Set up the email your company sends

For the owner

Barrierline can email an invoice, a receipt, a visit report or a visit reminder to a customer, as your company. This page sets up what that email uses: who it is from, where replies go, and which customers agreed to get it. Nothing is sent to a customer from here. To send an invoice, open it and click Email it (see Billing). To send a visit report, open the finished visit and click Email the report (see Visit reports below). Visit reminders go out by themselves once the owner turns them on (see Visit reminders below).

Who the email is from. It goes out as your company name via Barrierline, from Barrierline’s own sending address. It never comes from your own domain. When a customer replies, the reply comes to the address you give, not to us.

Set it up (the owner does this, in Settings, then Email)

Type Your company name in the email if you want something other than your company name. Leave it empty to use your company name.
Type Send replies to: an address you read, such as your office’s. It can’t be a Barrierline address.
Tap Save. The address shows Not confirmed.
Tap Email me the confirmation link. Open the link in the email we send to that address. It works for 7 days. Open it on any device. You don’t have to be signed in.
The address now shows Confirmed. Turn on Email customers. If you change the reply address later, it needs confirming again and email goes off until it is.

Who agreed to get email. Anyone in the office can mark this. Customers you move in from another system start as Not asked yet, and nothing marks a customer as OK for you. The one exception is a column you point at Email: yes, no or stop when you move in: a yes, a no or a stop in that column is recorded with the words “from your old system” (the customer’s page reads Email: yes in your old system, recorded Oct 14, the day it was recorded here, not the day they said it), and a word we cannot read is left as Not asked yet. A sheet with no such column brings every customer in as Not asked yet, with no name and no time on it. Undoing a move does not take back what it recorded, because it is kept for the email address, not the customer.

One customer: open them on the Customers page. Under their contact details, the line Email: says where they stand. Tap Change to: they said yes or Change to: they said no, and say how: asked on the phone, a signed form, and so on. The date and who marked it are kept.
Many at once: in Settings, Email, tap These customers agreed to get email. Tick the customers who agreed, say how, and tap Mark OK to email.
It is kept for the email address, so if you change a customer’s email address, they start again as Not asked yet.

Email only customers I have marked OK is on to begin with. Anyone you have not marked OK gets no email, even with email on, and the invoice says so where Email it would be. The owner can turn it off, but whether you may email an invoice to a customer who never agreed is a legal question. Ask your lawyer before you turn it off.

Visit reports. A visit report is the record of a finished visit, written as an email to the customer. It is off until the owner turns it on. In Settings, Email, under Visit reports, the owner picks one of two choices:

Off. Visit reports are not emailed.
I send them. Each finished visit’s record page has Email the report. Nothing goes out by itself. It is a person who clicks.

What to know before you send one:

What is in it. The company’s name and details, the service, the date and time, the tech’s name and license number, the target pests and areas, each product with its EPA number, active ingredient, amount, mix, where, method and target, what the product’s label says about going back in (the words your office typed from the label), what the tech typed under Findings and notes, the number of photos and bait stations, and the next booked visit.
What is never in it. No prices, no photos, no link and no file. Nothing your office wrote for itself: the office note, the customer’s notes, the reasons for a correction. It does not say a place is safe.
Read it first. The tech’s notes go to the customer as typed. After you click Email the report, See the email shows exactly what will be sent.
It is in English. We do not know a customer’s language.
It can arrive after the visit. It shows the visit’s date and time. Read the re-entry line against that time, not the time you read the email.
Who gets one. Only a customer you marked OK, at the address on file, and never someone on the stopped list. The OK you gave a customer for invoices and receipts may not cover a visit report or a visit reminder. Ask them, or send these only to people you have asked.
Never for termite work, and never for a customer marked do not service. A termite visit has its own paperwork, and the state’s form is yours to send.
If the tech shared the report from the phone, or the visit was closed without something, the page tells you before you send. It does not stop you. A customer marked cancelled gets a note too.
After a correction. If you use Correct the record after a report went, the visit says the customer has the old one and offers Email the corrected report. It starts with a line saying it replaces the earlier one. It never says what changed or why. Nothing is sent for you.
Again. Email it again sends another copy. It says it is another copy.
A report that waits more than 2 hours without going out, or whose visit changed while it waited, is ended and not sent. The visit says why and you can email it again.
Email that could not be delivered is not reported to you yet. A report that bounced still reads as sent until you add the address to the stopped list.

