automatic email - MiBase New Zealand - Toy Library Management System

Setting up Email Templates

MiBaseNZ provides a rather extensive list of email templates that your library can use to send to your members. MiBaseNZ has provided a general outline for each email template as well as including some general and some specific shortcodes.

Your library can change these templates however you like. All you need to do is select the email template, click Edit, make the changes, and click Save.

You also have the option of creating your very own email template however they can only be used in bulk emails.

Go to Setup -> Email Templates

Add new email template

To create your own email template simply click the blue Add New button to the top right of the page (see image below). Follow this link to learn how to Create your own template.

List of email’s templates

As you can see there is quite a selection of emails to choose from. These email templates can be filtered into different delivery types (see outlined in the below image) which means their functions differ in how they are sent to members.

There are 4 different delivery types, they are:

Auto: this stands for Automatic Emails which are emails, when set up correctly, are sent automatically
Bulk Email: these are specific emails which can be sent to all or just a few of your active members by the Bulk email functionality
Process: these emails, if activated, are sent to members after a function has been used
Button: these emails are linked to a button within MiBaseNZ and when clicked will send the email, like email and loan receipts

To view, check and change each of the above groups of email templates, follow the links below.

Automatic Emails

Overdue toy reminder
Roster reminder
Membership due to expire
Birthday – wishing members a Happy Birthday
Membership Expired
Header template – once this is set up every email sent will have this header
Footer template – once this is set up every email sent will have this footer
Toy Reservation reminder
Member expired go to resign
Membership due to expire with a negative balance
Party Pack Welcome email
Duty due reminder Note: there is a further three duty due reminder templates, simple, first and second. These were created for libraries to set up multiple reminders. Click the above Duty due reminder link for further explanation
Toy due soon reminder
Member Statement

Bulk Emails

New Member – Welcome email for new members
Login – member’s login details
Member Update – email asking for members to update their details
Missing – email for members who were missing pieces from their toy returns that day
Bulk Email – generic template you can change to your liking
Renew Membership – like the welcome email but for members renewing their membership
Newsletter – template you can use specifically for your library’s newsletters
Member Transaction – email to send three months worth or the full list of a member’s transactions
New Password – email sent to admin and volunteers when they reset their password

Process

Membership Application Received – this is sent when a member joins using the online sign-up form on the Public Website
Click and Collect Booking Confirmation – when a member reserves a toy and makes a booking to collect through the Member Website

Button

Email Receipt: this button allows you to email a receipt of a member’s toy loans
Loan Receipt: this button allows you to print a receipt of a member’s toy loans
Payments Email: this button allows you to email or print a receipt of a member’s payment list

Setting Up Automatic Emails

An amazing feature of MiBaseNZ is the ability to set up and send emails to your members automatically. You can imagine how much time will be saved by not having to do these manually and by not having to remember to do them.

These Automatic Emails, also known as Cron Jobs, will be sent during the night, between 1:00 am and 4:00 am. The cron job is always active within MiBaseNZ, you just need to specifically activate them for your system.

There are a number of different types of automatic emails you can choose to use. You can choose the day you would like them sent and how many days before or after the event they are sent.

To see the full list of automatic emails, go to Setup -> Automatic Email

Before you start activating and using these emails, you will need to set up the Header and Footer templates. Once set up, every email, when sent, will automatically have the header and footer included.
Follow these links to set up your library’s header and footer templates:

Header template
Footer template

You can see by the list below how many Automatic Emails you can choose to activate and use.

Above the list, you will see two buttons, Activate All and De-activate All. These buttons allow you to either activate all the emails at once (make sure they are set up ready to go) or de-activate them all (great if your library is closed for a short while and you do not want emails to be sent out) saving you from having to do them individually.

Simply click the required button and a Success message will appear stating the changes have been made.

Success message box

You can also decide on whether you would like to receive the admin email report or not. Under the Email Admin column if you choose Yes, you will receive the admin email report even if members will not be receiving the automatic email from the system. If you choose No, the admin report will only be sent when at least one member receives the automatic email.

