(DM-6) Message Shortcodes

In this lesson we are going to dive into all the details of working with Shortcodes

Shortcode Overview

You will probably recall from reading elsewhere in the documentation, that shortcodes are a way of specifying information that we want to extract from the database and place into a message. That information may be about the attendee, the activity they are attending, a payment they made, or a payment they are due to make.

Shortcodes are always in the format of one or two keywords contained in square brackets, for example [First Name] and [Last Name].

Shortcodes Groupings

Shortcodes are grouped according to the type of item that a message is about. For example, a Payment Due message is about an invoice, a Payment Received message is about a payment, and a Joining Instructions message is more generally about an activity.

The groupings are:

• Sender

• Contact

• Activity

• Booking / Invoice

• Payment

How to View Available Shortcodes

When you are editing a message over on the right hand side of the screen:

• Click on the local menu option [Shortcodes]

A window appears on the left side listing the available shortcode groups:

To see the shortcodes within a specific group:

• Click on the text for that shortcode group name:

You can now see a list of the individual shortcodes available, and real or example information each shortcode may represent, based on the activity you are working with.

If you have at least one attendee already booked on to the activity, you will see contact details for one of them. If not, you will see the contact details for a fictitious contact called John Smith with a booking / invoice value of 100.

Pasting Shortcodes Into Your Message

You can paste the shortcode name directly into the message you are editing:

• Click on the Copy icon next to that shortcode.
• Go to the place in your message where you want that shortcode to appear

• Perform an Edit Paste (ctrl-v or right-click Edit Paste)

Viewing The Populated Message

While you are editing your message, you can view how the message will look with the shortcodes substituted for real information:

• Click on the [View] icon on the local menu at the top of the message editing area on the right

You can leave this View window open while you are editing the message.

The contact's detail seen will follow the rule shown above about whether anyone is already booked onto the activity.

Shortcodes Meanings - Sender

Let's now go through in detail the exact information a shortcode represents, starting with the Sender group.

You can see that the shortcodes are arranged in three columns: the copy icon, the shortcode itself, and example values that shortcode could take. (In the case of the Sender shortcodes shown here they are the actual values, as there is only one sender!)

• [From First Name], [From Last Name], [From Email] The name and email of the person messages are specified to come from in the Settings - Brand Settings area of the app.

• [Business Name], [Business Address] The name and address of the business specified in Settings - Business Settings.

• [Contact Details] The Contact Details field specified in Settings - Brand Settings.

• [Brand Name] The Brand Name field specified in Settings - Brand Settings.

Shortcode Meanings - Contact

All of these details are taken from the corresponding fields in the contact record of the person the message is being sent to.

If there are no attendees yet defined for the activity, then the example values in the final column will be for the fictitious contact "John Smith" shown in the image above.

Shortcode Meanings - Activity

• [Activity], [Event] - the external name of the activity as specified on the activity's Basics tab.

• [Location Name], [Location Area], [Location Description] - the respective field values for the activity's location.

• [Start Date], [Start Date Year], [Start Day] - the start date as defined in the Activity's Dates tab, formatted in these three different ways.

• [On Activity Date], [On Event Date] - the textual description of when your activity runs, as defined in the last field on the activity's Basics tab.

• [Booking click here], [Booking Click here], [Booking CLICK HERE] - Each of these create a link to the booking form for the activity, either with the text "click here", "Click here", or "CLICK HERE". These are designed to use in marketing type emails where you can offer your clients a one click method to book onto your activity.

Shortcode Meanings - Booking / Invoice

The following shortcodes take their values from fields on the Summary tab of the Invoice window:

• [Invoice Description] This field is automatically generated during the booking process, but can be subsequently edited if you choose to do that.

• [Invoice Number] The number show in the top bar of the invoice window.

• [Invoice Address] - The text of the invoice address field. This is not set by default, and requires you to enter the information to populate it.

• [Invoice Amount]

• [Amount Outstanding]

This shortcode is related to viewing the invoice:

• [Invoice Click here], [Invoice click here], [Invoice CLICK HERE], Creates a link with text "Click here" or "click here" or "CLICK HERE" which goes to a copy of the invoice which your client can see and print.

The remaining Invoice related shortcodes relate to the details of a specific payment being due:

• [Payment Due Date] - The date the payment is due

• [Payment Due Amount] - The amount that is due

• [Payment Methods] - lists the methods that are available to make this payment. For a Card Payment method, a "click here" link is offered to the page where they can make their payment by card.

• [Payment Click here], [Payment click here], [Payment CLICK HERE], Creates a link with text "Click here" or "click here" or "CLICK HERE" which goes to the page where they can make their payment by card. This is the same location as described in the [Payment Methods] description above.

[Invoice Details] Shortcode

This shortcode is available to give the full details of the invoice status, invoice items, payments made and payments scheduled. It is not included in the supplied messages by default, but is very useful to add for activities which have multiple price items and more than one scheduled payment.

The shortcode produces content designed to be put at the end of an email. Here is an example of the content it creates:

Payment Methods Information

For an activity related invoice, these are the methods listed on the activity's Payment screen:

The text to describe non-card payment methods is taken from the payment method text fields defined in Settings - Business:

The text for a card payment option reads "Card payment click here", and the "click here" link takes your client to the card payment screen:

For a non activity related invoice, all payment methods which have been defined in the fields on the Settings - Business screen will be displayed.

Shortcode Meanings - Payment

This information is found in the Payment window:

• [Paid By] - name of client who paid

• [Payment Method] - payment method used

• [Payment Date] - date paid

• [Payment Amount] - amount paid, in the currency it was paid in.

• [Payment Number] - the payment's number as shown in brackets in the header of the payment window.

• [Paid For] - an internally created description of what the payment is for, based on the way the payment is allocated.

Summary

So there you have it... every single shortcode you can use in a message completely described!

Hopefully this lesson will prove to be a useful reference when choosing specific shortcodes to place into your messages.

In the next lesson, we will look at how to create and send messages which are not specifically related to an activity.