Control Review Emails and Notifications

Goal: choose who is told about reviews, and change the wording of the emails.

Switch emails and notifications on or off

1. Go to WB Plugins > Member Reviews and open the General tab.
2. Set Email Notifications. (“Send an email notification to members when someone reviews their profile.”) On by default. It also controls the “needs approval” email you receive.
3. Set BuddyPress Notifications. (“Notify members through BuddyPress when they receive a new review.”) On by default.
4. Click Save Changes.

The two switches are separate. You can have one without the other.

Change what the emails say

On the same tab:

1. Edit Email Subject and Email Message. This is the email the reviewed member gets.
2. If Auto Approve Reviews is off, also edit Approval Email Subject and Approval Email Message. This is the email you get when a review needs approval.
3. Click Save Changes.

Use these placeholders. The plugin swaps them for real values when it sends the email.

Placeholder	Becomes	Use in
[site-name]	Your site name	Both subjects and both messages
[user-name]	The reviewed member’s name	Member email message
[reviewer-name]	The reviewer’s name (“An anonymous user” if anonymous)	Member email message
[review-link]	A link to the review	Member email message
[site-admin]	The administrator’s name	Approval email message
[review-aproval-link]	A link to the Reviews list in the admin (spelled with one “p”)	Approval email message

What members see

• When a review is published, the reviewed member gets this email and a notification bubble in BuddyPress. The bubble reads “Alex posted a review”.
• Emails are sent as formatted text, so paragraphs and links in the message box are kept.

Where the approval email goes

It goes to the Administration Email Address under Settings > General in WordPress. To change who receives it, change that address.

Tips

• Keep the placeholders in square brackets exactly as written, or they will show up as plain text in the email.
• Test with a second account, because emails depend on your hosting. A mail plugin (SMTP) makes delivery much more reliable.
• Reported reviews and owner replies send a BuddyPress notification (to the site administrator and to the reviewer) but no email. See Notifications and Activity.
• Approving a pending review sends the reviewed member their email and notification at that moment, if Email Notifications and BuddyPress Notifications are on.
• When you dismiss the reports on a review that reports had hidden, the review comes back quietly. The member is not emailed again.

If it does not work

See “Emails are not arriving” in Troubleshooting.