Email and SMS communication

Open Communication in the menu (on a phone, open the menu with the ☰ button at the top of the screen). The four cards along the top are the master switches and a summary: Email on or off, SMS on or off, how many of the nine automations (six email, three SMS) are active, and your email limits. Below them are three tabs:

• Automation: the automatic emails and texts, each with its own switch and template.
• Activity: what has been sent in the last 30 days, by email and by SMS.
• Settings: email details, limits, time zone, and the SMS switch.

Everything on this page saves as you change it. Switches (Email, SMS, and each automation) and choices such as the time zone save the moment you change them. Typed fields (From Name, Reply-To Email, and Daily SMS Limit) save when you leave the field or press Done or Enter. While a typed change is still unsaved, a Save bar appears at the bottom of the screen on a phone or tablet, and a Save changes button appears at the top of the page on a computer. A short note under the page heading confirms each save. If a change cannot be saved, the setting goes back to its last saved value and a message explains why.

The floating Compose button in the corner opens the message writer covered in section 5. The Templates link under the page heading opens the Email Templates page (section 3).

With Email on, these go out on their own. Each one has a switch on the Automation tab; turn a switch off and that email simply stops.

• Registration Confirmation, immediately after a student registers. For a class that is paid at checkout it goes out once the payment succeeds. The built-in version lists the date, time, and location, includes an Add to Google Calendar button, and links any class documents you marked to send with registration.
• Payment Confirmation, immediately after a payment succeeds, including payments you record by hand. When a student pays a deposit online, this switch sends a Deposit Received email instead, showing the deposit paid, the balance due, and a personal link to pay the balance without logging in. Details in deposits and paying up front.
• Class Reminder, before the class starts. Pick one or more send times in the template editor: 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, or 1 week before. For a multi-session class the reminder is timed from the first session. Students whose registration was fully refunded are skipped.

Three more are built in:

• Completion Thank You, sent to every student when you mark a class completed. It thanks them for training with you and points them to your contact email for questions. Certification cards come from AHA or Red Cross, not from this email.
• Certification Expiry Reminders, sent 60, 30, and 7 days before a student's certification expires, with an invitation to your upcoming classes. This is a built-in email with no template to edit. See attendance, pass/fail, and certifications.
• Instructor Welcome, sent when you add a new instructor, with their login details. It always goes out, even if its switch is off, and uses CertClass’s built-in wording.

The switches for Completion Thank You and Certification Expiry Reminders are on the Automation tab on the Communication page, listed after the first three. Turn one on and it saves right away.

A few emails are always on and need no setup: a waitlist confirmation when someone joins the waitlist of a full class, a seat available email to the next people in line when a spot opens, a class cancelled notice to everyone enrolled when you cancel a class, and a refund issued email when a payment is refunded.

Every automatic email is a template with placeholders that get swapped for the real details when it sends. To change one:

1. On the Automation tab, tap or click Edit Template under the email.
2. Edit the Subject and the Body. Tap or click any chip under Insert Variable to drop a placeholder at the cursor. For the Class Reminder, this is also where you choose the send times.
3. Switch to Preview to read it with sample data, then tap or click Save. For the Class Reminder, the send times you picked save with it.

These placeholders work in every email CertClass sends for you:

• Student: {{firstName}}, {{lastName}}, {{studentName}}, {{email}}, {{phone}}
• Class: {{className}}, {{classDate}}, {{classTime}}, {{classLocation}}, {{classPrice}}, {{certificationType}}, {{googleCalendarLink}}, {{classDocuments}}
• Instructor: {{instructorName}}, {{instructorEmail}}. Both fill from the instructor assigned to the class. They show TBD and N/A when no instructor is assigned.
• Your business: {{companyName}}, {{companyEmail}}, {{companyPhone}}
• Payments: {{paymentAmount}} in the payment confirmation, plus {{depositPaid}}, {{balanceDue}}, and {{payBalanceUrl}} in the deposit email. {{balanceDue}} and {{payBalanceUrl}} also fill in the registration confirmation and class reminder, with the amount the student still owes and a link to pay it online. Only those automations fill in the payment amounts. In a Compose message they show as 0.

On the Automation tab, the Insert Variable chips list the same placeholders except the deposit ones (Balance Due and Pay Balance Link also appear for the registration and reminder templates), and the SMS editor offers a shorter list. The deposit email has no card on the Automation tab; reword it from the Email Templates page, whose editor lists every placeholder. There is no website placeholder. Type your web address into the message instead.

