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Julian
Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
October 22, 2020
Guide

Guide to all variables in notification emails

  • October 22, 2020
  • 51 replies
  • 2790 views

With variables, you can enrich the user experience by including e.g. the username or the name of a topic. They are also essential as each notification will include different urls to content etc. You can even preview snippets of content directly within the mail! In this guide, you will learn about the different variables which you can use in each of our notifications.

 

Important:

  • Make sure to test changes on your staging environment first before updating on production
  • Variables are not universal - each notification email supports only the variables listed
  • It is not mandatory to use variables - however we recommend to use them
  • You can also use variables in hyperlinks (e.g. {url} as the url within {title} to make the topic title clickable)

 

Below, you will find for each email notification mail that exists. Just click on the spoiler for each notification and you will see:

  • Email subject variables
  • Email body variables

 

Activate account

This notification is sent right after the registration form has been submitted. The user must verify the account in order to be able to e.g. leave a reply on the community.

This notification will only be used for registrations via inSided (and not via SSO like Facebook, Google or your company login)

 Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{community_name} The name of your community

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{activation_url} An auto-generated URL for the user to confirm their account
{manual_activation_url} The URL a user can use to manually activate their account as a backup, if the auto-generated URL cannot be used.
{activation_code} The auto-generated token to use for account activation.

 

Welcome to the community

Once the registration has been completed (either by activation via mail, SSO or manual activation), the user will receive this notification to confirm the activation.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{community_name} The name of your community

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The user name of the recipient

 

New topic

Triggered when new content is published in a category a user has subscribed to.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{category_title} The title of the category where the new topic was created

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{author_username} The username of the topic author
{topic_title} The title of the new topic
{category_title} The title of the category where the new topic was created
{category_url} The URL of the category where the new topic was created
{topic_url} The URL of the topic
{topic_content} Preview snippet of the topic
{community_name} The name of your community
{community_homepage_url} The homepage URL of your community
{unsubscribe_url} A one-click URL for the user to unsubscribe from  new topic emails.

 

New reply

Triggered when a new reply has been published in a topic that a user has subscribed to.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{topic_title} Title of the topic

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{author_username} The username of the author of the new reply
{reply_url} The URL of the reply
{topic_title} The title of the topic where the reply is posted
{reply_content} Preview snippet of the reply
{unsubscribe_url} A one-click URL for the user to unsubscribe from  new reply emails.

 

 

Is your problem solved?

This email will be sent if a question has received replies, but not been marked as solved for x-amount of days.

This notification needs to be enabled first under [Automation rules] in order to work

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{question_title} The title of the question

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{question_title} The title of the question
{question_url} The URL of the question
{unsubscribe_url} A one-click URL for the user to unsubscribe from new reply/is your problem solved emails.

  

 

Topic answered

When a question has a reply marked as the best answer, every user that has subscribed to this question will receive this notification.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{question_title} The title of the question

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{answer_url} The URL of the reply that was marked as the answer
{question_title} The title of the question
{answer_content} Preview snippet of the answer
{author_username} The username of the author whose reply got marked as the best answer
{unsubscribe_url} A one-click URL for the user to unsubscribe from answer marked notification emails.

 

 

@mention

If a user is being mentioned by another user, this notification will be triggered.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{topic_title} The title of the topic

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{author_username} The username of the author of the reply containing the @mention
{topic_title} The title of the topic
{post_url} The URL of the topic (or reply within the topic)
{post_content} Preview snippet of the topic or reply with the @mention
{unsubscribe_url} A one-click URL for the user to unsubscribe from @mention notification emails.

 

Private message

This email will be sent for each private message a user receives.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
- -

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{sender_username} The username of the private message sender
{pm_url} The URL of the private message
{unsubscribe_url} A one-click URL for the user to unsubscribe from private message notification emails.

 

Reset password

Once a user tries to reset the password, this notification will be sent.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
- -

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The username of the recipient
{password_reset_url} The URL for a user to reset their password

 

Flagged content

Once a user reports content to the community team, this notification will be generated.

In order to receive this notification, users have to be listed in [Moderation Notifications] within your Control Environment.

 Email subject variable:

Variable Description
- -

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{reporter_username} The username of the user who reported the post
{flagged_reason} What the reporter has entered into the free-text field as a reason for flagging the post
{flagged_post_control_url} Control Environment URL of the flagged post.
{flagged_post_community_url} Destination URL of the flagged post.
{report_topic_community_url} Destination URL of ‘report topic’ of the flagged post.

 

Join a group

Sent when a contact is invited to join a group

 Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{inviter_username} The username of the invitation sender
{group_name} The name of the group
{community_name} The name of the community

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{contact_name} The first and last name of the contact
{inviter_username} The username of the invitation sender
{group_name} The name of the group
{community_name} The name of the community
{group_description} The description text of this group
{group_thumbnail} The URL of the thumbnail image of the group
{custom_message}

The custom message added by the user who sent the invite

{invite_url} An auto-generated URL for the user to join the group
{community_url} The homepage URL of your community

 

Welcome to the group

This notification is sent once a request to join a group has been approved by the community team.

 Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{group_name} The name of the group

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{username} username
{group_name} The name of the group

 

Join the community

This notification is sent once a contact has been invited to join the community. Read more about inviting contacts here.

 

This notification is sent once a contact has been invited.

