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Status Released
Workspace Pressero
Created by Guest
Created on Dec 2, 2019

Approval Reminder Emails

We have had quite a few requests for reminder emails on orders waiting approval.

Like a 24hr reminder, he you have orders to approve.

  • Attach files
  • Admin
    Chris Beaven
    Reply
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    Nov 7, 2022

    I'm happy to announce that this feature is now live!

    Please see the KB article and provide any feedback to our support team.

    https://support.aleyant.com/kb/a2321/approval-reminder-emails.aspx

  • Mitchelle Hall
    Reply
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    Oct 14, 2022

    Yes Yes Yes!!! Approval Reminder is an absolute must.

  • Admin
    Chris Beaven
    Reply
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    Apr 1, 2022

    I agree! This is a basic reminder that we really need.

  • Adam Mason
    Reply
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    Mar 11, 2022

    BUMP! The Approval Reminder is an absolute must. I like what I've been reading... Nothing to add other than let's make this happen sooner rather than later.

  • Jim Riddles
    Reply
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    Feb 23, 2022

    Chris,

    I don't think a new template is absolutely required. If you could simply prepend "Reminder" to the front of the subject line, that would probably be acceptable, at least until a new template could be added.

  • Admin
    Chris Beaven
    Reply
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    Jan 31, 2022

    Thanks Danny, I'm looking into the line item thing. Lots of complexity here that we need to get right.

    In order to lower the effort of this item and get it produced faster we removed the creation of a new template. That doesn't mean that it can't be added later. I would rather us make small incremental improvements here than none at all.

  • Danny Wilson
    Reply
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    Jan 31, 2022

    Agree with Cynthia, thanks for speaking up. Reminders should be in hours/Days not months. I am also concerned that just sending the same notification again instead of a 'REMINDER' may appear to just be a duplicate or possible a phishing attempt.

    I know handling at the Line Item level is difficult, there are other functionalities that only look at the whole order and not at the line item level. Will be interesting to hear the response on that.

    I am with Cynthia on this.

    Danny

  • Admin
    Chris Beaven
    Reply
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    Jan 31, 2022

    Thanks Cynthia!

    1. I'll ask some questions of the developers and see if that time from would be a problem for our servers. We don't want to provide a feature that works great in this way but kills everything else due to server load.

    2. Good point I will review that.

    3. Another great question. Order with 5 items and only 3 need approval. We would focus on the 3 approval items for this determination not the entire order items. I'll add it to the specs and run it by the developers.

    If you think of anything else that could cause issues in the future let me know.

    Thanks!

  • Cynthia Emblem
    Reply
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    Jan 31, 2022

    Hi Chris, This is great news and love getting the updates on these. Everything sounds good, although I have three concerns. (1) "- Wait Time: Select box (Tooltip: "The amount of time an order should wait for an approval before sending a reminder.") - 1 Month (default), - 2 Months, - 3 Months, - 6 Months.

    We would want the reminders to go out within days, not months, thinking 48-72 hours. We never keep jobs sitting around for a month or more. We typically only have 5 days to produce and the managers tend to forget or miss the approval emails. So we need to remind them sooner than 1 month, if not within 48-72 hours, at the very most one week. And we would still need to manual send in 48-72 hours.

    (2) Also I see that you mentioned "The reminder will be sent to the email on the order." Shouldn't it go to the person or group that is on the original order allowed to approve the order, and not the person that placed the order?

    (3) What happens if only a few items on the order require approval? For example an order that has 5 items, but only 3 require approval. Would the "Reminders will only be sent if an order the has 100% of its items needing approval. If it's partially approved email reminders will stop." cause the process to fail on these type orders? This is almost always the scenerio with our orders. Approvals are usually based on certain type of products that require approval, but not all items on the order.

    Thank you for your consideration on these topics.

    Sincerely,

    Cynthia

  • Admin
    Chris Beaven
    Reply
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    Jan 30, 2022

    Hi Everyone,

    This item is in planning phase and I wanted to give you some details on what we've decided to implement. Please let us know if this meets your needs.

    • Subscriber can turn approval reminder emails on and off per site.

    • Subscriber can set frequency of approval reminder per site minimum would be 48 hours to help server load.

    • Subscriber can set the wait time before the reminders are sent. Minimum is 30 days to protect server load.

    • The reminder will be sent to the email on the order.

    • Reminders will be batched and sent out at times with low server load.

    • The original approval email will be resent a new email template will not be created.

    • Reminders will only be sent if an order the has 100% of its items needing approval. If it's partially approved email reminders will stop.

    • The new controls will show on B2B sites only in site settings general area under the approval panel.


    **Approval Panel controls**

    Added to panel

    - Approval Reminder Emails: Checkbox ("Approval Reminder Settings" will only show when this is checked)

    - Tooltip: "Activates repeated reminder emails for orders that are not approved. Depending on wait time and frequency set the approval email will be resent to the customer."

    New section in approval panel

    - Title: "Approval Reminder Settings"

    - Wait Time: Select box (Tooltip: "The amount of time an order should wait for an approval before sending a reminder.")

    - 1 Month (default)

    - 2 Months

    - 3 Months

    - 6 Months

    - Email Frequency: Select box (Tooltip: "The rate at which the reminder is repeatedly sent.")

    - Every 2 days

    - Every 3 days

    - Every 5 days

    - Every 7 days (default)

    - Monthly

  • Admin
    Chris Beaven
    Reply
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    Dec 17, 2021

    Thanks everyone for the comments. This item has a lot of traction with our subscriber but the estimated effort is beyond what we can take at the moment. But it is the next in line after we've released the 5 items we currently have in planning phase.

    Please continue to add more details and scenarios so when we do develop this feature it will match what you need.

    Thank you.

  • Kathy McCay
    Reply
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    Dec 16, 2021

    Sending reminders emails manually is not efficient especially with so many understaffed at the moment. As someone mentioned below, a reporting function would be nice as well.

  • Danny Wilson
    Reply
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    Aug 10, 2021

    We continually get this request. I notice there are 38 votes for the last two years. If we don't get more support we won't get this, comon, you know you want it

  • Trent Foreman
    Reply
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    Dec 18, 2020

    This function will be similar to the "abandon cart" email idea #57 it's also in a planning area.

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Dec 11, 2020

    Yes! We need this, too. Would also be nice to have some sort of report of the orders that have not been approved for our customer.

  • Eric C
    Reply
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    Nov 30, 2020

    Yes, I also would like this feature. Currently we have to manually look through orders and manually send reminder emails which is tedious.