Email and SMS communication

Open Communication in the left menu. 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.

Changes to switches and settings are not live until you click Save All Changes at the top right. The floating Compose button in the corner opens the message writer covered in section 5. The small links under the page heading open related pages: All automations lists every automation on one page, Templates opens the Email Templates page (section 3), Email log opens Email History, and SMS registration opens the optional carrier registration wizard (section 6).

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 invite a new instructor.

The switches for those three are on the Automation tab on the Communication page, listed after the first three. Turn one on and click Save All Changes.

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, click Edit Template under the email.
2. Edit the Subject and the Body. 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 click Save.

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. Only those automations fill in the payment amounts. In a Compose message they show as 0.

The Insert Variable chips list the same placeholders, except that the deposit ones appear only when you edit the deposit template, and the SMS editor offers a shorter list. 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.

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: used for scheduling and timestamps, so set it to where your classes run.
• 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. 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. 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, open a class roster or a student's record and click the envelope icon next to their name. 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. The SMS registration link on the Communication Center opens an optional wizard for registering your own business with US carriers (called A2P 10DLC), which can improve deliverability for high volumes. Most training businesses do not need it. 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.
2. On the Automation tab, switch on the SMS automations you want and edit their messages.
3. Click Save All Changes.

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?”