If you want full control over the design, the Email Templates page (the Templates link under the Communication Center heading) lets you start from a library of pre-built templates, edit the HTML and plain-text versions side by side with a live preview, and keep several templates of the same type with one marked Active. The active template of each type is the one the automation uses. Keep only one template of each type Active; if two are active, CertClass sends its built-in wording instead.

The Settings tab holds the details that apply to every email and text:

• From Name: the sender name students see in their inbox. Leave it blank to use your company name. Every email is sent from noreply@updates.certclass.io.
• Reply-To Email: where a reply lands when a student hits Reply. Leave it blank to use your contact email.
• Daily Email Limit and Monthly Email Limit: fair-use caps managed by CertClass. Email is included with your account; the caps and what SMS costs are in how you are billed.
• Timezone: set it to where your classes run. It decides which day it is for your account (when a class has finished, which classes your public page still takes registrations for, and today's sessions for instructors), the class times in Add to Google Calendar links, and the times in the email log Export CSV. Dates on the Students list and student pages, Payments and the dashboard's Recent Registrations use it too, as do Export Student List and certification expiry reminders, so a student passed late in the evening is certified that day. Other screens show times in US Central time, and reminder timing does not depend on this setting.
• Send Test Email: sends a test message to the email address you log in with, so you can confirm delivery works.
• SMS Messaging: the switch that turns texting on, plus a Daily SMS Limit once it is on. Section 6 covers SMS.

When you need to tell a roster about a room change or chase unpaid balances, use Compose. It sends a real email to each recipient, one per student, with the placeholders filled in individually.

1. Tap or click the floating Compose button on the Communication Center.
2. Choose recipients: Individual to tick specific students, By Class to pick a class and email everyone enrolled in it, or All Students for every student on record.
3. Pick a starting point under Template: Custom Message, one of the quick templates (Class Reminder, Payment Reminder, General Announcement, Cert Expiration Reminder), or one of your saved templates.
4. Write the Subject and Message, using the same placeholder chips as the automation editor. Check the Preview tab.
5. Tap or click Send to N Recipients. A bar shows how many were sent and how many failed, and every message lands in the Activity log.

The Manage saved templates panel at the bottom of the composer lets you save a message you send often so it appears in the template list next time.

To email just one person, tap or click the envelope icon on their row in a class roster, or Email Student on their record. It opens the same kind of editor for a single student.

SMS is optional and off until you turn it on. Texts are sent from a shared toll-free number that CertClass has verified, so you can start without registering anything. Pricing is in how you are billed.

• Students opt in themselves. The registration form has a checkbox, I agree to receive SMS text messages, with the consent text underneath. Only students who tick it get texts. When you enroll someone by hand, the same checkbox is on the enroll form. A student's record shows whether they are Opted In or Opted Out.
• Three automations, mirroring the email ones: Registration Confirmation, Payment Confirmation, and Class Reminder. Each has its own switch and a short editable message; the editor counts characters and shows how many text segments the message will use. The built-in messages end with “Reply STOP to opt out.”
• Texting is one-way. Students cannot text you back through CertClass. The only replies that do anything are the standard keywords: STOP opts the student out, START opts them back in, and HELP texts them your business name and contact details. Anything else a student replies is dropped and never shown to you, so put your phone number in the message if you want them to call.
• There is no one-off text composer. SMS is for the three automations above; use email for anything else.

1. On the Settings tab, turn on SMS Messaging and, if you want, change the Daily SMS Limit (1 to 10,000). The switch saves right away; the limit saves when you leave the field.
2. On the Automation tab, switch on the SMS automations you want and edit their messages. Each switch saves as you flip it.

The Activity tab shows the last 30 days: counts for emails, texts, sent, and failed, then the most recent messages of each kind with a status badge, the template used, the student, and the date. Filter to Email or SMS, or sort by status to find failures.

View All opens the Email Activity page with the full history: search by address, subject, student, or class; filter by status and template; widen the range to a year;Retry a failed email; and Export CSV the log. Where delivery data is available, each entry also shows when it was delivered and opened.

Every student's record also has a Communication section listing the emails and texts sent to that person, which is the quickest way to answer “did they get the reminder?”