How to delay the delivery of e-tickets

Sometimes you may not want print at home / e-tickets to be available to customers immediately. Delaying e-ticket delivery can mitigate the risk of ticket resale and give you more control over when customers receive their tickets.

E-tickets can be delivered as a Customer Service Email in Spektrix. You can also use this feature to re-send e-tickets to customers, for example, as a reminder a number of days before the Instance start date.

Before getting started, make sure you’re familiar with:

How does it work?

To control when customers receive their e-tickets, you can choose to delay the delivery until a specified number of days or hours before the Event Instance. This function can only be used with Orders where Print at Home / e-ticket is selected as the delivery method.

To delay the delivery of e-tickets you will need to suppress e-tickets in Spektrix and set up a Triggered Email Campaign in Dotdigital. The Triggered Email can replace your e-ticket/ Print at Home delivery System Email or be sent in addition to it.

To set up your Triggered Email Campaign, you can copy and customise the e-ticket delivery template in your Dotdigital account.

When e-tickets are delivered as a Customer Service Email, they do not use a PDF template (like in System Emails), instead, the details of the tickets are presented in the body of the email.

If you have Digital Passes set up, Google and Apple wallet links will be automatically included in your e-ticket delivery email.

There are two templates, a grouped pass (one pass download button for all tickets) or one pass per ticket (a pass download button per ticket). You can use the template and add your own branding or save the e-ticket template as a Custom Block, which you can drop into your existing e-ticket email.

TIP: To save time, we recommend that you set up a single generic Triggered Email Campaign that can be used across multiple Events. You can also set up different email campaigns for your different Events if you’d prefer.

E-ticket delivery can be scheduled on new or existing Instances.

When the time you have chosen for e-tickets to be delivered arrives, all e-tickets will be sent out using the Triggered Email Campaign you have set up.

Make tickets unavailable until a certain time

If you choose to suppress e-tickets and deliver them at a later date, be aware that customers can log in online and download their tickets from their account. To avoid this, you can choose to prevent tickets being available by creating a blank ticket (without a barcode) that will be delivered as a placeholder until you want to release tickets.

You can then set a second Print at Home / e-ticket ticket design and template which will automatically be delivered to any customers who purchase tickets after the time of the schedule.

To do this, you will need to:

Create a new ticket design which does not include a barcode.
Apply this to a new Print at Home / e-ticket template.

On the Instance:

Assign the ticket design, Print at Home / e-ticket template and Digital Pass Template Id to the Instance (during Instance set up or by editing the Instance).
Uncheck the Send Print at Home email box to stop all e-tickets from being delivered. Unchecking this box will also mean that the ticket barcode is not visible in Web mode of the API.

TIP: You can use the bulk instance update tool to apply these changes.

To automatically send any further tickets directly to the customer after the schedule is delivered, in the Customer Service Email set up:

Enable print at home after sending: choose Yes to automatically unsuppress Print at Home / e-tickets (system emails) after the schedule has been delivered.
Print at Home ticket design: choose a ticket design which does include a barcode.
Print at Home PDF template: choose a Print at Home / e-ticket template to be delivered after the schedule is sent.
Update Digital Pass Template Id: Choose Yes from the dropdown if you'd like the Digital Pass Template Id for the Instance to change after the schedule is delivered.
Digital Pass Template Id: If you choose Yes to Update Digital Pass Template Id, enter the Template Id of the Digital Pass you want the Instance to be updated with.

Setting up your Dotdigital Triggered Email Campaign

In your Dotdigital account, you’ll need to create a Triggered Email Campaign using the e-ticket delivery template by following the steps below.

In Dotdigital, under the Automation menu, create a new Triggered Email by clicking the pink + button:
From the custom templates menu, choose the Shared Templates folder:
Choose the grouped or per ticket template:
- CSE E-ticket with Grouped Pass Link
- CSE E-ticket with Pass Link Per Ticket
Contact our Support team if you cannot find the template on your system.
Name your campaign and click CONTINUE:
Set the campaign details for the e-ticket delivery email:

TIP: You can use the @EVENTNAME@ and the @CLIENTNAME@ to personalise your subject line with the Event name. These can only be used in the subject line and do not need to be created as Data Fields.
Click SAVE & CONTINUE.

How to edit the e-ticket Triggered Email Campaign

In this section, we’ll explain how to edit your Triggered Email in Dotdigital.

In both the grouped and per ticket e-ticket templates, you can add branding and customise the template to your organisation’s preferences. However, before making changes, it’s important to understand which parts of the email you can and can’t edit.

Understanding the e-ticket template

Some elements of the e-ticket delivery email are editable and some are not. To preserve the functionality of the email, it’s important that some parts of the template are retained.

Take a look at the annotated templates to understand more about the e-ticket delivery email.

Refer to the key below to understand which bits of the email you can make changes to.
Refer to the key below to understand which bits of the email you can and can’t edit.