You also have the option of being able to send an email whenever you want and to all the members at once by clicking the Send it Now button. The automatic email must be active for this to work. Automatic Email list

#11 new_expire_covid: this one does not have an email template. It is linked with activating and deactivating the Temporary Closure module.

By clicking the links below, you will go to that specific Automatic Email to see how to set it up correctly.

Birthday
Roster reminder
Overdue toy
Membership Expired
Membership due to expire
Reservation reminder
Duty due reminder Note: there is a further two duty due reminder templates, first and second. These were created for libraries to set up multiple reminders. Click the above Duty due reminder link for further explanation
Member expired go to resign
Due to expire membership with a negative balance
Toy due soon reminder
Member Statement

Using Shortcodes in Emails

One of the many great features MiBaseNZ provides is the automatic emails and the bulk emailing functions. When setting these email templates up, to save on time and effort, you can use shortcodes.

What is a shortcode you ask? Well, a shortcode is a specific code that lets you do nifty things with very little effort. It allows you to add or embed specialised content to your email. The shortcode will automatically select the relevant information from within your database.

Pick up all information automatically from your system or database that you have setup

Below is the list of generic shortcodes that you can use and examples of how they appear in the emails. The key thing to remember when typing a shortcode into an email is that you have to use brackets around the specific word.

Shortcode list

For specific shortcodes related to specific automatic emails, please follow the below links to see them
Overdue Toys shortcodes
Toys Due Soon shortcodes
Reserved Toys shortcodes
Roster Reminder shortcodes
Member Statement shortcodes

Otherwise, here is a list of all the generic shortcodes you can use:

[firstname]: Member First Name

[borid]: Member ID

[expired]: Membership expiring date

[longname]: Member Full Name

[mobile]: Member mobile phone, not the second contact

[email]: Member email, not the second contact

[membertype]: Membership type for a Member

[username]: username to be used in the Member Website

[pwd]: password to be used in the Member Website

[address]: Member Address

[children]: Member children name, only one, to be used for a Birthday email template

[balance]: Member’s balance

[now]: the date of the email

[nextroster]: member’s next rostered duty

[missing]: List of missing pieces that the member missed, for example

[toyslist_pieces]: Toy on loan list with description (toyslist_pieces)

[toylist]: Toy on loan (toylist),
for example

[toyslist_detailed]: Toy on loan list very detailed (toyslist_detailed),
for example

[toyslist_small]: Toy on loan list small (toyslist_small),
for example

[toyslist_very_short]: Toy on loan list very short (toyslist_very_short),
for example

How to add shortcodes to an email

An example is the login email. All the words in brackets are shortcodes.

and the result is:

Follow this link to find out How to send bulk emails to your members.

Due to Expire with Negative Balance – Automatic email

When a membership is due to expire with a negative balance on their account, you can decide how many days prior you would like to send this email.

The default setup is 90 days, so the members will receive the email 90 days before the membership expires.

Email template

The first important step is to create/modify the email template called ‘negative_balance’.

Go to Setup -> Email Templates and click edit.

Due to expire with negative balance email template

Then change the content in the email

Due to expire with negative balance email template

You can add any generic shortcode you like to the email, for example, in the above template, you can see [longname] or [libraryname].
Follow this link to view our full list of shortcodes.

Negative balance shortcode

For the member to see how much they are owing on their account you will need to ensure the shortcode $[balance] is added with the dollar sign before it as shown above. It will look like this:

After saving the email, go to Setup -> Automatic Email and activate the cron job.

This type of automatic email will only be sent once.

Administrator Report

Every time MiBaseNZ sends an email, the toy library admin will receive the REPORT in an email, like this

negative balance report

As you can see from the Members List there are 4 members who are due to expire in 12 days BUT only 2 with a negative balance.

Toy Due Soon – Automatic email

This email is great for reminding members when the toys they have on loan are due soon. You can decide how many days prior you would like to send this email.

The default setup is 2 days, so the member will receive the email 2 days before the due date.

Email template

The first important step is to create/modify the email template called ‘toy_due_soon’.

