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Creation/Shipping Notification Emails For Your Customers

Amanda James

With Whiplash, you have the option to set up a Notification Email that can fire whenever an order ships. This would replace an email from your e-commerce provider. It is which option you'll use to notify customers of a shipment. Notification Emails are used to notify customers of a shipment, provide tracking or return info, or say "Thank you!"

It can be accessed in your Admin panel under the 'Email Confirmation' tab.

 

Customization

It's easy to customize the tracking e-mails we send your customers. We use liquid markup, along with standard HTML and CSS. You can read below for a primer

A Few Notes:

  • Templates should be valid HTML documents.

  • Templates should include CSS directly in the <head> or should link to an externally hosted stylesheet.

  • Aside from your logo, other images should be hosted externally and reference using absolute links.

  • It is recommended that all external files are available via both HTTP and HTTPS, and are referenced like: //your-external-asset.jpg (i.e. without specifying a protocol).

Whiplash Liquid Objects

These are referenced like {{order.number}}, {{customer.logo}}, {{order_item.sku}}.

Order

  • id - the whiplash order id

  • number - the incoming order number

  • barcode - order barcode

  • status - order status

  • created_at - when the order was added to whiplash

  • updated_at - when the order was last updated in whiplash

  • date - short format order date

  • shipping_address - you can grab the shipping address all at once

  • ship_method - order shipping method

  • order_items - the individual items in an order (see below for order item methods)

  • total - total order cost

  • ship_price - shipping cost

  • grand_total - order cost + shipping cost

  • paid - amount paid

  • balance - remaining balance

  • notes - any additional order notes

  • notes? - check if there are order notes

  • return_url - URL to web-based return/exchange form

  • domestic? - is this order domestic?

  • international? - is this order international?

  • greeting - attempts to return the shipping first name; falls back to "Friend"

  • tracking_numbers - an array of tracking numbers

  • tracking_link - the first or only tracking link for an order

  • tracking_links - a comma separated list of hyperlinked tracking numbers

  • billing_name

  • billing_street1

  • billing_street2

  • billing_city

  • billing_state

  • billing_state_abbr

  • billing_country

  • billing_zip

  • billing_phone

  • shipping_name

  • shipping_street1

  • shipping_street2

  • shipping_city

  • shipping_state

  • shipping_state_abbr

  • shipping_country

  • shipping_zip

  • shipping_phone

Order Item

  • sku - item SKU

  • quantity - how many were ordered

  • weight - item weight

  • price - item price

  • total - quantity x price

  • description - item description

Customer

  • name - customer name

  • logo - customer logo image

  • logo_url - logo image URL, if you'd like to use your own image tag or CSS

  • logo? - check if there is a customer logo uploaded

Liquid Reference

There are two types of markup in Liquid: Output and Tag.

  • Output markup (which may resolve to text) is surrounded by

    {{ matched pairs of curly brackets (ie, braces) }}

  • Tag markup (which cannot resolve to text) is surrounded by

    {% matched pairs of curly brackets and percent signs %}

Output

Here is a simple example of Output:

Hello {{name}} Hello {{user.name}} Hello {{ 'tobi' }}

Advanced output: Filters

Output markup takes filters. Filters are simple methods. The first parameter is always the output of the left side of the filter. The return value of the filter will be the new left value when the next filter is run. When there are no more filters, the template will receive the resulting string.

Hello {{ 'tobi' | upcase }} Hello tobi has {{ 'tobi' | size }} letters! Hello {{ '*tobi*' | textilize | upcase }} Hello {{ 'now' | date: "%Y %h" }}
 

Standard Filters

  • date - reformat a date (syntax reference)

  • capitalize - capitalize words in the input sentence

  • downcase - convert an input string to lowercase

  • upcase - convert an input string to uppercase

  • first - get the first element of the passed in array

  • last - get the last element of the passed in array

  • join - join elements of the array with certain character between them

  • sort - sort elements of the array

  • map - map/collect an array on a given property

  • size - return the size of an array or string

  • escape - escape a string

  • escape_once - returns an escaped version of html without affecting existing escaped entities

  • strip_html - strip html from string

  • strip_newlines - strip all newlines (\n) from string

  • newline_to_br - replace each newline (\n) with html break

  • replace - replace each occurrence e.g. {{ 'foofoo' | replace:'foo','bar' }} #=> 'barbar'

  • replace_first - replace the first occurrence e.g. {{ 'barbar' | replace_first:'bar','foo' }} #=> 'foobar'

  • remove - remove each occurrence e.g. {{ 'foobarfoobar' | remove:'foo' }} #=> 'barbar'

  • remove_first - remove the first occurrence e.g. {{ 'barbar' | remove_first:'bar' }} #=> 'bar'

  • truncate - truncate a string down to x characters

  • truncatewords - truncate a string down to x words

  • prepend - prepend a string e.g. {{ 'bar' | prepend:'foo' }} #=> 'foobar'

  • append - append a string e.g. {{ 'foo' | append:'bar' }} #=> 'foobar'

  • minus - subtraction e.g. {{ 4 | minus:2 }} #=> 2

  • plus - addition e.g. {{ '1' | plus:'1' }} #=> '11', {{ 1 | plus:1 }} #=> 2

  • times - multiplication e.g {{ 5 | times:4 }} #=> 20

  • divided_by - division e.g. {{ 10 | divided_by:2 }} #=> 5

  • split - split a string on a matching pattern e.g. {{ "a~b" | split:"~" }} #=> ['a','b']

  • modulo - remainder, e.g. {{ 3 | modulo:2 }} #=> 1

Tags

Tags are used for the logic in your template. New tags are very easy to code, so I hope to get many contributions to the standard tag library after releasing this code.