Visit reminders. A visit reminder is a short email the day before a booked visit. It is off for every company until the owner turns it on, and nothing is sent to a customer until then. In Settings, Email, under Visit reminders, the owner picks Remind customers: Off, The day before, or 2 days before up to 7 days before. Email has to be on first.

If your old software still sends reminders, leave this off until you turn those off. Otherwise a customer gets two.

What a customer gets, and when:

What it says. The company’s name, the day, the arrival window if you set one (printed as you typed it, with no promise to be on time), the service, the visit’s own address if it has one, the words you wrote under Before we come, and how to reach you. Nothing about money, no technician’s name, nothing from the customer’s file, and no link except the stop link every email ends with.
Your words. Before we come is up to 300 characters, in every reminder. Each visit can also have a Note for the customer, up to 200 characters, when you add or edit a stop. Both are one line, with no link, and they refuse words about owing or paying. Do not put a gate code in either: an email goes to an inbox. The Note for the tech and everything in the customer’s file stay private. A note-only edit is not in the schedule log.
When. Reminders are queued every 10 minutes from 8 AM to 6 PM your time and sent by 8 PM at the latest, at most 200 an hour. A visit booked after a run, but with its date still ahead, is caught on the next run. A reminder that waits past 8 PM is not sent, and the next run looks at the visit again. If that visit is dated today by then, it is not reminded: see Never for today.
One email per visit. Two visits for one customer on one day are two emails. Two customers on one email address each get their own.
Customers who agreed before reminders existed. A customer you marked OK before reminders existed said yes to invoices and receipts. Ask them about reminders too.
Who gets none. Anyone who is not active (paused, cancelled or do not service), anyone with no email address, anyone who has not agreed or said no, and anyone on the stopped list. The Not going list in Settings, Email names each one with the reason and where to fix it. Visits booked by a plan are reminded when their day comes within the days you chose; booking sends nothing.
Never for today. The server never emails about a visit dated today, because a tech may have finished it with no signal and the office would not know yet. So with The day before, a visit booked after 6 PM the evening before, or on the day itself, gets no reminder, and neither does one whose reminder was not sent by 8 PM. The Not going list shows each as No reminder went for this visit and it is today. Call them. That day only. With 2 days before or more, a late booking is still caught while its date is ahead.
If the visit changes. If a customer who was reminded has their visit moved or cancelled, they get a short note saying so, at most two notes for a visit. A plan paused or a visit deleted counts as cancelled. The owner can switch these notes off with Tell the customer if a visit they were reminded about moves or is cancelled.
The gap, in plain words. A visit changed after 6 PM the evening before, or on the day itself, is not told to the customer. The reminder said tomorrow, the office cancels at 7 PM, and no email goes. The Not going list shows it as The customer was reminded for this day and it changed after our last send. Call them. until the day is over. A change or cancel note that does not get out (it waited past 8 PM, or email was off) is tried again at the next run while the visit’s old date is still ahead.
What you see. Under the switch: how many reminders and change notes were queued today and when it last ran, how many visits were not reminded because of the hourly limit, and What went for the last 7 days with each one’s status. Email that bounced is not reported to you yet.
It is in English. We do not know a customer’s language.

Stopping email. Every email to a customer ends with who it is from, your address and phone, why they got it, and a link to stop emails from your company. When a customer uses it, they are put on the Stopped list and nothing more goes to that address, including email already waiting. Email that could not be delivered is not reported to you yet, so if a customer tells you they never got it, add their address by hand. The office can take off an address it added. Only the owner can take off one the customer stopped, and has to say why. Taking an address off does not mark the customer OK again: do that yourself if they agree.

Your records. Download everything includes who agreed (email-ok.csv) and the stopped list (email-stopped.csv). Changes are kept: what a record said before is in the legal record history.

Set up the email your company sends

Related