Clarifications re documentation - Virtuemart automation

dsrpmedia

trying to set up a message to be sent triggered by an order place in a virtuemart shop,

The documentation glosses over many seemingly important parts
ie
A) what is the purpose / role of 'Creation date' in the virtuemart - Purchased a product trigger??!
is it a required field?
B) in select the actions - all I want to do is send an email upon purchase - I dont see that option?!
I see 'Add an email to the queue' is that it? how do you force the queue to process immediately?
what is the difference between that and subscribe to a follow up?!

the email editing area is completely baffling to me - in acymailing 5 we could simply load a template and type out message in, selecting from a list of readily accessible tags for inserting content - is that no longer an option?
the old acymail was so easy - I cant even figure out how to enter tags - and there no longer seems to be a list of available tags?!

I just want a simple message on the template I built in acymail 5 that says
'Hi USERNAME
thanks for your purchase - your may also like (inserted virtuemart product) save 20% with code (code here)'

which would go out automatically upon a purchase - your documentation does nothing to explain how that would be done - can you please explain the steps to me?

Thank you

mihha

Hi,

the purpose of that trigger is to execute automation action based on the time of the purchase of some product in VM. Automation is triggered based on the cron job, so it is the best to trigger check if product was purchased
you can't send immediately an email using automation. You can only add email to the queue and let AcyMailing cron job to process it. Follow-up email feature is used if you need to create a series of follow-up emails after the user subscribes to some newsletter list
in version 7 we are using drag and drop editor and with it, we do have content blocks which you can add to the email that you want to send

dsrpmedia

thanks for the clarifications re 1/2 re 3 - the emails are so ugly - is it not possible to use an html template from say acymail 5?

mihha

What do you mean that emails are ugly. You can create them as you want and use custom CSS stylesheet to the extent which you want

What special layout did you have in version 5 that you can't accomplish in version 7 drag and drop editor?

dsrpmedia

here is what I was able to achieve in acy 5 quite easily
here is the best i`ve come up with in acy 7

how do i get my acy7 template to look like my acy5 template?

mihha

You have to use an image content block for the logo, multiple content blocks for other parts. It really takes time to get use to the new editor, but after that, possibilities are endless

dsrpmedia

I think the acy 7 might be beyond my abilities - you are going to be continuing support for acy 5 for a while I hope?

dsrpmedia

a tutorial for dummies like me on how to recreate an acy 5 template would be awesome 'You have to use an image content block for the logo, multiple content blocks for other parts. ' probably is very help for someone who understands what you are saying

mihha

We tried to explain how to use drag and drop editor here
https://docs.acymailing.com/main-pages/templates/create-a-template

dsrpmedia

Im getting closer - using the 'start from' option I was able to load an acy 5 template - only problem Im having is for some reason the images are not loading in the emails sent (they are loading in the preview pane)

dsrpmedia

the drag and drop makes really ugly emails - at least at my skill level, I`ve wasted a good week on this with no styling success - I cant figure out how to even do something easy like put a thin line with a colored background and the date inside. (something that took all of 5 minutes in acy 5)
I was able to figure out a way to load the acy 5 template into eg an automation flow - but there does not seem to be any way to enter the tags??!!

can you only use tags in drag and drop templates?

will the acy 5 tags work in acy 7 if i build first in acy 5?

jvstratum

dsrpmedia

It's easy to do with the drag & drop editor. Please visit the Acymailing channel on YouiTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsI1Nh8wU7r-flr-hKqeFgA), it offers you some great instruction videos.

You might want to view this video first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TFU4OuRhw