How To: Setup Email Consignment References for Boxes

Setting up Email Consignment References for Boxes is an Advanced User feature.

Using the $BOXES_CONSIGNMENT_REF tag in automatically generated despatch emails to the customer allows the user to add the Courier URL from [ System Data | Couriers ] and consignment reference in the body of the email. Where an invoice has been packed into more than one box, this tag will display the individual consignment references generated (including URLs, if specified in [ System Data | Couriers ]) for each box on a separate line in the email. There are three obvious scenarios for this functionality:

Scenario 1 - Invoice is packed into one box: the system will populate the tag with:

http://courier.co.uk/trackingnumber

Scenario 2 - Invoice is packed into many boxes: the system will populate the tag with the following for each box with a line break between each reference:

http://courier.co.uk/trackingnumber1

http://courier.co.uk/trackingnumber2

http://courier.co.uk/trackingnumber3

Scenario 3 - Invoice is not packed and a consignment number is stored against the invoice header, rather than the boxes: the system will populate the tag with:

http://courier.co.uk/trackingnumber

Setup

To setup the system to use the $BOXES_CONSIGNMENT_REF tag is a two step process:

1. Add the URL to the courier.
2. Create, or update, email templates with the $BOXES_CONSIGNMENT_REF tag in the body of the message.
   Note: you may wish to setup a trigger rule to automatically send the email, see How To: Setup 'Your Order has Shipped' Invoice Emails.

Update the Courier information with their URL

1. Open a System Data screen (show me how).
2. Open the [ System Data | Couriers ] screen.
3. Press Alt+E or click to enter edit mode.
4. Green-select the line for the courier you wish to add a URL for, this makes it easier when scrolling along to the Hyperlink column on the right.
5. Add the URL for example:

   http://www.dpd.co.uk/service/tracking?consignment=<REF>

   www.tnt.co.uk/REF=<REF>
   Note: the <REF> at the end of the URL, this will be replaced by the consignment number in the final email.

Create, or Update, the Email Template

Setup your email message template, see How To: Setup 'Your Order has Shipped' Invoice Emails and make sure the HTML checkbox is ticked. The $BOXES_CONSIGNMENT_REF tag can be added in different ways:

• As part of the main body; or...
• if using <DECODE> tags in an HTML template then the tag can be added, in the following example the system will match on one property of the courier in this case it will check if the COURIER_TYPE matches against the text CityLink:

1. If true it will add the fictitious URL for citylink tracking.
2. If False it will add the text

   "leave this blank to ignore other couriers".

3. If an error occurs then it will add the text:

   "leave this blank to ignore errors".
   
   

<DECODE value1="$COURIER_TYPE" operator="equals" value2="CityLink" 
 trueText="Look here to track your order: BOXES_CONSIGNMENT_REF" 
 falseText="leave this blank to ignore other couriers" 
 errorText="leave this blank to hide errors"></DECODE>

Notes:

1. In the example COURIER_TYPE is the information defined in the Courier Name column in [ System Data | Sales Order Processing | Couriers ] screen.
2. Using IF statements and conditional text is possible but not user friendly. The statements are formatted using XML.
3. "Equals" is the only supported operator at present.
4. This functionality does not work when nested inside each another tag structure.
5. If you need to do different actions for other couriers you will need to add a condition for each matching courier text.
6. If you need help with other examples please email Support.

See Also

• Email Manager