How to add tracking no. in auto email?

Yes when you load the tracker to the shipped panel the system does send the email out with tracer does it not?

I think the coders code add some script that that would automatically populate this field in the email templates?

Belle, who are you using to send your product? Often times you can create an auto-email based upon the shipper that you choose.

Are you attempting to create a internal tracking number? In this case, i would simply stick with your order number or invoice number.

Feel free to send me an email directly,[private contact information removed] if you would like to chat further and/or receive my contact information to work further together.

Belle, I had posted a comment yesterday, but it was removed. Are you looking to add an internal tracking number or supply the tracking number from your shipper?

Hello Jason, all I'm asking is whether there's a way for the shipment tracking no. to be displayed in the system generated email when we change the status to 'shipped'. Right now, the customers have to login to their accounts to check the shipment tracking no., which is just double work.

Belle

They have answered its not built into the software in include the tracker in the email template at this date and time.

I agree, the ability to forward the customer a shipping tracking number should be considered a standard in eCommerce systems.

I look forward to Interspire's solution to this issue.

What about if we add this snippet of code to the email that get's sent to the customer, would this work?

%%LNG_ThisOrderIsMarkedAs%% %%GLOBAL_OrderStatus%%

I haven't tried it yet, my site isn't live as of yet and my shipping isn't setup yet. If anyone has tried please let me know if it works or if you know another way to do this.

Bigcommerce doesn't seem to be understanding the question correctly.

What everyone is saying is....we don't want to have our customers to HAVE to log into their account to get a tracking number.

BUYERS want easy info and NO EXTRA work....they want the info without having to work at signing in and out of accounts with a 1000 passwords....

These should be our customers and we should be sending out tracking info to their email address with the info RIGHT IN THE EMAIL

Please let us manage our own business

I love the site...but we want to run our own business please.

I would also like to see this implemented, and would like to see Big Commerce confirm that it is in the works. Many of my customers forget their password. Having to log in to see the tracking number frustrates many of them and does not enable them to have real-time tracking of their packages.

The tracking number should be included directly in the Ship Notification email and should include a LINK to the carrier's tracking page using their APIs so that the tracking number doesn't need to be cut and paste onto the carrier's website.

Or at minimum, should search Google using that tracking number, and Google will link it to the carrier's tracking page. (see: http://www.google.com/search?q=1Z9999...)

(But if you want to be really cool, implement this into Big Commerce and really be a trend setter in ecommerce: http://blog.isnoop.net/2006/03/05/pac...)

Has anyone tried the suggestion I put in here towards the beginning of the thread? I am not sure it works but it is worth a try.

Hey Just to put it here as well. This morning Mitchell announced that this feature will be in the upcoming 5.6 update of BC :)

Good to hear this feature has been added. A simple feature like this really helps to our overall customer satisfaction - the information they want, given to them in the easiest way possible.

This is a necessary feature

Agreed- essential.

Ug, I tried all the following in my order_status_email template with no luck. None of these values are set for this template apparently.

GLOBAL_ShipComments (guessed from notes section in "Ship Order")
GLOBAL_OrderCommentBlock (used in invoice_email template)
SNIPPET_InvoiceOrderComment (guessed from invoice_email template)
GLOBAL_OrderComments (from InvoiceOrderComment snippet)

This really is such a rudimentary ability, I can't believe it didn't exist.

So when is 5.6?

> So when is 5.6?

In theory, tomorrow. I hope it is. They have pushed the date a couple times.

This isn't working for me. How exactly should this be executed on the admin side? Should my customers get two emails - one when I add a tracking # and another when I update their status to "shipped"? And I thought the tracking# would be in the email? I tested this on myself as a customer to see what they see and the first email I got was:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Your Order Has Been Updated With a Tracking Number

Order Status Changed

Hi {name}

An order you recently placed on our website has had a tracking number added.

Click here to view the status of your order (link to orderstatus.php)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second email is the same as always. The customer still has to login to their account to get their tracking number. Wasn't the idea to send one email when the status was changed to "shipped" to include the tracking # in the email?

is it possible you are overriding with custom template?

