Automated emails and notifications

Campfront sends three kinds of email on its own: scheduled reminders, transactional messages triggered by an event, and the activity notifications your own team gets. This covers what goes out, when, who is left out, and where each one is switched off.

Admin notifications

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

Choosing your frequency

Head to your notification preferences (click the account menu in the lower-left corner of the sidebar, then Notifications) 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. That timezone comes from the Time zone field on your profile.

• Off 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 grouped into two sections, Campers and Staff, each with its own set of categories so you can set a frequency for each one on its own.

• Campers: Leads, Enrollments, Profile updates, Family updates, Medical, Transport, Bunking, Form submissions, Form updates, Files, Billing, Notes, Tags, Communications, Assignment, and Tasks.

• Staff: Applications, Profile updates, Medical, Transport, Bunking, Form submissions, Form updates, Files, Visa, Offer, Contract, Notes, Tags, Communications, Assignment, and Tasks.

Leads and Enrollments cover new camper lead captures and enrollment submissions, and Applications covers new staff applications. Profile updates covers name, contact info, and basic details, while Family updates covers changes to family members. Medical covers health info, allergies, and medications. Billing (campers only) covers payments, invoices, and balances. Assignment notifies you when you're assigned to or unassigned from a profile, and Tasks covers tasks assigned to or created by you. Visa, Offer, and Contract are staff-only.

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.

What families are emailed

Reminders on a schedule

• Outstanding actions - every Monday at 9am in the parent's own time zone, listing what's unfinished across their campers. No outstanding items, no email

• Upcoming payment - seven days before a scheduled payment is due, to the parent that payment is assigned to

• Invoice - a set number of days before the due date, 14 by default, with a PDF attached. Sent once per payment

• Payment reminder - a set number of days before the due date, three by default, then one, three, and seven days after it's overdue

• New photos - when you share a batch of photos with the families a folder covers

Everything else

The rest are transactional: one email per event, always sent, with no opt-out. They cover enrollment (verification codes, the confirmation at checkout, an application submitted for approval, invitations), money (receipts, failed and declined payments, refunds, an updated schedule, a new charge), and your decisions (a rejected form or medication, a transport request confirmed or declined, a camper mail reply, a withdrawal confirmation).

Payment emails go to the parent that payment is assigned to, not to everyone on the family. The withdrawal confirmation is the exception, going to every parent, and only if you leave the email box ticked on the stage change.

What staff are emailed

• Outstanding actions - every Monday at 9am in the staff member's own time zone

• Reference reminders - two days after a reference request goes out, one nudge to the staff member if they haven't added referees, and one to any referee who hasn't replied. Once each, not repeatedly

• New photos - when you share a batch of photos with staff

Their transactional emails follow the same pattern: the application receipt and verification code, account invitations, offers and contracts at each step, reference requests and their outcomes, rejected forms and medications, transport decisions, and a withdrawal confirmation. Staff never receive billing emails, which are camper-side only.

Who doesn't get chased

The scheduled reminders are deliberately narrow. These are left out:

• Anyone without a Campfront account - someone who hasn't set a password or signed in through SSO yet. They get their invitation, and nothing else

• Enrollments before Enrolled - leads, applications awaiting your approval, and campers you've invited who haven't enrolled. An enrollment counts once it reaches Enrolled, or once its cart is paid

• Seasons before your active one

• End stages - alumni, declined, withdrawn, incomplete, and future season all stop the reminders, even though the record stays

• Sections set to Visible - only Visible + reminders counts toward outstanding actions

• Payments that aren't scheduled - already paid, failed, voided, or waiting on a check you've yet to receive

Approving or declining an application sends nothing either, so tell the family yourself.

Where these emails are controlled

Four settings stack, and the most restrictive one wins.

• Camp settings > Notifications - the master switch per reminder. Off here is off for everyone, whatever they've chosen for themselves

• Camp settings > Sections - what counts as outstanding in the first place. See Sections

• Season > Payment settings > Invoices and reminders - Auto-send invoices and Payment reminders, each with its own lead time. See Setting your season payment options

• Their own preferences - under Preferences in their portal account menu. They see only the options you've enabled

Transactional emails sit outside all four, because each one is the record of something that happened on that person's account.

Marketing and operational messages

Broadcasts are separate. Each goes out as marketing or operational: a marketing broadcast skips anyone who's turned marketing email or texts off, an operational one still reaches them. Both skip a hard-bounced address and a number that's opted out. See Broadcasts.

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 don't show a badge, but they 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, a Reactivate email action becomes available from the address's actions menu. Choosing 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.