Go to Setup -> Email Templates and click edit.

Then change the content in the email

You can add any generic shortcode you like to the email, for example, in the above template, you can see [longname] or [email_library].
Follow this link to view our full list of shortcodes.

Toy Due Soon Shortcodes

For the list of toys due soon inside the email you can use these specific shortcodes:

[toyslist_due_soon_pieces]

[toylist_due_soon]

[toyslist_due_soon_small]

[toyslist_due_soon_very_short]

[toyslist_due_soon_detailed]

After saving the email, go to Setup -> Automatic Email and activate the cron job.

This type of automatic email will only be sent once.

Administrator Report

Every time MiBaseNZ sends an email, the toy library admin will receive the REPORT in an email, like this

Member Email

This is the email that the member will receive.

Toy on loan list

In our toy on loan list, the member Hulk Banner has 4 toys on loan, 1 is overdue and only 2 of them are due back in 2 days, so he will receive the email with only 2 toys in it like the example above.

Not Active Members page

MiBaseNZ has created the Not Active page for you to see a list of all your resigned or locked members.

Resigned members are members whose memberships have been expired for some time due to moving or no longer interested.
Locked members are members who have potentially stolen toys or have not paid their fees.

These members cannot be deleted. They need to be kept for historical reasons as they are still linked to a toy history such as loans or missing pieces or transactional history which needs to be kept for at least 5 years.

All members on this page WILL NOT appear in the Members Stat page, Members List page or the Mem. Expired page. They will also not receive any automatic or bulk emails.

This list shows you the member’s details such as account balance, their duty situation if they are a duty member or the reason for their not active status.

To see the full list of resigned or locked members, go to Member -> Not Active

Not Active page

You can see from the list below the following information for each member.
In the top right corner above the table, you can see in black the total number of resigned and/or locked members and in blue the total number of children.

List of resigned or locked members

id: the member’s id number.
FullName
Change Status: to re-activate the member select from the dropdown menu. They will appear back in the Member’s List when you refresh the page.
Date Joined
Email address
Mobile/Phone numbers
Membership type
Reason: you can add a reason for the member to be locked or resigned. To do this you will need to go to the member’s detail page, select “Edit” and at the bottom, there is a box to type in a reason for locking or resigning the member.
Balance: this is the member’s account balance. If it is red, it means the member is owing money.
RosterDue: this lists the number of duties the member is owing. If the number is red, the member owes duties. If the number is negative, the member has completed more duties than expected.

To view the member’s full list of details, click on the blue “View” button.

To sort or filter the list, click the arrows next to the heading you want to sort or filter the list by or type in the search boxes underneath the headings.

You can also download the list to PDF and/or Excel by clicking the “Export to PDF” or “Export to Excel” buttons. This will export the full list, not a filtered list. If you want to download a filtered list, export to excel and sort or filter through there.

Exporting data to PDF and excel

For members to appear in the Not Active list, you can manually change the status of the member in the Member Detail page or you can activate MiBaseNZ‘s cron job for Resigned Members where after a number of days the membership has expired, an email will be sent to the member and their details will be automatically removed from the Expired Members list to the Not Active list. To set this up go to Resigned Members – Automatic Email.

Resigned Members – Automatic Email

When a member has NOT renewed their membership for quite some time, MiBaseNZ has set up a cron job which allows you to resign this member and move them from the Expired Member list to the Not Active list. This cron job will send the member an email to let them know and MiBaseNZ will automatically resign them and move their details to the Not Active list.
The default setup is 365 days so the member will receive this email 365 days after the membership has expired.

Email Template

The first important step is to create/modify the email template called ‘go_to_resigned_members’.

Go to Setup -> Email Templates and click edit.

Resigned members email template

Then change the content of the email

Resigned member email template

You can also add any generic shortcode you like to the email, for example, in the above template, you can see [longname] or [libraryname].
Follow this link to view our full list of shortcodes.

After saving the email, go to Setup -> Automatic Email and activate the cron job.

Edit Automatic Email

This type of automatic email will only be sent once.