Not working over here either. We show 5.6.0 in the footer now.

I went and deleted/reverted all my email templates to be sure.

Put a test order through and got this when I updated the order to shipped with a tracking number ( via Ship Item(s) ):

"An order you recently placed on our website has had its status changed.

The status of order #1000 is now Shipped
Order Details..."

Then I went and hit the SAVE button on the tracking number box and got this email:

"An order you recently placed on our website has had a tracking number added.

Click here to view the status of your order"

If this is how somebody at BC thinks this is supposed to work, then this is bull$&!^. But I can I only assume it's not...and that something is broken.

There must be somewhere in the admin to add a URL string particular to your shipping company. When you add tracking number to the order it automatically appends the tracking number to the URL string and sends out with the 'shipped' email.

Otherwise how would it work?

I shipped out 34 packages yesterday and each customer was given a tracking number, but for some reason most of those customers are contacting me asking me for their tracking numbers today. The box does pop up and asks me if I would like to send a tracking number email to the customer and I click ok and I get the message that it was sent but something isn't working right because they are obviously not getting them. Another feature that doesn't work like it should or at least like I thought it should.

Yes,same problem. Perhaps the "feature" needs to be set up, or perhaps it simply doesn't work, which is a big disappointment. I concur with auntiemoo, "Wasn't the idea to send one email when the status was changed to "shipped" to include the tracking # in the email? "

This didn't work for me either and I was really looking forward to this feature, but it says this question is 'answered' can we re open another question on this?

thanks!

This is what I have been doing from the start and still I am getting customers asking for their tracking number.

Something like this would be nice:

http://commercial.trackthepack.com/

That site automatically knows what service the tracking number is for and makes a cool map for the customer to view.

I'm sure big commerce has the programing skills to do something like that on their own site, maybe even make it so it can be custom for our sites so www.mybigcommericedomainname.com/trac...

Just my 2 cents...

OK there seems to be some confusion -- has anyone shopped their own store? I have. It's not that that they don't know how to add the link -- it's that it isn't sent in all cases.

That said -- BC, please, we would like it sent in any order correspondence if a tracking number is available. Also -- would like to be able to BCC myself on all correspondence.

This is from my testing:

If you choose Actions>Ship and include a tracking number...

NO TRACKING NUMBER OR TRACKING LINK SENT

Subject: Your Order Has Been Updated
-----------------------
Order Status Changed

Hi Joe

An order you recently placed on our website has had its status changed.

The status of order #10020 is now Shipped

Order Details

Order Total: $19.63 USD
Date Placed: 2nd Apr 2010
Payment Method: Store Credit
Click here to view the status of your order (-- just links to store order)

amazey
http://www.amazey.com/
-----------------------------

If afterwords, you click SAVE (on the orders list page) on the tracking number you entered... another email is sent -- this time with a number AND a link. I assume they figured out which link to use by which method customer picked.

TRACKING NUMBER SENT
Subject: Your Order Has Been Updated With a Tracking Number
-----------------------------
Hi Joe

An order you recently placed on our website has had a tracking number added.

The tracking number for this order is EO902338325US
Track the status of your order (---- working link here in this case it was to usps)

Click here to view the status of your order (-- links to store order)

amazey
http://www.amazey.com/
-----------------------------

Yes...This needs to be fixed as it is practically a useless email that is sent to customers. I'm on 5.6.1, but it does not work as we all want it to.

Yeah I cliked the 'save' on the tracking button and it asked if i wanted to send the tracking number in the email and I said, 'ok'. But, here is what I got: The subject was your order has been updated with a tracking number:

and the body follows:

Order Status ChangedHi Laura

An order you recently placed on our website has had a tracking number added.

Click here to view the status of your order

True Light Tools
www.TrueLightTools.com
Inspire Your Mind
......

I get that everytime?

this is obviously not pulling the right email but it is pulling the right subject?

thanks,

Lisa

Looks like the right email but the info is indeed missing...

it might be helpful to BC to provide shipping method. Maybe one or more of the methods is broke.

also, have you customized the email templates? If so you may wish to compare.

