Use Thinkific's automated email notifications to keep tabs on important site activity like student sign-ups, course enrolments, or new community posts!
In this article:
Configuring Automated Email Notifications
Customize Student Email Notifications
Preview Customized Student Email Notifications
Configuring Automated Email Notifications
Site Owners and Site Admins both have access to email notification settings.
To access these settings:
- From Admin Dashboard, select Users
- Select Notification Emails
- Use the Student and Admin tabs to locate the type of notifications you want to configure
Individual notifications can be turned on and off using the toggle next to the notification's name. These changes will be saved automatically, and will immediately come into effect.
Some notifications also include the ability to Edit or otherwise customize the automatic email. See the Customizing Student Emails section below for more details.
If you are experiencing issues with this feature, please contact our Support team.
Emails from Thinkific are sent from noreply@notify.thinkific.com or notifications@notify.thinkific.com. If you are using Email White Labelling, students will receive emails from the custom email domain you have set up with Thinkific.
Admin Notifications
The Admin tab contains all email notifications that can be sent to a Site Owner or Site Admin. Each user sets their own notification preferences, though the Site Owner's settings also affect whether Course Admins will receive certain specific notifications (see below for details.)
Available notifications include:
Sign ups and subscriptions
- New sign up: Receive an email when a student signs up for your site
- New order: Receive an email when a new order occurs
- New lead: Receive an email when a new lead signs up
- Subscription cancelled: Receive an email when a student cancels their subscription
- Subscription payment failed: Receive an email when a student's subscription made using Thinkific Payment fails.
The Subscription payment failed notification is available for business on TCommerce. To access this as well as other great TCommerce features, enable Thinkific Payments on your account: Thinkific Payments.
Student engagement
Communities
- New posts: Receive an email when someone creates a new post in a community
- Auto-follow new posts: Keep track of new posts and comments as they are created
Assignments
- Assignment submission: Receive an email when a student submits an assignment.
Discussions
- New post: Receive an email when someone creates a new discussion post.
- Discussion reply: Receive an email when someone adds a reply to a discussion.
Reviews
- New review: Receive an email when a student writes or updates a review on your site.
User Roles and Notifications
Site Admin Default Notifications
Any newly-created or newly-assigned Site Admins will have all their email notifications turned on by default. Once they log in they will be able to adjust their notification settings, as described above.
If you would like to change this default behaviour and create or assign new Site Admins with the notifications turned off, please contact us.
Note that each user (Site Owner and Site Admins) will need to set their own notification preferences.
Course Admins and Notifications
Course Admins do not have access to their own notification settings. Instead, a Course Admin will receive notifications based on the Site Owner's notification settings. However, they will only receive notifications related to the courses they are associated with, and only for the following events:
- New discussion post: Receive an email when someone creates a new discussion post
- Discussion reply: Receive an email when someone adds a reply to a discussion
- Assignment submission: Receive an email when a student submits an assignment
- Community activity: This is not based on Site Owner notification settings, instead Course Admin receive emails for posts they are following.
Student Email Notifications
The Student tab contains a number of automated emails that can be sent to students when specific actions are taken.
The following notifications can be turned on for students:
| Notification Type | Action |
| Site Welcome Email | Send students an email when their account is created |
| Send students an email when their account is created through SSO (Single Sign On) | |
| Weekly Reminder Email | Gives students a weekly update on their current course progress |
| Discussion replies | Send students an email when someone replies to a discussion post they created |
| Receipts | Send students a receipt when they make a purchase |
| Course Welcome Email | Send students an email when they enroll in one of your courses |
| Bundle Welcome Email | Send students an email when they enroll in one of your bundles |
| Community Welcome Email | Send students an email when they enroll in one of your communities |
| Course Completion Email | Send students an email when they complete one of your courses |
| Incomplete Purchase Reminder | Send prospective students an email to remind them to retry their incomplete purchase This notification is available exclusively to creators on paid plans using TCommerce. |
| Upcoming Payment Reminder | Send students an email reminder three days before the yearly subscription payment is due This notification is available exclusively to creators using TCommerce. |
Other notifications
Your students might also receive the following notifications, some of which can be configured and modified separately from the Notification Emails tab.
