Have more questions? Submit a request

Common Email Problems

Sometimes, your emails don't have the information you expected in them. Expand a section to fix the most common problems.

Wrong Signature

When reminder emails are sent from the plan, the signature on those emails is controlled by the Replies to setting.

replies_to_box.png

If the Replies to is set to Current Scheduler, it could be a past leader who scheduled a person or added them to the original template, so if reminder emails should always come from one person, choose that person.

If you go with all team leaders, then the first team leader you added will be selected for the signature of the reminder.

Incorrect Times

If your prepared notifications or reminder(s) have times on them that you didn't expect, you can check a couple of things:

  • Check that all your dates and times are correct.

    rehearsal_arrow.png

    Someone may have copied a time that had a different date, like the plan above. The service times are for 6/19, but the rehearsals are in January--probably a mistake!

  • Your teams might be assigned to the wrong times. Your ushers probably aren't needed at your Thursday band rehearsal!

    Review this article on how to assign your teams to those times and make sure they aren't assigned to times they don't need.

Too Many Times

Do your emails look like this?

too many times_box

All of these times are taken from different places. Since we automatically include all the times that a person is assigned to, if you also have these times listed in the names of your teams or the names of your service times, it's going to have some redundancy in the email. For best results, there should never be times in titles.

For service times, don't include the time in the name of the service. If you need to identify your services, use titles without times in them, like "Early Service" or "2nd Service."

modal_time_name.png

For team names, instead of using the time in the name, like "9am First Impressions," leave the name as "First Impressions," and use Split Teams to assign different people to different times.

Cleaning up all these names will result in a clearer email experience for your volunteers.

prepared_notification_email.png

Parents, Children, and Teens

A parent can request to receive copies of all Services emails sent to their child from their Household Permissions, or an Admin can set this up in the child's profile.

copy_email_to_household_adults_numbered.png
  1. Check the box to copy emails to the adults in the household.

  2. Choose which adults should be copied on the emails.

Cannot Add Attachments

You cannot add an attachment to an email.

However, you can add files to Services, so they can be accessed by your volunteers when they're needed.

Notice

You can share the information in any way you see fit, but make sure you store it in Services.

One of the best gifts you can give your volunteers is one place for everything they need. Services was created for you to add all your files, assignments, notes, and more in one place! Adding files in Services reduces anxiety and frustration for volunteers because they are confident that they have access to everything they need in one place. When this information is fragmented in emails, a handout from last month's meeting, texts, or any number of other ways that you may have passed out info, Services isn't as reliable for them.

Undelivered Emails

View a list of the emails sent to a person through Planning Center, including those that are undelivered, from the Communication tab on their profile.  

If you see an email highlighted in red, open it to see if the email failed or was dropped. Hover over the status to view the reason for the failure.

undelivered.png

Tip

To learn more about what specific error codes entail, check out Email Error Codes.

If someone mentions they didn't receive an email, or you see that an email failed to be delivered to them, check in Planning Center People to make sure their email address isn't blocked

If they still do not receive emails after unblocking their email address, contact support for additional troubleshooting by selecting the ? in the top right corner of the product.

Articles in this section

Was this article helpful?
6 out of 30 found this helpful