Automated emails and notifications

Admin notifications

As an admin, you receive notifications when things change across your camp - new applications, profile updates, form submissions, billing activity, and more. You can choose how you receive each type of notification.

Choosing your frequency

Head to your profile preferences (click your avatar, then Preferences) to configure notifications. For each category, you can choose between three frequencies:

Instant sends an email shortly after the event happens. Campfront batches instant notifications with a short delay so that a flurry of related changes arrives as one email rather than a dozen.

Daily digest rolls up all activity from the previous day into a single summary email, delivered at 8am in your timezone (you can configure this within Preferences).

None turns off email notifications for that category entirely. You can still see the activity in the activity feed - it just won't trigger an email.

Notification categories

Notifications are organized into camper and staff sections. Each section covers a similar set of categories:

New prospects and applicants notifies you when a new lead or staff application comes in. Profile changes covers updates to personal details, contact information, and family records. Medical changes alerts you when medical information is added or updated. Form submissions and notifications covers form completions and status changes. Billing notifications tracks payment events, balance changes, and financial updates. Transport changes covers route assignments and transport requests. Bunking changes alerts you when cabin assignments are modified. Notes, tags, and communications cover internal notes, tag changes, and logged communications. Assignments and tasks notify you about responsibility center assignments and task updates.

Scoping notifications to your assignments

For most notification categories, you can choose between receiving notifications for all records or only records assigned to you via responsibility centers. This is especially useful for larger teams where each admin manages a specific group of campers or staff. See Responsibility centers for more on how assignment works.

Categories like new prospects, new applicants, and task assignments always notify all eligible admins regardless of scope.

Parent notifications

Campfront automatically sends parents several types of email throughout the enrollment lifecycle.

• Enrollment confirmation is sent immediately after a family completes their enrollment, with a summary of their selections and payment.

• Outstanding action reminders alert parents when they have incomplete items - forms that need filling out, missing medical information, or other pending tasks.

• Upcoming payment emails are sent one week before a scheduled payment is due, giving families time to ensure their payment method is up to date.

• Invoices are sent automatically before scheduled payments if you've enabled auto-invoicing in your season payment settings. You control how many days before the due date invoices go out.

• Payment reminders are sent before and after due dates for upcoming and overdue payments. The timing is configurable in your payment settings.

• Payment status emails confirm when a payment is successfully processed, notify parents if a payment fails or requires additional action, and confirm refunds.

Staff notifications

Staff members receive automated emails at key points in their journey.

• Offer and contract emails are sent when you create an offer or contract, containing a secure link for the staff member to review and respond.

• Outstanding action reminders work the same as for parents - alerting staff when they have forms, medical information, or other items to complete.

• Account invitations are sent when a staff member needs to create their Campfront login.

• Reference requests are sent to referees on behalf of the staff member, containing a link to submit their reference.

Configuring payment emails

Payment-related email timing is controlled in your season payment settings under Invoices and reminders. You can enable or disable auto-send invoices and set how many days before the due date they go out. Similarly, enable payment reminders and configure the lead time. See Setting your season payment options for the full setup.

Email delivery tracking

Campfront tracks email delivery for every message sent through the platform - both system emails and broadcasts. This tracking happens automatically via the Postmark email service and requires no configuration on your part.

How delivery status works

Each email goes through a lifecycle: sent, then delivered (successfully reached the recipient's inbox), opened, and clicked (if the recipient interacts with it). If something goes wrong, the email may be marked as bounced or spam complained.

For broadcasts, you can see aggregate delivery stats on the broadcast detail page - sent, delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, and failed counts with percentages.

Bounce and spam handling

When an email bounces or is reported as spam, Campfront records the issue against the recipient's email address. A status badge appears next to the email address on their profile so your team can spot problems at a glance.

Hard bounces (red badge) mean the email address is permanently undeliverable - typically because it doesn't exist or the account has been closed. Soft bounces (yellow badge) indicate a temporary issue like a full mailbox or a server that's temporarily down. Soft bounces clear automatically if a later email to that address is delivered successfully. Spam complaints (red badge) mean the recipient marked your email as spam.

Reactivating a suppressed address

When an email address has a hard or soft bounce, you'll see a Reactivate button next to the status badge. Clicking it sends a reactivation request to the email provider. If the address is now valid (for example, the recipient fixed their mailbox), the status clears and future emails will be delivered normally.

Spam complaints cannot be reactivated through the admin interface - the recipient needs to mark future emails as "not spam" on their end, or you'll need to contact support for assistance.