Send eBills
The Send eBills option can be used to e-mail electronic renewal notices to eBill subscribers who qualify for renewal. The e-mail can be in HTML or text format, and Circulation uses templates to determine the e-mail content. If you do not support the eBill renewal delivery method, or if your eBill renewal notices are generated outside of Circulation, you do not need to use this option.
Below is an example of an eBill e-mail. Note that only one amount appears on the notice—the amount of the subscriber’s current rate term. If the subscriber makes a payment in iServices by clicking the Make a Payment link, all of the qualifying rate terms will display.
About eBill e-mails
In order to e-mail renewal notices to your eBill subscribers, you must:
Have the Business Rule— Should E-bill emails be sent from Circulation to E-bill subscribers? (Subscriber Billing section) set to “Yes.”
Have the Business Rule— Which mode should Send eBills be run in? (Email section) set to “Live.”
Customize the eBill e-mail templates to reflect your publication’s look and feel. Different templates can be utilized, based on the notice number and whether you are sending renewals or invoices. See E-mail Templates for information on customizing these templates.
Run Send eBills in test mode, as described in “Testing eBill e-mails” below.
Run Renewal Notices, which creates an eBill batch as part of the process. Send eBills is run for a particular eBill batch. Once an eBill batch is created, it can be deleted by Undo Renewal Notices, as long as the e-mails have not been sent.
See FAQ #115 for more information about eBill renewal notices.
Running Send eBills
Follow the procedure below to send eBill e-mails.
Select Send eBills from the Subscriber menu to display the Send eBills window.
Specify the product and run date for the eBills, and then select the eBill batch (only unsent eBill batches for that product and date can be selected).
Check Send Emails to actually send the e-mails. If left unchecked, no e-mails will be sent, but the processing report will display.
Note:
If the Business Rule— Which mode should Send eBills be run in? is set to “Test,” e-mails will not be sent even if Send Emails is checked. Instead, a window will display prompting for the number of test e-mails to send, the test e-mail address, and whether or not the notices in the batch should be marked as sent.
Select OK and then Continue to run the Send eBill process. When complete, a processing report will display, showing processing messages and listing accounts selected for eBill e-mails.
If e-mails are sent, they will be in HTML or text format using the e-mail template matching the bill type (invoice versus renewal notice) and number. The e-mail “from” address, name, and BCC address will be based on Business Rules. The subject will by default be “Bill now available.” However, that text is stored in a resource message and can be modified using Circulation’s Translation feature.
Once the e-mail is sent for a subscriber, it will be flagged as sent, so that the eBill e-mail cannot be sent again.
Example - Send eBills report
Testing eBill e-mails
Before sending eBill e-mails in a live environment, Newscycle recommends carrying out a testing program, as outlined below.
Copy the renewal notice e-mail templates to your custom template folder and modify them to meet your publication’s look and feel.
Set the Business Rule— Should E-bill emails be sent from Circulation to E-bill subscribers? to “Yes” and Which mode should Send eBills be run in? to “Test.”
Find some test subscribers with a renewal delivery method of “eBill” who are due to receive their renewal notices or invoice.
Run Renewal Notices with “eBill” selected for the Renewal Type.
Run Send eBills with the Send Emails checkbox flagged. You will be prompted for testing information (the number of subscribers to test and test e-mail address, such as your own e-mail address).
Confirm that the correct number of eBill renewal notices were e-mailed to the test address, and that the format and content are correct. Be sure to check all of the links in the e-mail, and view the e-mail with different e-mail clients (such as Outlook and Gmail).
Last updated
