Help center › Set up
Notification emails
The email Beacon sends to the people who submit requests can go out under your district's name, such as Technology Department or Help Desk, end with your signature, and use your own words. Owners and admins set it up under Admin › Settings › Notification Emails and keep it with Save Changes. These settings change how an email reads, not who gets one: nobody receives an email they would not receive otherwise.
What you can change
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| From name | The sender's name requesters see in their inbox: 2 to 60 characters on one line, without @, <, > or quotation marks, since it is a name and not an address. Left empty, the email goes out under Beacon's name. |
| Signature | Plain text after the words of each email a requester gets about a request, up to 500 characters, such as the help desk's extension and hours. Line breaks are kept. |
| The confirmation paragraph | The paragraph added to the confirmation someone gets when their email opens a request (while Confirm new requests by email is on), such as office hours or who to call when something cannot wait. It is the same setting as Add to the confirmation on the Email to Ticket card, so a change in one place shows in the other. The rest of the confirmation's wording is Beacon's. |
| Three emails | The subject and text of the emails for a request opened for someone, a reply, and a status change, with placeholders for the request's details. See the three emails. |
Who gets your version
Requesters: the staff and students who submit requests on the portal or by email, the people whose role is Requester. Every email Beacon sends a requester about a request goes out under your From name and carries your signature, and the three emails below use your wording once you save it. Email to owners, admins and agents keeps Beacon's name and wording, even about a request one of them submitted. The one exception is the confirmation of a request sent by email: it carries your From name and signature whoever sent the request.
In-app and push notifications keep Beacon's wording. Account email, such as an invitation or a password link, comes from Beacon.
The sending address stays Beacon's
Only the name changes. The address the email is sent from is Beacon's own (the preview on the card shows it), never an address at your district's domain. The email keeps passing the sender checks receiving mail services run (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), and nothing in your district's domain settings has to change. Replies still go to the request's own reply address and thread into the request, as described in Email to ticket.
The three emails
Each has a subject (one line, up to 200 characters) and a text (plain text, up to 5,000 characters, no formatting). After the text, Beacon adds your signature and the closing lines every request email ends with: how to reply, and the link to the request.
Request opened for someone
Sent when a technician opens a request on someone's behalf. A person who opens a request themselves gets no email for it, apart from the confirmation of a request sent by email. Beacon's wording: the subject Request #{{ticket.number}} opened for you and the text
{{actor.name}} opened request #{{ticket.number}} for you.
{{ticket.title}}
{{ticket.description}}
Reply on a request
Sent when someone replies on the request; internal notes never leave the team. Beacon's wording: the subject New reply on #{{ticket.number}} {{ticket.title}} and the text
{{actor.name}} wrote:
{{comment.body}}
Status change
Sent when the request's status changes, for example to resolved. Beacon's wording: the subject #{{ticket.number}} is now {{status}} and the text
{{ticket.title}}
Placeholders
| Placeholder | What it becomes |
|---|---|
{{ticket.number}} | The request's number, without the # sign |
{{ticket.title}} | The request's title |
{{ticket.description}} | What was written when the request was opened |
{{org.name}} | Your organization's name |
{{requester.firstName}} | The first name of the person the email goes to |
{{actor.name}} | The person who opened the request or wrote the reply (blank in a status change) |
{{comment.body}} | The words of the reply (blank in the other two emails) |
{{status}} | The request's status, such as resolved or on hold |
{{link}} | The link to the request |
Spaces inside the braces are fine ({{ ticket.number }}). A placeholder Beacon does not know, or one with nothing to fill it, such as the description of a request opened without one, comes out blank. On a request the safety screen flagged, {{ticket.description}} is left blank in the reply and the status change. In the text, two or more empty lines in a row become one, and empty lines at the end are dropped. Placeholders are the only special wording: there are no conditions and no formatting. If a subject comes out empty, Beacon's subject for that email is used.
Preview, reset and test
- Preview. The card fills each email with a sample request (#1042, a projector that will not turn on) and shows it as a requester will see it: the From line with your name and Beacon's sending address, the subject, the text, your signature and the closing lines. It follows your edits as you type.
- Reset to default on an email puts Beacon's wording back; Save Changes keeps it.
- Send me a test sends the email you are editing to your own address, about the sample request, with the subject, text, From name and signature as they stand on the card, saved or not. Its link is part of the sample and opens no request. Each person can send up to 10 tests an hour. A demo district does not send email, so it cannot send a test.