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How to send QR codes in email communications
How to send QR codes in email communications

Using Appointedd's advanced communication functionality and Google charts API you can send QR codes in email communications.

Jubrine Fortuno avatar
Written by Jubrine Fortuno
Updated over a week ago

Why would I want to send QR codes in my email communications?

A QR (quick response) code is a hardlink that can store text. Optical readers can then read this text to display the information that is behind it.

QR codes can be useful to send in email communications so that customers can scan them with their mobile devices to bring up information that you would like them to receive. Such as sale page or another booking tool.

Another way that you could use QR codes, is by generating them for each customer and then scanning them when they arrive to check them into their booking. In order to do so you can make use of Appointedd's API to update the arrival status of the customer.


How to create QR codes using Google Charts API βš™οΈ

You can create QR codes on the fly with a GET URL request. The root URL is:

https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?

You can then use cht=qr to specify that this is a QR code and chs=<width>x<height> to specify the image size.

You then need to add chl=<data> and fill in the data that you would like to show when the QR is scanned.

You can then if you wish add chld=<error_correction_level>|<margin> which can help with error correction.

If you wish to learn more about this check out google's support page.

Here is an example URL that when scanned will take you to the Appointedd website.


How to use communications to send QR codes in your email communications πŸ“©

If you would like to send the same QR code to every customer that books with you, then you need to create a static link and input it into the content of your email. You can do so using our standard communication functionality which you can learn all about here.

Here is an example of an email which is directing a customer to a URL which will generate a QR code which then opens the Appointedd website:

If you would like to send a unique QR code to every customer, then you need to create a dynamic link that pulls in the information that is relevant to the customer. In order to do so you need to use our advanced communications functionality so that you can create dynamic content. You can learn everything you need to know about sending advanced communications here.

Using the example of generating QR codes that you can scan to update the arrival status of the customer, the advanced content would look like so:

This would then display as the following in the customer email:

Within the data input of this URL we have input the customer ID and booking ID variable which is a unique combination. We are also using the Appointedd API to update the customer on the booking using the ID. You can learn more about this here.

Note: Don't forget all requests to the API need to be authenticated by your Appointedd organisation's API key. You can find this on the API Settings page on your Appointedd web application.


How to scan the QR codes to update the arrival status in Appointedd πŸ”Ž

Most modern phones will detect QR codes through the standard camera app and let you open them in your phone's browser.

Your developers would need to set up a web page which, when loaded, would take query parameters for the booking ID and call your web server. From your web server they would call our API to change the status of the specific booking.


We would love to hear any feedback πŸ‘‚

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