Email Templates

PawPlacer lets you customize email templates for adoption, foster, and volunteer workflows. Use this page to keep your notifications clear, consistent, and on-brand.

The page is available to administrators and privileged users. Administrators can edit templates; privileged users can review the page without editing template content.

Accessing Email Templates

1. Open Settings
2. Make sure the settings sidebar is showing Organization Settings
3. Click Email Templates

How Email Notifications Work

PawPlacer sends emails at key moments in your workflows. Each email type has its own template that you can customize, enable, or disable independently.

When Someone Applies (External Applications)

When a potential adopter, foster, or volunteer submits an application through your public form:

1. Applicant acknowledgment: sends a "we received your application" email to the applicant.
2. Team notification: alerts your staff that a new application has arrived.

Both are optional. Team notifications default to auto-send; applicant acknowledgments are off by default.

When You Approve a Foster or Volunteer

When you click Approve on a pending foster or volunteer application:

• A confirmation email is automatically sent to the applicant (if the template is enabled and auto-send is on).
• This only happens for external applications; internally-added records do not trigger confirmation emails.
• Declining an application does not send any email.

When an Adoption is Completed

When an adoption is finalized:

• An adoption confirmation email is queued for the adopter with their adoption details, pet information, and payment summary if the template is enabled.
• A team notification can alert your staff about the completed adoption if the team template is enabled and has recipients.

When a Donation is Received

When you manually send a donation confirmation from a donation record:

• A donation confirmation email is sent to the donor if the template is enabled and the donation has a valid recipient email.

Template Groups

Templates are organized into three groups:

Applicant Acknowledgments

Sent to the person who submitted an application. One template per entity type:

• Adopter Application Received
• Foster Application Received
• Volunteer Application Received

Team Notifications

Sent to your staff when a new application is submitted. One template per entity type:

• Adopter Application: Team Notification
• Foster Application: Team Notification
• Volunteer Application: Team Notification

Outcome Confirmations

Sent when adoptions are completed or foster/volunteer applications are approved:

• Adoption Confirmation (sent to adopter)
• Adoption Team Notification (sent to staff)
• Donation Confirmation (sent to donor)
• Foster Approval Confirmation (sent to foster)
• Volunteer Approval Confirmation (sent to volunteer)

Setting Up a Template

1. Go to Settings > Email Templates.
2. Select a template from the left panel.
3. Toggle Enabled to activate the template.
4. Edit the subject line and message body.
5. Changes save automatically after a few seconds of inactivity.

Recipients (Team Notifications)

Team notification templates let you choose who receives the email:

• The primary account owner
• Selected team members

Use the Recipients card to configure each team template. Use Copy recipients from to reuse the same list across team templates.

Variables

Use variables like {{adopter_name}} or {{organization_email}} to personalize emails. Click any variable in the right panel to insert it.

Required variables are labeled so you can verify coverage before enabling a template.

Auto-Send

Templates with auto-send enabled will queue emails automatically when the triggering event occurs:

• Application received: queues when an external form is submitted.
• Team notifications: queues alongside the applicant acknowledgment.
• Foster/Volunteer confirmations: queues when you click Approve on a pending application.

Adoption and donation confirmations do not use the auto-send toggle on this page. They can still be sent when their workflows expose the related send action, as long as the template is enabled.

If auto-send is off for a supported template, the email will not be sent automatically. For application-related emails, you can still send manually from the applicant's profile page using the Send Email action.

Preview and Test

• Preview shows the email layout with sample data
• Send Test Email delivers the email to a real address for verification
• Recent activity shows the most recent sends and failures for the template

Resetting to Defaults

Use Reset to default to restore the original subject and body for a template.

Troubleshooting

If no one receives an email:

1. Confirm the template is Enabled.
2. Confirm Auto-send is on (if you expect automatic sending).
3. Ensure at least one recipient is selected (for team notifications).
4. Verify the recipient has a valid email address on their profile.
5. Check Recent activity on the template for error details.