Your Comprehensive Guide to Managing Invitations with zkipster
Q: Can I add animations to my invitation email?
A: Yes, you can add animations (GIFs - maximum file size is 5MB) to your invitation email. Please note that not every email client supports animated GIFs or render GIFs automatically such as Outlook. Because of that, it is possible that your guest sees a static image instead.
Q: Can I change the sender email?
A: Yes, you can change the sender email of your invitations by white labeling your domain and email address. To achieve this, go to the ‘Account Settings’, open the ‘Customization’ section and click on ‘Email Whitelabels’. In the ‘Add New Domain’ field, enter the email address domain you want to verify and click ‘Submit’
zkipster will generate three CNAME records that should be added to the DNS file of your domain. At the top of the page, you have the option to email these CNAME records directly to your IT team, together with instructions on how they need to be added.
Once all three CNAME records have been correctly added to the DNS file of your domain, give it a few moments and click on the ‘Verify’ button. Three green check marks should appear next to each record.
You might experience a delay in the domain verification - this is not unusual. DNS records can take up to 48 hours to fully propagate through the internet. Usually this takes only a few minutes, but it can take a maximum of 48 hours. If your IT team carried out the steps correctly and the records are not verified after a few hours, please contact us with a screenshot of the DNS file showing the CNAME records and our Support team will investigate.
Once your domain is verified, submit the email address you wish to use as the sender email. A verification email will be sent to that address, so make sure you are submitting a real email address to which you have access to the inbox.
You can have as many sender emails associated with your verified domain as you need.
Click on the verification link inside the email and log back into zkipster. Once the email is verified, a green check mark will appear and the verified email will be available in the ‘Sender Email dropdown menu inside your invitation email settings.
Useful Links
Q: If I add new guests to my existing guest list, will they automatically receive the invitation?
A: If you add new guests to your existing guest list, they won't receive the invitation automatically. The event host needs to send the invitations manually. There are two ways to do this.
1.) When you add new guests to a guest list to which you have previously sent an invitation, the 'Save and Forward' function pops-up which allows you to forward the same invitation to the newly added guests.
2.) You can use the 'Resend Invitation' function from the Guest List view. To do this, select the guests by ticking the checkbox from the left side of their name and from the 'Action' dropdown menu select 'Resend Invitation'. A pop up window will ask you which of your sent invitations you want to forward to the selected guests.
Q: How can I edit a sent invitation?
A: It is not possible to edit an invitation email that has already been sent, however, you can still make changes to your Response Form as well as the Confirmation/Decline emails of your invitation.
To edit the main email part of a sent invitation, duplicate the already sent email and make any necessary changes to the copy.
Pro Tip: When resending emails with corrected information, you can use the original subject line, but add a word (such as Correction, Revised, Updated) at the beginning to indicate that this is the email people should read. As always, we recommend to proofread your emails first and try sending it to yourself as a test before you send it to your guest list.
Q: My invitation looks different than what it was originally designed. How can I fix this?
A: It is possible that different email clients render your invitation different than how it was originally designed. Microsoft Outlook, for example, is known for rendering issues. Even though zkipster's Invitations feature is build to prioritize maximum displayability across multiple email clients, browsers and devices, unfortunately zkipster has no control over how each individual email client is configured to render emails.
You can use email rendering softwares such as Email on Acid or Litmus can help you view how certain email clients will render your email.
Q: I'm having issues formatting and customizing the text in the text editor.
A: If you are having issues formatting and customizing the text section of your invitation email or RSVP Form, especially if you copied the text from an external source such as a pdf. file, a website or from a Word document, it is possible that some underlying formatting was also copied and these formats are not supported by zkipster text editor.
To clear the formatting, you can highlight the entire text and click on the crossed 'T' icon.
If the issues persist, try using the Notes app (iOS) or Notepad (Windows) to clear the text from any special formatting. You can also paste the text to a Word document, highlight the entire text > Edit > Clear Formatting, then paste it again to the zkipster text editor.
Q: How can I change the background color behind the text on the form/success page?
A: The background of the form/success page where the text is displayed is currently not customizable. You can only change the color of the background behind the white block.
Q: Can I customize the Add to Wallet file?
A: Currently, the 'Add to Apple Wallet' file is not customizable. The card will show the main event details such as start date, start time, location and your QR code but does not support further customization (i.e. branding, background color, images, etc.). This feedback has already been shared to our Product Team for consideration in future releases and improvements.
Q: Is there a way to change the template of an existing Standalone Email to an Email and Responses Form?
A: While it is not possible to change the template of an existing Standalone Email, you can still link your standalone email to a standalone responses form using the 'RSVP Button'. While the flow for the guest would be the same, one caveat for this workaround is that there will be two separate reports for the Email and the Form.
To do this, click on the 'Create New Invitation' button from the invitations dashboard, select Standalone Response Form and design the form and confirmation email as you wish.
Once done, access the Standalone Email, click on the ‘Button’ section from the 'Composer' tab and toggle it to ON to add a button to your email.
Scroll down and turn the ‘Link Button’ toggle ON and select 'Form' - from the dropdown menu, select which of your existing response forms you want to link to that button and press 'Save Changes'.
Learn more: How to set up the RSVP Button in your Invitation
Q: How can I test my invitation, including the RSVP Form?
A: You can test your invitation by creating a test guest list and adding yourself and your colleagues as test guests. From the 'Send To' section of your email settings, choose to send the invitation to the test guest list you created or to 'Individual Guests' and select yourself and send the invitation.
Once you're happy with how everything looks, you can duplicate the sent invitation and send the copy to the real guest list.
Q: We are not receiving our test emails or invitations even though we have white labeled our email address.
A: You may not be receiving your emails when using your whitelabeled email address due to your email server's security settings, such as anti-spoof policies.
Anti-spoof policies can identify when someone from outside of your organization is sending emails as if they are part of your organization.
To prevent this from happening, your IT team needs to add zkipster’s dedicated IP address for email sending in your SPF records to overcome the SPF check. Please reach out to our support team while logged in to your account to request zkipster's IP address for email sending.