CiviEvent Online Booking Confirmation email - why no HTML version?

[westy]

Is it possible to send an HTML version of the Online Booking Confirmation Email? It seems strange that there appears to be no HTML option. Did I miss it or is there a good reason for not having HTML?

At some of our events we have a hundred or more  people queuing outside in the rain while we look up their names on a list.
We would like to be able to put a background image and tokens in the confirmation email, we could then ask people to print their own tickets.

A professional looking ticket with their Booking Reference would not look so amateurish and would really speed up entry.
Anyone any ideas?

[Donald Lobo]

not sure what u mean by "online booking confirmation email"

if you mean, the confirmation email sent by civievent, there is an html and text version for this. You can tweak the contents of the email in your message template screen

lobo

[westy]

On the Online Booking tab, with the Registration Screen, Confirmation Screen, Thank-you Screen, on my site I have a drop down choice of text format. (HTML, plain text etc.) and a WYSIWYG editor.
(I notice that on the demo site there is no choice, just the WYSIWYG editor.)
But, for the final screen, 'Confirmation email' there is no WYSYWIG editor or drop down selector, just a plain text box. This is what I would like to also be HTML.

[westy]

Looking at the 'Events - Registration Confirmation and Receipt (on-line)' template in the System Workflow Messages tab there are both text and HTML versions of the message but the HTML version does not load.
Any hints why this might be?
Thanks

[GlobalAwakening]

I'm in the same boat. I would LOVE to get {$event.confirm_email_text} to parse html. I don't even care if it has a wysiwyg editor, but I really need it to parse html.

This is compounded because the event email template can't be different for different events. So it's like a 1-2 punch limitation on what can be in that email receipt.

[joanne]

You can customize both the Events - Registration Confirmation and Receipt (on-line) and the Events - Registration Confirmation and Receipt (off-line) system workflow message templates you just need to know a little smarty.

You customise them  along the lines of:
{if $event.id  eq '12'} ___________________
{elseif $event.id   eq '13'} _____
{/if'}   

If you have a lot of events it can be a bit tedious, but it can be done.

[westy]

I get dozens of emails a day. They are all in HTML. Have been for years. When I buy something I get confirmation. Always in HTML except when I buy a ticket from my own organisation
I don't understand why, when I go to http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/event/manage/registration?reset=1&action=update&id=1 the Fall Fundraising Dinner on line setup, I see the following screens:

• Registration Screen - HTML WYSIWYG editor
• Confirmation Screen - HTML WYSIWYG editor
• Thank-you Screen - HTML WYSIWYG editor
• Confirmation Email - just a text box

I know that there are templates including 'Events - Registration Confirmation and Receipt (on-line)' but how to I get any action from the templates. I don't see them in the online setup page and they don't get sent to me when I book. Its not just my site, it's the same on the CiviCRM demo site.
We would like to use these messages as the entrance ticket with images, but in plain text, a child of 5 could forge them so that's pretty much a non-starter.
I'd be quite up for spending some time on the template if only I could get it to load.
I'm obviously missing something. How do I get this message sent instead of the basic plain text version. Its there, under system workflow messages. It says "You may optionally create an HTML formatted version of this message. It will be sent to contacts whose Email Format preference is 'HTML' or 'Both'. Tokens may be included"
Can someone explain how to enable?/load?/send the HTML version. Does anyone have any experience of sending HTML receipts?
Thanks

[joanne]

You only see a text box not an HTML wysiwyg editor in the confirmation email section because CiviCRM can send text or HTML emails.  If you had only an HTML wsyiwyg editor here then people who want just pain text email would have html tags amongst their email.

The other 3 sections you refer to are displayed on you website and so coping with plain text emails is not a consideration.


Have you (or someone else) customised your Event receipts? (ie when you go to  Mailings>message templates> system work flow messages do you see just Edit to the right of the  receipt names ( no customisation) or do you see Edit | Revert to Default | View Default (customisations)?)

If someone have customised the receipt(s) and has messed up the smarty logic than the plain text email will always be sent.

[westy]

Thanks Joanne,
I just see 'Edit'  (see screenshot attached). It has not knowingly been edited. Our database of 8,000 has only a handful of 'text only' subscribers, and we would send out a text version as well.