I reverted the email, only the footer is changed now. I don't think there is anything in the footer that would lead to this result. But good advice non the less.

Yes this is now a new feature in 5.6. BUT, it was not designed to work with google checkout. SO, customers checking out with google WILL NOT have a tracking number included in their auto email. JUST BRILLIANT ROCKET SCIENCE DESIGN!

Thanks. Needed this for my Auto Transport company Fedex module.

I wish to thank Chris for the work around ! This was simple!

Makes you wonder why the function was not corrected by BC.

Tom

THANK YOU to Chris and AuntieMoo! I can't believe that Big C didn't give this solution sooner.

Another question: when customers log into their account page, they get the tracking number, but no link to directly track it.
Is there a change we can make to the account order status template that will allow them to have one click tracking, like with the emails?

Thanks EVER so much for your help!

G. King
electronic cigarette

"Mitchell Harper (Product Manager), Official Rep, replied 5 months ago
Hi everyone. You need to enter a tracking number then click Save. Then when you change the order status to shipped/completed the email will be sent to the customer with their order status and tracking link+number. Hope that helps. "

Mitchell, do you not understand the question. Your answer is completely wrong. You state "the email will be sent to the customer with their order status and tracking link+number." The email sent to the customer does NOT contain the tracking link + number. It contains a link to your store!!! I would be happy if it contained the tracking number and no link, that would be more useful to the customer.

This is so frustrating. It this corrected in BC6?

Fix this soon! I was waiting for the 6.0 upgrade to follow the above instructions on including the actual tracking number in the e-mail, but apparently it doesn't work according to dhi7777.

I would rant about this too, but I'm pretty sure everyone else in this thread has it covered!

Just got off the phone with Alex. He states that the tracking number has always been emailed to the customer as far as he's been told. He has never tried this himself. I also was told that Mitchell Harper is the owner of Interspire and Big Commerce. I asked 3 time to make sure because I want to talk to the owner or VP so we can help them see the big picture here with the lack of communication. So Mitchell, if you are reading this, I would like to talk to you (in a polite fashion of course). You have my info and can call me. I really like BC but the lack of communication is very frustrating.

Looking forward to your phone call.
Don

I tried Chris' solution on the latest version of BC, but the %%GLOBAL_OrderTrackingNo%% doesn't seem to grab the tracking number.
I've tried clicking on 'Save' next to the tracking number, but in the emails, the tracking number is empty. Also because of this, the tracking number on the Google search comes up empty too.

"Just got off the phone with Alex. He states that the tracking number has always been emailed to the customer as far as he's been told. He has never tried this himself. "

This is completely false. The customer gets an email stating that their order has been updated with a tracking number. They still have to log in to get it.

Me too...the %%GLOBAL_OrderTrackingno%% is not working...what now?

G King
e-cigarette

Mine is working after a phone call yesterday to Alex. He had me revert two files back to the original. I actually had to revert twice and the second time it worked. Now when I enter the tracking number in the Admin and select UPS or USPS from the list, it will email the customer a tracking number link that pulls up UPS or USPS website with their package. They apparently fixed this. I can attest that this did not work prior to version 6.0. All the customer received was the login message as kendric100 mentions above. I believe one of the files to revert is the order confirmation email file.

Well in version 6.0 you have a different tracking input. Let's assume that when you change status to "shipped" the email is sent. What about "partially shipped" I would assume someone receiving multiple items shipped to or from multiple locations would receive emails on every shipment?

Contemporary Rugs

so, what everyone is saying now, is that when you apply the tracking number into the order and marked it as shipped, it will also including the link to track the package?

That's 'standard' now in version 6? Without doing any custom stuff?
Greg

That's what's being stated by the staff - however this is something that there should be very complete documentation on, including samples of what the customer actually sees. It's too important a customer relations function to leave anything open to question. Also, it is more typical for there to be a confirmation that the tracking information has been sent.

I do believe you can edit what the customer sees in this email, but whether you can change exactly what it does is doubtful.

Contemporary Rugs