Number	Meaning
1	Liquid Script. Do not edit or delete these blocks. Greyed out elements are not visible in your email when delivered to customers.
2	Data fields and liquid script objects. You can add or remove the fields in these sections to display different ticket information.
3	Spektrix free text. This field is populated with the free text you enter when scheduling your e-ticket email in the Spektrix Admin Interface.
4	Pass links and barcodes. Do not edit or delete these blocks. Changing these elements can prevent your email from functioning properly.
5	Unsubscribe link. Do not remove the unsubscribe link.

Grouped

In the grouped template, the Apple and Google wallet buttons will appear once per email, regardless of how many tickets are contained in the email:

The ticket loop section will appear per ticket:

Per Ticket

In the per ticket template, both the Apple and Google wallet buttons and the barcode and ticket details will appear once per ticket:

Liquid Script

The e-ticket template uses Liquid Script to both show data and power advanced personalisation. The blocks highlighted in pink power this personalisation by dynamically changing content based on each recipient’s order. Do not edit these sections.

These sections can be identified in the email by the grey text. They will not be visible to customers when your email is sent out.

Each email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. An unsubscribe link is required to save the email, but it will be automatically removed when the email is sent.

Merge Fields

The Merge Fields blocks in your e-ticket email are indicated in green boxes on the annotated images in this article.

You can edit these blocks by:

Changing the time and date format. To learn about how to edit the way the date and time are displayed, read the How to format dates with Liquid Script article.
Adding or removing merge fields. Merge fields can be used to dynamically include information about the customer’s ticket in the e-ticket email.

By default, the e-ticket email will include information about each ticket, including:

Event name
Date and time
Seat Name
Seating Plan Area Name
Seat Info
Ticket Type

You can also use the following merge fields in your e-ticket delivery email:

Data Field	Liquid Script	Example data
@FIRSTNAME@	{{data.firstname}}	Sarina
@LASTNAME@	{{data.lastname}}	Longwell
@TITLE@	{{data.title}}	Mx
@CUSTOMERID@	{{data.customerid}}	I-XXXX-XXXX
@EVENTNAME@	{{data.eventname}}	Priscilla Queen of the Desert
	{{ticket.ticketprice}}	$45
	{{ticket.seatname}}	A4
	{{ticket.seatingplanareaname}}	Stalls
	{{ticket.seatinfo}}	Restricted View

*To include the Event Name in the Subject Line of your email, you will need to use the Data Field version of the Event Name merge field.

WARNING: The Liquid Script fields listed in this article cannot be used in any other type of Dotdigital email.
If you need to copy and paste a liquid script object from this article into your Dotdigital email, use Control+Shift+V (paste without formatting). Copying directly from the article and pasting with formatting will cause the email to fail.

Attributes

You can add Ticket or Seat Attribute values to your e-ticket email.

To do this, use the Liquid Script objects below and replace Attribute Name with the exact name of the Attribute from your Spektrix system.

If your Attribute name has spaces within it, for example "Door Name", then replace Attribute Name with the exact name of your Attribute in the following Liquid Script Objects:

Liquid Script	Example data
{{Ticket.TicketAttributes.["Attribute Name"]}}	Staff comp
{{Ticket.SeatAttributes.["Attribute Name"]}}	A

If your Attribute name does not have spaces, for example, "Door", then replace AttributeName with the exact name of your Attribute in the following Liquid Script Objects:

Liquid Script	Example data
{{Ticket.TicketAttributes.AttributeName}}	Staff comp
{{Ticket.SeatAttributes.AttributeName}}	A

Pass links and barcodes

The pass links and barcodes in your e-ticket email are indicated in red boxes on the annotated images in this article.

You can resize the QR code and pass images, but do not replace or edit them in any other way.

TIP: If you have Digital Passes set up for some Instances but not others, you may need to have different Customer Service Emails templates configured for each Instance.

Creating a Plain Text Version

To create a plain text version of your e-ticket delivery email, click SAVE & CONTINUE from within the Easyeditor.

Emails containing Liquid Script cannot be automatically turned into plain text by clicking the GENERATE PLAIN TEXT VERSION button. Therefore, you will need to write the plain text version using Data Fields as Personalisation.

Hi @FIRSTNAME@,

This email contains your tickets for @EVENTNAME@ at @INSTANCESTARTTIME@.

@FREETEXT@

Can't read this email? $CANTREAD$

Plain text versions must not contain:

Sharing links
Social links
Forward to a friend links
View in browser links

WARNING: These features must be removed from the plain text version of the email.

Find your campaign ID

Before saving your Triggered Email Campaign, make a note of your Campaign ID as you’ll need this to set up your schedule.

You can find the Campaign ID in your browser’s address bar when editing the email campaign in Dotdigital.

For example:

To save and close your Triggered Email Campaign:

Click the SAVE & CONTINUE button.
You will receive a Campaign save warning about invalid data fields. This warning can be ignored because this email will be sent as a transactional email.
Close the Triggered Email Campaign.

