Message & email templates

VidiReserve has two kinds of templates: message templates for texts you insert when replying to guests, and email templates for the automatic emails to your guests and to you. Both come with a ready-made default text in German and English that matches your type of business — you can start right away and customize everything as you like.

Message templates

Open Settings → Message templates. Here you find text blocks that you insert into replies to guests with one click — for example in the messages inbox or when sending a coupon. Each template belongs to a category (general, reservation, waitlist, event or marketing) and can be set active or inactive. Title, subject and text exist in German and English; you see the English version when you switch the interface to English.

When your business is created, you get a default set that matches your type of business:

• Restaurant: Thank you after visit, Running late – check-in, Party size check, Waitlist – no table, Thanks for your review and Reservation – details.
• Event provider: Thank you for taking part, Thanks for your review, Participant count check, Booking – details, Information before the event and Event cancelled. You choose the three templates of the event category (Booking – details, Information before the event, Event cancelled) in the booking list of an event via Message all attendees — every attendee receives them with their own details.

If a default template is missing, for example because you deleted it, Insert default templates brings it back. Templates are matched by title: whatever already exists under that title stays as it is — your own templates and your changes are not touched.

Email templates

Open Settings → Email Templates. Every automatic email has a default text that is already in the editor — in German and English. As long as you change nothing, the list shows Default (not customized); as soon as you save a change, it shows Customized. If you save without changing anything, the default stays — so later improvements of the default text reach you automatically.

1. Open a template via Customize and change the subject and text — the English version too, if you like.
2. Check the result via the preview (eye icon). It shows the complete email with logo, your text and the automatic details below it.
3. Via Reset to default you can restore the default text at any time. Reset is only available for a customized template — the default is already there otherwise.

English-speaking guests receive the English version. For event bookings VidiReserve remembers the language of the booking: confirmation, rejection, cancellation and reminder are then sent in that language, even while you are working in German yourself.

The list only shows emails that exist for your type of business: restaurants see all 23, event providers see 20 — without "Reservation received", "New reservation to owner" and "Waitlist — spot available". For event providers the default texts use provider wording: booking, date and participants instead of reservation, table and guests. The buttons Book again and Book now (in the voucher) then take your guests to your provider page with your dates.

You can customize these emails:

• Reservation: Reservation received, Reservation approved, Reservation rejected, Reservation verification, Reminder, Cancellation to guest, Cancellation to owner, New reservation to owner.
• Events: Event booking guest, Event booking owner, Event — new date.
• Groups: Group request received, Group booking confirmed, Group request declined (for event providers they are called Corporate event request received, Corporate event confirmed and Corporate event request declined).
• Payment and vouchers: Invoice to participant, Bank transfer not matched, Coupon delivery, Voucher — payment link to the buyer, Voucher — cancelled by the venue, Voucher — shipped by post.
• Other: Waitlist — spot available, Message notification, Review request after visit.

Automatic details below your text

VidiReserve adds everything that belongs to the booking automatically below your text — depending on the email: date, time, guests, address, payment details with bank details and pay button, cancellation terms, terms and conditions notice, withdrawal information with withdrawal button, calendar and buttons. This applies to the default text just as to your customized text: you do not have to write these details and cannot leave them out by accident. The preview shows the complete email. If you write your bank details into the text yourself (placeholder {reservation.bank_details}), they are left out below — so they do not appear twice in the email.

The templates also cover the two voucher emails to the buyer: Voucher — payment link to the buyer (sent as soon as an order is waiting for payment) and Voucher — cancelled by the venue. You edit subject and text just like any other template. In the payment-link email the amount, the pay button, the bank details and the link to the order are added automatically below your text — you do not have to write them, and you cannot accidentally leave them out. In the cancellation email the refund sentence is appended the same way if you do not place the {voucher.refund_note} placeholder yourself.

In the voucher email to the recipient the link "Open a printable voucher" is added below your text — it opens the print sheet in your print template. If you would rather place it somewhere else in the text, put the placeholder {coupon.print_url} there; it is then not appended a second time. Vouchers you send by hand have no order behind them and therefore no print link.

If the voucher goes out by post, the note about the envelope is added above it — with your handling time from Settings → Vouchers. You can move it too: placeholder {coupon.post_note}. With “by post only” this note is the only explanation why the email carries no printable voucher, so it is never left out.

If a buyer withdraws from an order, the confirmation prescribed by law goes out as the standard text, regardless of your template. The cancellation template only applies when your venue cancels an order.

Placeholders

In both kinds of templates you use placeholders in curly braces, for example for the guest name or the reservation date. When sending, VidiReserve replaces them automatically with the real values. You find a full list via the placeholder reference.