Whether an opportunity appears in the Portal, when it is available for purchase, whether staff must approve the purchase first, and which emails sponsors receive are all set on the opportunity. This article explains how those settings work.
What It Controls
- Whether an opportunity is on sale online in the Portal, and which dates it is available.
- Whether a purchase of the opportunity requires staff approval before it becomes a sponsorship, instead of activating immediately.
- The confirmation email sent while a purchase is waiting for approval, and the activation email sent when a sponsorship becomes active.
- How to preview either email by sending a sample that uses data from a real sponsorship.
Where to Find It
You set these options on the opportunity itself, in the Additional Options section, while you create or edit a sponsorship opportunity.
Prerequisites
You need the permission your administrator grants for opportunity setup.
Put an Opportunity on Sale Online
- While creating or editing an opportunity, leave This opportunity is available for sale checked to offer it in the Portal. This box is checked by default for a new opportunity.
- Optionally, set Sell from: and Sell until: to control the dates the opportunity is listed. Leave Sell from: blank for no start date, or leave Sell until: blank for no end date.
- Select Save Changes.
Result
An opportunity marked for sale appears in the Portal catalog and in the staff list for recording a sponsorship by hand, as long as it is inside its selling window if one is set. An opportunity with no end date stays on sale indefinitely.
Warning
Rhythm does not check whether Sell until: is after Sell from:. If the window ends before it starts, the opportunity saves without an error but is never listed anywhere. If an opportunity you expect to see is missing, check that its selling dates are in the right order.
To take an opportunity off the Portal immediately, clear This opportunity is available for sale and save, regardless of its selling dates. This also removes it from the staff list for recording a sponsorship. Sale status does not depend on how many are left to sell, so a sold-out opportunity stays listed unless you take it off sale yourself.
Require Staff Approval Before Activation
- While creating or editing an opportunity, check This process requires approval, and should not activate the sponsorship immediately.
- Write the Confirmation Email, which is sent while the purchase waits for approval.
- Select Save Changes.
Result
When someone purchases this opportunity through an application, the purchase is held for staff review instead of immediately creating an active sponsorship record. Staff approve or reject the hold from the application itself.
Warning
Approval only holds a purchase when it comes in through an application. Changing this setting does not affect orders already fulfilled before the change.
Write the Confirmation and Activation Emails
- In the Confirmation Email card, which appears only when approval is required, or the Activation Email card, which always appears, turn the switch on.
- Fill in the email's From:, subject, and body. Use the available merge fields for the contact, organization, application, order, and sponsorship, including their custom fields, to personalize the message.
- Select Preview to test how the email will look.
- Select Save Changes.
Warning
After you turn an email's switch on, its subject and body are required. Rhythm refuses the save if either one is blank.
Turning approval off later does not turn off a confirmation email you already enabled. The stored template stays on the opportunity, even though it is no longer sent, because nothing requires approval to trigger it. If you no longer want to keep that template, turn its switch off too.
Preview an Email
- From the confirmation or activation email editor, select Preview.
- Enter a Sponsorship ID: to use for the merge fields. It must be a real, existing sponsorship in your account.
- Enter the Send Preview To: address. It starts filled with your own signed-in email address.
- Select Send Preview.
Result
Rhythm sends the email to the address you entered, using the sponsorship you selected to fill the merge fields and the same email logic as a real send. The toast Email preview sent successfully. confirms it.
Warning
The preview sends the email's current, unsaved content from the editor, not necessarily the version already saved on the opportunity. There is no sample data. You need at least one sponsorship in your account to preview an email, and the preview uses that sponsorship's real data, including the real sponsor and amount, so choose a sponsorship whose details you are comfortable sending in a test email.
Dependencies and Precedence
- Requiring approval and the confirmation email work together. The Confirmation Email switch appears only while approval is required, but after you turn it on, its template stays on the opportunity independently of the approval checkbox.
- The activation email applies whether or not approval is required. It is sent when a sponsorship becomes active, however that activation happened.
- After either email template is enabled, any signed-in Portal member in your account can read it through the opportunity's own data because it is part of the opportunity record.
Change Impact and How to Revert
- Changing sale dates or the on-sale flag takes effect the next time you save. It does not affect purchases already made.
- Turning approval on or off only changes how future purchases through an application are handled. It does not retroactively activate or hold existing orders.
- Editing an email's content changes what is sent going forward. Sponsors who already received the email are not notified again.
Permissions
You need the permission your administrator grants for opportunity setup to change these settings or the email templates.
Validation and Errors
If an email's switch is on but its subject or body is empty, Rhythm refuses the save until you complete it or turn the switch off. If you preview an email with an empty Sponsorship ID: or Send Preview To: address, Rhythm refuses the preview until both fields are filled in. If the send itself fails, the toast Unable to preview email explains why.