Here is a list of currently supported tags:

  • assign - Assigns some value to a variable

  • capture - Block tag that captures text into a variable

  • case - Block tag, its the standard case...when block

  • comment - Block tag, comments out the text in the block

  • cycle - Cycle is usually used within a loop to alternate between values, like colors or DOM classes.

  • for - For loop

  • if - Standard if/else block

  • include - Includes another template; useful for partials

  • raw - temporarily disable tag processing to avoid syntax conflicts.

  • unless - Mirror of if statement

Comments

Comment is the simplest tag. It just swallows content.

We made 1 million dollars {% comment %} in losses {% endcomment %} this year

Raw

Raw temporarily disables tag processing. This is useful for generating content (e.g. Mustache, Handlebars) which uses conflicting syntax.

{% raw %} In Handlebars, {{ this }} will be HTML-escaped, but {{{ that }}} will not. {% endraw %}

If / Else

if / else is well known from other programming languages. Liquid allows you to write simple expressions in the if or unless, and the elsif or else clause:
{% if user %}   Hello {{ user.name }} {% endif %} # Same as above {% if user != null %}   Hello {{ user.name }} {% endif %} {% if user.name == 'tobi' %}   Hello tobi {% elsif user.name == 'bob' %}   Hello bob {% endif %} {% if user.name == 'tobi' or user.name == 'bob' %}   Hello tobi or bob {% endif %} {% if user.name == 'bob' and user.age > 45 %}   Hello old bob {% endif %} {% if user.name != 'tobi' %}   Hello non-tobi {% endif %} # Same as above {% unless user.name == 'tobi' %}   Hello non-tobi {% endunless %} # Check for the size of an array {% if user.payments == empty %}    you never paid ! {% endif %}  {% if user.payments.size > 0  %}    you paid ! {% endif %} {% if user.age > 18 %}    Login here {% else %}    Sorry, you are too young {% endif %} # array = 1,2,3 {% if array contains 2 %}    array includes 2 {% endif %} # string = 'hello world' {% if string contains 'hello' %}    string includes 'hello' {% endif %}

Case Statement

If you need more conditions, you can use the case statement:
{% case condition %} {% when 1 %} hit 1 {% when 2 or 3 %} hit 2 or 3 {% else %} ... else ... {% endcase %}
Example:
{% case template %}  {% when 'label' %}      // {{ label.title }} {% when 'product' %}      // {{ product.vendor | link_to_vendor }} / {{ product.title }} {% else %}      // {{page_title}} {% endcase %}

Cycle

Often you have to alternate between different colors or similar tasks. Liquid has built-in support for such operations, using the cycle tag. 
{% cycle 'one', 'two', 'three' %} {% cycle 'one', 'two', 'three' %} {% cycle 'one', 'two', 'three' %} {% cycle 'one', 'two', 'three' %}
will result in
one two three one
If no name is supplied for the cycle group, then it's assumed that multiple calls with the same parameters are one group. If you want to have total control over cycle groups, you can optionally specify the name of the group. This can even be a variable.
{% cycle 'group 1': 'one', 'two', 'three' %} {% cycle 'group 1': 'one', 'two', 'three' %} {% cycle 'group 2': 'one', 'two', 'three' %} {% cycle 'group 2': 'one', 'two', 'three' %}
will result in
one two one two

For Loops

Liquid allows for loops over collections: 
{% for item in array %}   {{ item }} {% endfor %}
When iterating a hash, item[0] contains the key, and item[1] contains the value: 
{% for item in hash %}   {{ item[0] }}: {{ item[1] }} {% endfor %}
During every for loop, the following helper variables are available for extra styling needs:
forloop.length      # => length of the entire for loop forloop.index       # => index of the current iteration forloop.index0      # => index of the current iteration (zero based) forloop.rindex      # => how many items are still left? forloop.rindex0     # => how many items are still left? (zero based) forloop.first       # => is this the first iteration? forloop.last        # => is this the last iteration?
There are several attributes you can use to influence which items you receive in your for loop
limit:int lets you restrict how many items you get. offset:int lets you start the collection with the nth item.
# array = [1,2,3,4,5,6] {% for item in array limit:2 offset:2 %}   {{ item }} {% endfor %} # results in 3,4

Reversing the loop

{% for item in collection reversed %} {{item}} {% endfor %}
Instead of looping over an existing collection, you can define a range of numbers to loop through. The range can be defined by both literal and variable numbers: 
# if item.quantity is 4... {% for i in (1..item.quantity) %}   {{ i }} {% endfor %} # results in 1,2,3,4

Variable Assignment

You can store data in your own variables, to be used in output or other tags as desired. The simplest way to create a variable is with the assign tag, which has a pretty straightforward syntax:
{% assign name = 'freestyle' %}  {% for t in collections.tags %}{% if t == name %}   <p>Freestyle!</p> {% endif %}{% endfor %}
Another way of doing this would be to assign true / false values to the variable:
{% assign freestyle = false %}  {% for t in collections.tags %}{% if t == 'freestyle' %}   {% assign freestyle = true %} {% endif %}{% endfor %}  {% if freestyle %}   <p>Freestyle!</p> {% endif %}
If you want to combine a number of strings into a single string and save it to a variable, you can do that with the capture tag. This tag is a block which "captures" whatever is rendered inside it, then assigns the captured value to the given variable instead of rendering it to the screen.
{% capture attribute_name %}{{ item.title | handleize }}-{{ i }}-color{% endcapture %}    <label for="{{ attribute_name }}">Color:</label>   <select name="attributes[{{ attribute_name }}]" id="{{ attribute_name }}">     <option value="red">Red</option>     <option value="green">Green</option>     <option value="blue">Blue</option>   </select>
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