Order Confirmation Email ?

[FearTheHands]

When a customer orders from our website we are not receiving an order confirmation email nor is the customer receiving a confirmation of their order.

I have a feeling that I am barking up the wrong tree in expecting this having gone through some settings ?

Should an email be automatically generated once an order has been placed ? I have not seen any settings in actinic asking for the path to sendmail on the server, only for the SMTP details

Thanks in advance ...

[Spark]

Not sure if you mean the ordering tab under - view / business settings.

There is an e-mail section where you can tick to send yourself a note to download a new order and another to send a receipt to the customer.

[Mike Hughes]

You shouldn't need sendmail. That's only used in a script modification if you can't smtp to work.

Actinic should be generating the emails, but often your web hosts smtp servers won't send email outside of your own domain if Actinic isn't set up correctly.

Click on existing order and try sending one of the email variants to yourself at an email address outside of your domain (i.e. yahoo, gmail, hotmail, etc). If the email arrives OK then everything is fine. If not, let us know if you get any error messages.

Mike

PS. As spark says you have to tick the right boxes first.

[FearTheHands]

Thanks for the reply

What I mean is - when someone places an order on our website, should we receive an email automatically from actinic ?

Or

Do you have to manually download the orders using actinic, then instruct actinic to send the email ?

[Mike Hughes]

Actinic will send the customer email from the server when the customer reaches the receipt page of the site after paying (provided you have ticked the box marked 'send receipt email to customer' in business settings > ordering)

You can also tell it to send you an email when a new order arrives and to email you a copy of the customer email if you want it. (more boxes to tick and fill in on the same page).

Mike

[FearTheHands]

I have all of the settings in business settings correctly ticked.

My webhost doesn't actually provide me with my own SMTP server - I assume this is then the problem ?

I tried what you suggested, changing the email recipient to one outside my domain bust nothing was received. Even when the email recipient was within the domain, nothing was received. I was using a third party smtp server to send the email, which it clearly does not allow.

How can I find the script mod for sendmail you mentioned ?

Thanks again

[Mike Hughes]

If you don't have access to an smtp server then there is a patch that Norman develoepd for V5 and V6 using sendmail.

See the bottom of this page: http://www.drillpine.biz/actinicstuff/index.html

The script wasn't developed for V7 but take a look at his support forum as someone there has tried it successfully on V7.

Mike

[FearTheHands]

OK, I have now changed the Email Settings in Business Settings>Payment & Security>Configure SSL Settings to an SMTP server I have access to (my ISP SMTP server)

When doing a test everything passes OK, but I do not receive a confirmation email. Also when sending an email via the 'Orders' tab the customer receives the receipt but an email is not sent to us as a copy or telling us there is an order to download

Am I missing something or could this be caused by MY ISP ? I think unlikely as I can receive customer receipt email to the same address I am using for receipt copies & order confirmations.

Is the email generated by the webserver via actinic or processed via my PC using the SMTP settings ?

[jont]

You will receive a "new order" notification email when a new order is placed - you will not receive another until you download the orders and the system resets itself.

You can add your own email in under View | Business Settings | Ordering | Email | Send Receipt Copies to... so you will see a copy of the customer notification email (order minus payment details)

[FearTheHands]

Should I not expect to receive an email when performing a test in Advanced>Network Setup>Test ?

Actinic Mail Test completed successfully
server: passed
connection: passed
sockets: passed
communications: passed
authorisation: passed
message: -

Then:

"The network settings test was successful. If the email address you specified was correct, you should receive a confirmation message shortly."

[jont]

Yes you should saying "This is a test email from Actinic"

In the network setup field for Email Settings if they are present have you tried removing the Username and Password required?

[FearTheHands]

Yes & I receive these errors when doing so:

Error 1

The computer you specified as your mail server is not a valid mail (SMTP) server. Check the computer name or address and try again. If it fails again, then it is possible, you were locked out by a firewall program, or you don't have network connection to this server.

Error 2

Actinic Mail Test completed successfully
server: passed
connection: passed
sockets: passed
communications: failed
authorisation: passed
message: 5.7.1 <richard@eurocardcplayer.net>... Relaying denied. Proper authentication required.

[FearTheHands]

OK, further testing.

For some bizarre reason the email address you have in Business Settings>Company Contact>Email Address affects whether or not the test email is sent!

The email address we want these email sent from has a .net suffix. Can this affect things ?

Changing the email address to an account that sits in my outlook accounts tab other than the .net suffix account allows the test email to be sent. Coincidence ? None of the other accounts are .net

Any ideas as to what is going on ?

I am up against a brick wall here & have to get this working

To clear things up for myself:

- When someone orders something from the website should I expect an email to be sent to the customer confirming their order ?

- An email sent to the email address I supply in Business Settings>Ordering>Email to tell us we have a new order ?

- Are these emails generated from actinic via the webserver ?

- When running a test in Advanced>Network Setup the email I assume is generated from my local machine ?

Really am stuck so need some guidance please ...

Thanks

[FearTheHands]

Is anyone able to answer these basic questions for me please, I am very stuck & time is against me ...

Thanks

[wjcampbe]

To answer your last question first.

The test email in Network Settings test is sent by the actinic test script from your webserver.

The customer order email and the 'you have new orders since you last downloaded' email are both generated by the actinic script on the webserver.

I have used a .net contact email address with no problem.

Your email setting should be something like smtp.yourhostname.co.uk - if you identify your webhost, then someone else may be able to chip in and say "Use this for the SMTP setting".