Administrator Report

Every time MiBaseNZ sends an email, the toy library admin will receive the REPORT in an email, like this

Members Expired page

MiBaseNZ has created the Mem. Expired page for you to see a list of all your expired members and their details such as account balance and their duty situation if they are a duty member (this does not include the resigned or locked members. To view this list you will need to go to the Not Active page).

The information on this page does differ from the Members Stat page. It does also contain almost the same information as the Members List page however the members’ list is for active members only.

To see the full list of expired members, go to Member -> Mem. Expired

List of expired members

You can see from the list below the following information for each member.
In the top right corner above the table, you can see the total number of expired members.

List of expired members

id: the member’s id number.
FullName
Expired: the date the membership expired.
Mobile/Phone numbers
Email address
Membership type
Balance: this is the member’s account balance. If it is red, it means the member is owing money.
RosterDue: this lists the number of duties the member is owing. If the number is red, the member owes duties. If the number is negative, the member has completed more duties than expected.

To edit or update the member’s details, click on the pink “Edit” button.
To view the member’s full list of details, click on the blue “View” button.

To sort or filter the list, click the arrows next to the heading you want to sort or filter the list by or type in the search boxes underneath the headings.

Exporting data to PDF and excel
You can also access this list of expired members via the homepage.

Expired members
When a membership is about to expire or has expired, you can set up Automatic Emails that MiBaseNZ will send to the members overnight to let them know. To set up these emails go to Due to Expire – Automatic Email and Membership Expired – Automatic Email.

You can also decide how long you want your members to stay in the expired list before being moved to the Not Active list as mentioned at the beginning. MiBaseNZ has set up an automatic email for Resigned Members which you can activate if you would like to use it. The default number of days this email is set for is 365 days after the membership has expired however you can edit this when you set it up. To set this up go to Resigned Members – Automatic Email.

Due to Duty – Automatic email

When a membership is due to expire and the member still has duties to complete, you can decide how many days prior they will start to receive an automatic email.

There are three due to duty automatic emails you can use and they have been created so multiple reminders can be sent over a time interval of your choice.

The default setup is different for each but can be changed to whatever you choose so members will receive the emails so many days before the membership expires.
For example, the first can be sent 90 days before, the next 60 days before and the last 30 days before.

Email Template

The first important step is to create/modify the email templates called ‘due_to_duty’. Each template is the same so you may need to make slight changes to align with the order they are sent, entirely up to you.

Go to Setup -> Email Templates and click edit.

Then change the content in the emails

You can add any generic shortcode you like to the emails, for example, in the above template, you can see [longname] or [libraryname].
Follow this link to view our full list of shortcodes.

After saving the emails, go to Setup -> Automatic Email and activate the cron jobs.

Activating due to duty cron jobs

Make sure the email template matches the correct cron job.

This type of automatic email will only be sent once.

Administrator Report

Every time MiBaseNZ sends an email, the toy library admin will receive the REPORT in an email, like this

Reservation Reminder – Automatic email

This email is great for reminding members they have a toy reservation that needs collecting from the library. You can decide how many days prior you would like to send this email.

The default setup is 3 days, so the member will receive the email 3 days before the reservation date.

Email template

The first important step is to create/modify the email template called ‘reserve’.

Go to Setup -> Email Template and click edit.

Then change the content in the email

You can also add any generic shortcode you like to the email, for example, in the above template, you can see [firstname].
Follow this link to view our full list of shortcodes.

Reserve list shortcodes

For the list of reserved toys inside the email you can use these specific shortcodes:

[reserve_list]

[reserve_list_detailed]

After saving the email, go to Setup -> Automatic Email and activate the cron job.

his type of automatic email will only be sent once.

Administrator Report

Every time MiBaseNZ sends an email, the toy library admin will receive the REPORT in an email, like this

Member Email

The member will receive an email like this

Reservation List

As you can see in the Reservation List, the member Hulk Banner has 2 toys reserved for the 07-07-2020 (as shown in the email above) and the member Captain America has 1.