| Notification Type | Action | Can be turned on/off? |
| Digital Download Email | Sent to visitors or students who get access to or purchase a digital download. Includes a link to the digital download. | Cannot be turned off/on |
| Coaching & Webinars Emails | Sent to visitors or students who acquire access to an event. Depending on the event type, include a link to the webinar/booking link or further instructions. | Cannot be turned off/on |
| Webinar Reminder Emails | Sent to visitors or students who acquire access to a webinar. Sent 24 hours before the event. | Cannot be turned off/on |
| Community Live Event Email | Sent to community members who have community notifications turned on when a new event is added or when an existing event is changed or deleted | You can choose to send an email every time a new event is created, edited, or deleted. See more: Notifying Members and Sharing an Event. |
| Email Automation | Sent as a part of an email sequence to leads or students who fit the sequence target criteria. | Can be turned off by unpublishing the whole sequence. See more: Engage Your Audience with Email Automation. |
| Failed payment notification |
Sent to students when their subscription or payment plan payment fails. This notification is available exclusively to creators using TCommerce. |
Cannot be turned off |
Student Control Over Notifications
Your students can disable some student email notifications, via their account settings. Students can turn off:
- Weekly Reminder Email - gives students a weekly update on their current course progress
- Replies to a discussion they created
- Community activity - emails they receive when someone comments on posts that they follow, mentions them, or replies to them.
For more details on students' control over notifications, read our article: How can students turn off email notifications?
Customize Student Email Notifications
This feature is available on the Basic plan and above. If you are experiencing issues with this feature or it is not available, please contact our Support team.
Some student email notifications can be personalized with your brand and custom messaging! Personalizing your email notifications is a great way to engage with your students and connect them with other parts of your course site or business.
The following email notifications can be customized:
- Site Welcome Email - sent when a student signs up for your course site
- Weekly Reminder Email - gives students a weekly update on their current course progress
- Course Welcome Email - sent when a student enrolls in one of your courses
- Bundle Welcome Email - sent when a student enrolls in one of your bundles
- Course Completion Email - sent when a student completes one of your courses
Bonjoro app in the Thinkific App Store makes it simple to send personalized videos to your students at just the right moment to keep them motivated and excited.
Preview Customized Student Email Notifications
If you want to see how customized email notifications will look like to your students, you can send a test email to yourself! To do that:
- From your Admin Dashboard, select Users
- Select Notification Emails
- In the Student tab, select an email notification you want to test and click Edit
- Make sure to save any changes you make before sending a test email!
- Select the Send test email button on the top
The test email will be sent to the email address associated with your user account.
Community Notifications
Learn more about Community notifications and how students can manage their notifications here: Community Notifications
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I send emails from my personal custom domain?
For information on sending emails from your personal domain check out Email White Labelling
Why am I not able to access links in my emails? I am seeing ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR error
If you or your students are having trouble accessing course links from your emails (for example, Welcome emails or Weekly Reminder emails) and seeing an error like ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR when clicking on links, the error might be caused by your browser settings. This happens for users who use Google Chrome.
By default, Chrome may rely on your system's DNS settings, which can sometimes interfere with secure link redirection in our system-generated emails.
To fix this, update your DNS settings in Chrome to use Google Public DNS:
- Open Google Chrome.
- Click the three dots in the top-right corner and go to Settings.
- Navigate to Privacy and security > Security.
- Scroll down to the Advanced section.
- Under Use secure DNS, turn it on.
- Select With and choose Google (Public DNS) from the dropdown.
- Restart your browser.
Once you've done this, try clicking the link in the email again.
Can I send these notifications to someone that is not an admin on my site?
This can be set up with email forwarding! For more info see How can I send site notifications to a non-admin?