Every section can have its own welcome email. You write the email once for the section, and Rhythm uses it for each new member who joins that section. This article explains how to write the email, test it with Preview, and understand what is known about when new members receive it.
Prerequisites
- Permission to edit the section.
Write the Welcome Email
- Open the section for editing. From the Section 360, choose Edit Section, or start a new section.
- Switch on the New Member Welcome Email card header.
- Fill in From: with a sender name and a verified sender address, then add Reply To:, Cc:, and Bcc: if you need them.
- Enter a Subject: and write the email body in the rich-text editor. Once the switch is on, both are required.
- To personalize the email, use the merge-field picker. Choose a group, then choose a field. Rhythm copies the field token to your clipboard and shows Copied field to the clipboard. Paste the token into the subject or body.
- Choose Save Changes.
Result
Rhythm saves the template on the section. When the switch is off, Rhythm does not change anything you saved before. If you turn the switch on later, the editor starts empty until you fill it in and save.
Warning
This email uses the same merge fields as the membership application confirmation email. Those fields include groups for the contact, the organization, the application, the order, the membership, the membership package, the membership type, and a group administrator contact, along with your custom fields. There is no group for the section itself, so you cannot insert the section's own name or description as a merge field in this email.
The membership type group includes {{membershipType.name}}, which resolves to the plan's name. If a collection-style field such as {{membership.sections}} or {{membership.chapters}} does not show readable text, use the scalar equivalent instead, such as {{membership.section_ids}} or {{membership.section_names}}, which return plain values. If you need to address the person joining the section instead of the person who purchased or is billed for the membership, use the shipToContact fields, such as {{shipToContact.first_name}}.
This email is different from the Committee Options › Email Committee Members bulk email. That bulk email is more limited and does not offer the same merge fields, including personal name fields for a contact.
Preview the Email Before You Save
Preview sends a real email to an address you choose, using a real member you choose for personalization. It is not an on-screen preview.
- With the New Member Welcome Email switch on, choose Preview beside the merge-field picker.
- Under Select a Member:, choose whether you are previewing for a contact or an organization, then pick the specific contact or organization.
- In Send Preview To:, enter the address that should receive the preview. It defaults to your own address.
- Choose Send Preview.
Result
Rhythm sends the email to the address you entered, personalizes it with the member's data, and shows Email preview sent successfully. The preview uses the subject, body, and sender currently in the editor, whether you have saved them or not. Rhythm does not save anything to the section unless you also choose Save Changes. This success message applies to email previews across Membership, including a billing run's notice previews. It only confirms that Rhythm accepted the send, not that the message reached an inbox.
Warning
The member you select personalizes contact-oriented fields, such as {{contact.first_name}}. Recipient-oriented fields, such as {{recipient.first_name}}, can stay empty in the preview even though they resolve correctly when the email is actually sent. Keep this in mind if you are checking an email that addresses a contact-role recipient specifically.
Warning
A preview sends real member data to whatever address you enter. There is no confirmation step, and the address does not have to belong to staff in your Rhythm account. Choose the recipient address carefully. Your browser also remembers the member and address you last used in this dialog, across every section and account you preview from on this browser.
When a New Member Actually Receives This Email
The section record is built for this email, and the email is intended to go to each new member of the section. However, this area of the product does not confirm that Rhythm actually sends it when someone joins. There is also a known, currently open issue where a correctly configured welcome email for a chapter or section sometimes does not send at all, with no error shown anywhere. If a new member says they never received your section's welcome email, check your account's email delivery history for that member before you spend time troubleshooting the template. If you cannot account for it there, contact Support.
If Something Goes Wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Unable to save Section when saving | Check that both Subject: and the email body are filled in while the welcome email switch is on. Both are required. |
| Email preview sent successfully., but the address never received it | The address may be wrong, or delivery may have failed after Rhythm accepted the send. Check your email delivery history. |
| One kind of membership email arrives but another does not | Troubleshoot each email separately. For example, a delivery problem with a submission email does not mean an activation email has the same cause, and the reverse is also true. Add a test address to Cc or Bcc temporarily on each email to help isolate which one is or is not arriving. |
Related
To review who currently belongs to this section, see the Section 360 task listed with this page. Section-level settings, including whether the welcome email switch and dues are configured together, are covered in the sections configuration topic.