Change/ Stop Customer Notification Email

Hi @akhilz,

Thanks for the message – and for trying out Simply Schedule Appointments!

You should be able to set the sending address in SSA > Settings > General under the “Appointment Email” field. This is a screenshot of that field:
https://www.evernote.com/l/AAKWoCkd22xI5bzLDwZRnLSrzUQZTioaxDQB/image.png

We will look into the other issue right away. If the customer notification is going out even if you have it disabled, we’ll get a fix into the next release.

Let us know if you run into anything else!

Thanks,
Nathan

thanks for the response Nathan

i had set the setting address as shown in the screenshot by you already. but still the emails going our are not showing from that email. please see the screenshot here.

looking forward to a resolution for this one as well.

and yes, i did run into few other things. one important one is that the email i receive as admin doesn’t show which particular appointment is booked, (i have two types of appointment as of now). it only shows the date, time and customer info.

second thing, i changed the label color (to deep purple) after creating the second appointment but it doesn’t show that color, both appointment types are same green colored label. perhaps an issue with clearing cache, will check on that.

thanks and would really like this plugin to grow. it’s a really nice piece of work.

I’ll take a look at those as well. Do you have any plugin installed (like “WP Mail SMTP”) that might be forcing the From name/email?

Thanks! We are working hard on SSA and releasing frequent updates to make it better and better ??

Hello @akhilz!

Thank you so much for trying out our plugin and giving us such valuable feedback! I wanted to ask you about the label color for your appointment types.

On the front end, when a customer is booking an appointment, all appointment types currently appear the same green color. The label that you can apply to each appointment type to color code it only applies to the admin view – when you’re editing the appointment type or after someone has booked, you’ll see that color applied, but it’s never shown on the front end for your customers.

It sounds like you expected that color label to be visible to your customers. Is that the case? Do you think that seeing the different types of appointments in different colors would be helpful to your customer?

Hi @akhilz, we just released version 1.1.5.0 which fixes the issue you reported with email notifications!

We now use the business contact, name, and email you provide in the SSA settings as the From address. So it will show up as “From” something like:
Nathan at Simply Schedule Appointments <[email protected]>
instead of WordPress <[email protected]>

We also fixed the issue you found where it was not using the settings you set on the appointment type. Now the emails should only be sent if the appropriate “send notification” checkbox is checked.

Please let us know if version 1.1.5.0 fixes those issues for you, or if you run into anything else, we’ll be happy to look at it for you!

Thanks,
Nathan

PS. I forgot to mention, we also now put the appointment *type* in the subject line of the email you receive as the admin. See attached screenshots:

Admin Notification:

https://www.evernote.com/l/AAI52N6O2VJA_6mbt2kFKncwaZFQFpeGLwIB/image.png

Customer Notification:

https://www.evernote.com/l/AALlpsn0VnVIaIZVlIXipSFsjyDtSX_yGvMB/image.png

@croixhaug
Dear Nathan
Thank you so much for the (prompt and sincere) support even though i am just using the free version as of now. Great to hear that all issues i mentioned are resolved. Will check it all and report if there is anything not working on my end. Also I found couple of other things that need to be fixed, if you want i can create separate threads for each one or mention them all here…

@nataliemac
Dear Natalie
i misunderstood the feature. yes, it works on the backend and that is very helpful. about the front end for the customers i am not sure how helpful it may be to color code the appointments. perhaps, for some, who book similar type of appointments (category) it will be easier to glance through the color coded labels. other plugins generally have categories, we can do here with color codes, why not. but really not super important. your call.

thank you again. am really impressed by the support and the zeal to make this plugin better. i think this one has a great potential and i will surely send in some suggestions.

Thanks @akhilz! We appreciate the suggestions, and if you have a minute, leaving us a quick review here on www.ads-software.com always helps more people find the plugin ??

Yes, please open a separate thread for each bug/issue, which will help us keep track of them – and make sure we don’t lose any in the back and forth.

Best,
Nathan

1. i am still receiving the email notifications from [email protected] instead of the email id i fill in. not using any plugin like wP Mail SMTP. could it be that HOSTGATOR is implementing some strict rules? can we do something about it? it works through Contact Forms that i am using so there must be a way.

2. now the notification to customer has stopped completely. meaning it is not going to the customer at all even if i Check the Send Notification Email option. kindly look into it.

Thanks

No problem, I will check these – although I suspect (especially the issue with the from address) might be related to the server or site itself. Would it be possible to get a temporary admin login for the site so we can (carefully) test it there? You can send that to [email protected].

I am just signing off for the night but can take a look tomorrow

Thanks,
Nathan

admin login created, mail sent…

FYI: i’ll be away for a while just in case you don’t get immediate replies.

Hi @akhilz, I think there are a couple things going on here…

1. We are only modifying the from address on messages to the clients who book on your site. The reason we do this, is that if you send TO [email protected] FROM [email protected] it can get flagged for spam (or show up as a message you sent yourself, which marks it as read and doesn’t get shown in gmail). So we don’t want to send from and to the same address.

2. It appears there’s something about the site/server that’s not letting it send as we expect. It seems to be directly related to the new change we made to the From name/address. I installed a plugin to log all outgoing emails from the server (which you can click on in the main admin menu under “WP Mail Log”) The outgoing message to clients shows an error “Could not instantiate mail function.” I’ll look into some possible fixes, but it may take some time because it’s working in testing on my sites, so I need to figure out what’s different about your server/environment/address that it won’t work.

Thanks,
Nathan

thanks, will wait.
could you please look into the way contact form is sending emails? it is going thru wordpress but when i receive the mail it shows me sender’s name and email id, kinda camouflaging/ masking wordpress email id and using data filled into the form. you may create a new form with your id as a recipient and check. perhaps, we can do something similar with SSA..?

Hi @akhilz, this one has been quite tricky! We tried a lot of different options, with varying results. We’ve been working on a solution the last couple days, and I think the one we’ve come up with is the best option considering the world of spam filters we live in, and there’s flexibility to achieve full customization of the From address if you’d like it.

I started writing all this up, but it was very confusing. I’ve made a video, where I try to walk through everything and make it as clear as possible. Even so, I’m sure you may still have questions. Please take a look at my video for you here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/00qpga369aref39/ssa-email-support.mp4?dl=0

and let me know if you have any questions. Everything in the video is in the latest release (version 1.1.5.2) which I’ve just released – and updated on your site already ??

Thanks,
Nathan

PS. after making the video, I found that what I showed you there was the “worst case” because gmail shows the real address. The email app on my phone, and another email client I tested with, don’t even show the [email protected] email address, they only show the camouflaged one, so that might be enough without needing to go the full WP Mail SMTP route. But of course that option’s there if you want it ??