Automation emails in several languages

An email step in an automation can carry the same email in other languages. Open the step: the Languages row across the top shows Default and every language added. Add a language (type a code such as ja, zh-hans, zh-hant, ar, or pick one); the new version starts as a copy of the default for you to translate, with its own subject, preview line and design. A whole email made elsewhere can be pasted into an HTML block in that version’s design.

1. Email → Automations → open the automation → open the email step.
2. Languages → Add a language → type the code (ja) → Add language. The step now shows the Japanese tab.
3. Translate the subject and preview line, then the design. Copy the default again starts the version over from the default; Remove this language takes it out.
4. Preview and test: the Language version list shows any version; choose a contact under Preview as and it switches to the version that person would get.

Which version a contact gets is decided as the email goes, from the first of these that names a language: the language the event sent with it ({{data.language}}, when your site or system sends one with the event that started the automation); the contact’s language property (set by your forms or the API); the language they booked in on the booking page; the language of the chat widget in their latest website conversation. That language is matched to your versions the way the booking page matches its translations: exactly, then ignoring capitals, then Chinese by script (zh-HK, zh-TW and zh-MO read Traditional, zh-CN, zh-SG and plain zh read Simplified), then the main language (fr-CH reads fr). When nothing names a language, or it names one you have no version for, the contact gets the default. The first language found decides: someone now on your German site gets the default, not the Japanese they used last year.

• Use lowercase codes for the versions (zh-hans, zh-hant, ja); match what your site sends.
• A test of a second subject (A/B) runs on the default version only.
• The step’s results show how many went in each language, and the run notes say which language each email went in, such as “sent (ja)”.
• Merge tags work in every version, inside an HTML block too: {{first_name}} fills in (written as text, never as markup).
• The footer with the unsubscribe link is added to every version by doTask, in English. Do not add your own unsubscribe link to a pasted email.

Pasting a finished email into an HTML block

Tables, inline styles, images on https, links, right-to-left direction (dir="rtl" on a table, dir="ltr" on a phone number), the hidden preview text and long font lists are kept. Removed when it is saved: the <head> with its <style> block (so phone-only tweaks in a media query do not apply; the inline styles still do), scripts, comments, and the Outlook-only buttons written in VML inside [if mso] comments — Outlook on Windows shows the ordinary link button instead. If the pasted email has its own hidden preview text that matches the preview line, doTask does not add a second copy.

They have booked since they entered

A check for “If…” and “Split into two paths”: yes when the contact has a booking made after they entered the automation (any booking except a cancelled one, found by the contact or by the same email address). After an event, it counts from the event, so someone who enquired and booked a minute later has booked. Use it after a wait to leave quietly: an enquiry follow-up three days later, only for people who have not booked yet (wait 3 days → If they have booked since they entered: leave the automation; if not: carry on → the follow-up email).

Open Email automations →