[joanne]

@westy,

Sorry, but I came into this topic to tell GlobalAwakening  how he could modify the system workflow  message templates for different events.

I'm a user not a developer and won't be able to help you trouble shoot you site. As far as I am aware, in a properly configured site the HTML version of the email is sent without any need to do anything 'extra'.

Does no one you send an email to receive the HTML version?

Are you sure your email server allows you to send HTML messages?

[westy]

Maybe I did not explain this clearly enough. I too am a user but of necessity I'm slowly morphing into a developer.
The not-for-profit for which I work sends newsletters out every two weeks to a mailing list of about 8,000 and in between we send emails to various smaller groups. The mailing system works, we can use 'mail()' or 'Sendmail' so it is all set up correctly.
We send more than 99% of each mailing as HTML and Newsletters include images with alt text, click-thro links, unsubscribe links etc and attachments. All the things that subscribers expect from a newsletter these days. They all work correctly. We also send a plain text version of the same email to a few subscribers who have preferred to receive plain text messages. So all the send HTML process works fine.

The feature that I can't get to work is to do with the on-line booking confirmation for CiviEvent.
Out of the box, the booking confirmation email is only sent in plain text even though there is an HTML template at civicrm/admin/messageTemplates/add?action=update&id=19&reset=1
This seems a really cool template. It has tokens for the date of the event and time, who paid, all the info that anyone would want. Looks absolutely awesome.
The problem is that I can't get it to load after someone has booked. They just get a basic plain text email . Its not just my site, its the same on the demo site. Just book yourself in for the 'Fall Fundraising Dinner' and see what you get.

I don't know how many CiviCRM users run events but we run a month long Festival and sometimes we have several events every night. Monitoring advance bookings can be a nightmare for us but I would have thought that lots of organisations would benefit by sending a confirmation email which could include tokens for user ID, links to maps, accommodation web pages etc. AS it stands we can't even include our logo.

Can someone please try booking on the Demo site and post your comments on the email reply that you get and where I am going wrong.

After writing this, I realised that even the Plain-Text confirmation message being sent is not from the Plain-Text message Template in the system messages it is only a Text Box message which does not include tokens.
So my question has now changed
How do we use the message templates in the system messages Section?

[joanne]

When you say "Demo site" do you mean drupal.demo.civicrm.org ?  I don't get any email from that site when I register for an event, but I don't expect to as my understanding is that email has been disabled at a code level to prevent abuse.

I'm running out of ideas to help you, as everything points to a problem unique to your installation.  As I have said, the system workflow message templates should be sent automatically - there is nothing to turn.

Are events the only things you do on your site that use the system workflow messages? ( Ie no donations or memberships?) 

If so, could you set up a simple contribution page, make a test donation and see what email you get?  If it is from the system workflow messages that points to something wrong with the just the event templates and replacing them with new copies might solve your problem. 

If the contribution receipt isn't a system workflow message then I can't help you.  You might have to go back to whoever set up your site originally.

[westy]

Thanks Joanne,
I'll try the other system messages route. We do run memberships but I can't remember what form the sent messages are right now.
Thanks again for a good suggestion.

[westy]

As this topic has had several hundred views, presumably I'm not the only one
For anybody else with this problem maybe the documentation should make it clearer that by default the Smarty template engine is not enabled.
"Notice: For Smarty to work you must add (or modify) a line to your civicrm.settings.php file located under sites/default/ for Drupal and administrator/components/com_civicrm for Joomla."
I find it rather strange that this is not enabled by default but maybe someone can explain that there was a good reason for doing it this way.
Every User-Driven template has an 'Edit-Disable-Delete' link so maybe the System Workflow messages should operate in a similar manner.
I also think that the above message about how to get Smarty to work should be on the 1st page of the Templates Overview. My problem was that, as I could not get the templates to work, I never got to expanding the 'Overview'section for the more detailed information.

[Eileen]

The Smarty template engine also allows access to other functionality - like embedded api calls and can allow people to bypass ACLs. Depending how many people have access to your situation it may be a security issue that is of concern to you.