Inviting contacts is currently possible only by participating in a private beta

 Email subject variable:

 

Variable Description
{inviter_username} The username of the invitation sender
{community_name} The name of the community

 

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{contact_name} The first and last name of the Contact
{community_name} The name of the community
{custom_message} The custom message added by the user who sent the invite
{invite_url} An auto-generated URL for the user to complete registration on the community
{community_url} The homepage URL of your community

 

Account approved

If a registration has been manually approved by the community team, the user will receive this confirmation.

This notification is only used when the registration is set to [manual approval] within the [Platform visibility] settings

 Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{community_name} The name of the community

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} The name of the recipient

 

New 'Product Update' email

Triggered when a new product update article is published in the Product Updates module a user has subscribed to.

Email subject variable:

Variable Description
{topic_title} title of the new topic

 

Body variables:

Variable Description
{recipient_username} username of recipient
{author_username} username of author
{topic_title} title of the new topic
{topic_content}

Preview snippet of the topic

 

51 replies

victorlacombe
Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
March 16, 2021

Hi there,

 

Is there a typo in this section? Seems there is a confusion between the community and a group there.

Or am I missing a thing? Can’t seem to understand the actual trigger of this notification.

Other question : at what moment is a user prompted to join the community? Is there a way to manually sent an invitation to join the community?

 

Thanks for your answers
 

 

bjoern_schulze
Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
March 16, 2021

Is there a typo in this section? Seems there is a confusion between the community and a group there.

Or am I missing a thing? Can’t seem to understand the actual trigger of this notification.

 

Yes, this looks like a copy&paste mistake from the section above. It should be “once a request to join the community has been approved.

Other question : at what moment is a user prompted to join the community? Is there a way to manually sent an invitation to join the community?

I believe the “request to join” function is only for closed communities that you can only access when you have an account.

Regarding sending an invitation: There is a new function “contact overview” in the Control Panel (under /contact/overview → maybe it is not activated for your community yet). On this page you can upload a csv file with contact information (name, email address) and send out an invitation to the email addresses.

victorlacombe
Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
March 16, 2021

Thanks for the details @bjoern_schulze 

Julian
JulianAuthor
Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
April 1, 2021

Is there a typo in this section? Seems there is a confusion between the community and a group there.

 

Hi @victorlacombe, sorry for being late with a response here. It indeed was a error while copying text, I have corrected this now. Thanks for flagging it!

I follow my nose, it always knows
Helper ⭐️⭐️
April 2, 2021

Hi @Julian - it’s probably a long shot but I was wondering if there’s a way to reference someone’s profile field. For example, our marketing team would prefer emails be addressed based on first name instead of username. Is this possible? Thanks!

Blastoise186
Helper ⭐️⭐️⭐️
April 2, 2021

Heya @alexandra.culler ,

That might not be possible or practical unfortunately. While it might seem strange, it’s generally pretty common for most forum software to address users by their username across everything the forum does, including notification emails. It also acts as a useful username reminder.

The concern I’d have with changing this would be a possible increase in failed logins as people try using their first name to login all of a sudden, rather than their actual username. I can see where your marketing team are coming from and definitely feel free to suggest this one as an idea. But it’s generally easiest to go off what the forum software already knows - and also easiest for it to only use the default fields.

I hope this helps.

Bug blasting absolutely everything... The Blastoise Way
Julian
JulianAuthor
Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
April 2, 2021

While I kind of like this idea @alexandra.culler, I also do agree with the points from @Blastoise186. Next to that, I could also imagine that some users get confused / worried by this: If users expect to be refered to by their username, but then receive a notification using their actual first name, they might wonder if their personal data is exposed to the public (or if they entered their private name as username).

Technically, the challenge here is that we do not have a default profile field for their first name which the notifications could use. In other tools like Hubspot you fill in all general customer data in a pre-defined format, hence there it is much easier for the system to add this to a mail. In our case, you would have to tell our notification system first which profile field to use, as the field has a different ID across all communities. This adds another layer of complexity to this story, so it is not something we could add easily.

You are always open to create an idea about this here on our community. Then the product team will take this into account and also get back to you with their assesment.

I follow my nose, it always knows
Helper ⭐️
August 27, 2021

Hi @Julian! Could I please check something? For the Activation Email, your guide says:

This notification will only be used for registrations via inSided (and not via SSO like Facebook, Google or your company login)

 

But I’ve tested our community (which uses company SSO) and new members do receive the activation email. Is there a reason why this would be or are activation emails sent out regardless of how new members create an account? Thanks!

Julian
JulianAuthor
Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
August 30, 2021

Thanks for sharing your question, @danvers!

We do send a notification after a user has registered via SSO, but that is a different email:
The activation email is for users to confirm their email address. It has a function to verify that an email address actually exists. Unless a user verifies the email address, this user will not be able to become active on the community.

What you are speaking about should be the welcome email. This email notification has merely informational purpose, to confirm the user is fully registered. It’s also being sent for communities with an SSO login, because it is an ideal opportunity to activate new users. E.g. you can present community-onboarding content and motivate users to start topics or post replies.

I hope this is answering your question, if you have more or if you are making different observations on your community, just let me know!

I follow my nose, it always knows
Helper ⭐️
August 31, 2021

Thanks for the answer, @Julian! I was getting confused because the content of the two emails is identical in our community!