How to troubleshoot your Site Welcome Email when using the Thinkific Shopify App.
How It Works
Before we jump into troubleshooting, let's run through a quick overview of how the Site Welcome Email in Thinkific works when using the Shopify App!
When students purchase your course through your Shopify checkout, they are automatically enrolled in your course. Since this checkout is outside of Thinkific, they won't be immediately brought to the Course Player, which is the default behavior with our built-in checkout flow.
Instead, your student will need to navigate to your Thinkific site and log in. However, they don't have a password set up just yet! Here is where the Site Welcome Email comes into play.
As long as you have your Site Welcome Email turned on, your student will receive it as soon as they are enrolled in the course. This occurs after your Shopify Product has been successfully purchased.
By default, the Site Welcome Email includes what we call an Express Sign In Link. This link is unique to each student. It directs them straight to the sign-in page on your Thinkific site and allows them to set a password. All they need to do is click the link, set their password, and then they will have access to your course content!
The default Site Welcome Email will look like this and you can always customize it with your personal branding if you want!
Troubleshooting Your Site Welcome Email
If your student (or test account) did not receive a Site Welcome Email, there are a few things you can check for.
Step 1: Make sure your Site Welcome Email is turned on
The Site Welcome Email should be turned on by default, but just in case any changes were made to your site it's important to check this first!
How To Turn on Your Site Welcome Email
- From the Admin Dashboard, select Support Your Students
- Select Notifications
- Click the Student notifications tab at the top
- Click the toggle beside Site Welcome
- Your Site Welcome Email is enabled when the toggle appears yellow and is on the right
Step 2: Make sure this is a new student with a unique email address
The Site Welcome Email is only triggered once. It is sent on the initial creation of a new student in Thinkific. If you are just setting up your Shopify store, you might be using the same email address multiple times for testing purposes. In order to receive the Site Welcome Email, you'll need to make sure that you use a brand new email address OR delete the test student in Thinkific before testing your Shopify checkout again.
If you would like to send automated emails for existing students who buy additional courses, we recommend turning on Course Welcome Emails.
Step 3: Check if the student exists in Thinkific
Before moving on, it's important to check if the student was actually created in Thinkific. This way, we can narrow down if it's a missed email issue OR if there is an issue with the student creation and enrollment process.
How To Check if the Student Exists in Thinkific
- Click Thinkific Admin to visit your Thinkific Admin Dashboard
- Go to Support Your Students
- Select Users
- Scroll through the Users page or type the student's name or email address in the search bar to locate the student
If the student is in your Users page, continue to Step 4. If they are not in your Users page, see Shopify App: Troubleshooting Failed Enrollments
Step 4: Check your spam folder
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.
Have your student search their Inbox and Spam folder for the Site Welcome email. To prevent future instances, make sure to have them add Thinkific's email addresses to the safe sender list in their email provider.
If your student still has trouble locating the Site Welcome Email, but they do have an active enrollment in Thinkific, you also have the option to copy their Express Sign-In Link and simply send it to them in a personal email from your email provider.
How to Copy a Student's Express Sign-In Link
- From the Admin Dashboard, select Support Your Students
- Select Users
- Scroll through the Users page or use the search bar to locate the student
- Click the ellipses (3 dot icon) on the far right of the student details
- Select Copy Express Sign In Link
Step 5: Check Payments are set to 'Automatically Capture' in Shopify
You want to make sure that your payments in Shopify are set to Automatically Capture, rather than Manually Capture. Setting your payments to Automatically Capture ensures your student's orders are processed right away.
For more information on how to set this up, check out this Shopify article: Payment authorization and capture
Step 6: Contact Thinkific Support
If the student was successfully created in Thinkific (see Step 3) and you have tried every step above for troubleshooting the Site Welcome Email, please send us an email with the following for us to look into it further.
If the student was not created in Thinkific, please see Shopify App: Troubleshooting Failed Enrollments as we will need some additional details.
- Email address of the student
- Name of the course
- Is this the first course they have enrolled in on your site? (if no, see Step 2)
- Is this a live student or a test student?
- Was the student created in Thinkific? (see Step 3)
- Have you had students successfully receive the Site Welcome Email in the past when purchasing this specific product?