How to set up a schedule

E-ticket delivery emails can be scheduled in the Admin Interface at the Event Instance level on both new and existing Instances.

TIP: To access the Admin Interface, you’ll need the General Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organisation to add this Role to your User Account.

Click one of the links below to jump to the relevant section:

New Instances (schedule)
Existing Instances (schedule or send immediately)

New Instances

To schedule Customer Service Email during the set up of a new Instance follow the steps below.

During the Instance Details set up, you can suppress Print at Home / e-ticket delivery emails by unchecking the Send print at home email box:

This will prevent any Print at Home / e-tickets from being sent. This includes any tickets which are purchased after the scheduled Customer Service Email e-ticket delivery time. If you choose Yes to Enable print at home after sending when setting up your schedule this will be automatically becme unchecked after your schedule is sent.

Unchecking the Send Print at Home Email box will also mean that the ticket barcode is not visible in Web mode of the API meaning that tickets won't be available if you have built a custom My account page using the API.

After setting the Instance Details, you’ll see the Customer Service Email Schedule tab:

Complete the following details about your Email Schedule.

Schedule Options: choose whether or not to create a schedule. To create a schedule, select the Create scheduled send for Customer Service Email radio button.
Send Before Event Instance: choose the number of days and hours before the Instance start time you’d like the e-ticket email to be delivered.
WARNING: Suppressing Print at Home / e-ticket delivery will prevent customers from receiving e-tickets for any purchases made after the scheduled Customer Service Email e-ticket delivery time. To resolve this, you can un-suppress e-ticket delivery or Schedule another Customer Service Email to be sent after tickets are no longer being sold.
Campaign ID: enter the campaign ID of your Triggered Email Campaign in Dotdigital.

Free Text: enter any free text that you’d like to display in the e-ticket email. This text will replace the @FREETEXT@ data field in your e-ticket email. There is no character limit for free text.

Send to: for e-ticket delivery, click the Print at Home radio button.

Enable print at home after sending: Choose yes to automatically unsuppress Print at Home / e-tickets (system emails) after the schedule has been delivered. By default this option will be set to Do not change. If you choose Do not change this will not affect whether Print at Home tickets are suppressed or not.

Print at Home ticket design: If you are automatically unsuppressing Print at Home ticket delivery you can choose an alternative Ticket Design. By default this option will be set to Do not change. If you choose Do not change the ticket design set at Instance level will be delivered if unsuppressed.

Print at Home PDF template: If you are automatically unsuppressing Print at Home ticket delivery you can choose an alternative Print at Home PDF template. By default this option will be set to Do not change. If you choose Do not change the Print at Home PDF template set at Instance level will be delivered if unsuppressed.

Update Digital Pass Template Id: Choose Yes from the dropdown if you'd like the Digital Pass Template Id for the Instance to change after the schedule is sent.

Digital Pass Template Id: If you choose Yes to Update Digital Pass Template Id, enter the Template Id of the Digital Pass you want the Instance to be updated with.

Click Next to confirm the schedule and continue setting up the Instance.

Your e-ticket email will be delivered to all customers with tickets to the Instance with the Print at Home / e-ticket delivery method at the time you set in the schedule.

You can choose to receive email notifications about failed Customer Service Email schedules. Read the Failure Notifications section of the Customer Service Email article for more information.

Existing Instances

You can schedule or immediately send a Customer Service Email from an existing Instance.

Schedule an e-ticket delivery

To schedule an e-ticket delivery email for an existing Instance, navigate to the Instance that you want to update.

In the Basic Details tab of the Instance, you can suppress print at home / e-ticket delivery by unchecking the Send Print at Home email box:

This will prevent any Print at Home / e-tickets from being sent including any purchases made after the scheduled Customer Service Email e-ticket delivery time.

Go to the Customer Service Email Schedule tab of the Instance.

Click the Edit button to edit the schedule:

Follow the same steps as in the New Instances section to set up your schedule.

Send e-tickets immediately

To send e-tickets out for an existing Instance immediately, you can use the Customer Service Email schedule wizard.

Navigate to the Instance you want to send e-tickets for.
Click the Customer Service Email button at the bottom of the Instance Details page.
Enter the campaign ID of your Triggered Email Campaign in Dotdigital and click Validate:

If the campaign ID you enter is not valid for any reason then you will receive an error message and will not be able to proceed with the set up.
If the Triggered Email you have set up is valid, you’ll see a success message. To proceed, click Next:
Additional Info: enter any free text that you’d like to display in the e-ticket email. This text will replace the @FREETEXT@ data field in your e-ticket email. This must be plain text and cannot contain any marketing messages.
Send Options: for e-ticket delivery, click the Print at Home radio button.
Confirm that there are no marketing communications in your e-ticket delivery email and click Send Campaign.
Summary: a message will display to confirm that the email has been sent.

For customers who are inactive or do not have a valid email address, you’ll be given the option to download a CSV containing their details. You’ll need to contact these customers by phone or post.
Click Finish to complete sending the Customer Service Email.