (sorry can’t remember the name) it is the same across all of your non standard emails.

It seems you have removed EMAIL NAME from the subject line and replaced it with USER DEFINED which in my opinion is a backward step in the software.

[Phil H]

I see what you mean. It was useful to be able to have other user definable 'standard emails' which you can select and send with the right Subject Line (as we edited and saved them before).
Design/text/website/email phase -1 ID 3111 only allows you to set it once, therefore preventing you having multiple emails that were customised. Previously (18.0.3) you could edit and save emails in the Manage Layouts section in the Email tab on the order and then customise its subject heading there. That is indeed a limitation.

[Mike Hughes]

I agree. I have several customised emails set up for specific purposes and 18.5 would be a real pain if I had to retype the email subject line every time I wanted to send one of them.

Why would you even go from being able to set up a subject line for different versions of an email to a single 'user defined' variable and not provide the ability to edit the place setting so you could work around it if needed? Bonkers.

This alone would probably stop me upgrading from 18.4.

Mike

[Buzby]

Why would you even go from being able to set up a subject line for different versions of an email to a single 'user defined' variable and not provide the ability to edit the place setting so you could work around it if needed? Bonkers.

Mike,

I think the main reason is although the developers and designers are talented at what they do, they clearly do not have the experience of how the product is used in the real world.

They don't realise how such a little tweak, that I'm sure they think was done for a good reason causes issues for us on a daily level.

We are on the verge of going live with Swift but just have a few niggles to sort. I know if I give this software to those who process the orders I am going to hear non stop moaning about it.

[Buzby]

Hi Bruce,

is there any update on this at all?

[brucet]

Hi Jason

Sorry, for some reason I didn't get email notification of your first reply.

I can follow your steps this far - which seems to assume you have a previous email already created, otherwise there is nothing to select, and 'Edit' is greyed out:

On a customers order if you open up the email screen.

Click edit on the email choice screen

Select an email

However I don't understand what you mean by 'copy' and 'rename' - there are no options for doing that. What I see is the attached screenshot. Can you be more explicit?

[Mike Hughes]

The way you do this is:

On the mail tab for any order:

'New' then 'Manage Layouts'

Select an email, click 'Copy'

Then select the newly created email layout which will have the original name with ' (Copy)' added to it and you can then 'Edit' and 'Rename' it as desired. When done with the changes 'click 'Done'

You now have a new email you can select to send to customers.