Notifications
Notifications
Section titled “Notifications”The Notifications tab controls whether the plugin sends emails to members about their suggestions, and lets you set the types and timing of those emails. Go to BuddyPress > Friend & Follow Suggestion > Notifications.
These emails use the BuddyPress email system (bp-email post type), so they inherit BuddyPress’s styling and can be edited at Emails > All Emails in the WordPress admin.
The BuddyPress Settings component must be active for member-level email preferences to work. If it is not active, a notice appears on this tab.
Master switch
Section titled “Master switch”Enable Email Notifications — turns all plugin emails on or off site-wide. When this is off, no emails are sent regardless of individual settings below. Default: on.
New Member Welcome
Section titled “New Member Welcome”When a new member registers, the plugin can send them a welcome email that includes their initial friend suggestions.
Enable Welcome Email — sends the email approximately 30 minutes after registration, giving the matching engine time to calculate initial scores. The email lists up to 5 suggested members. Default: on.
If a brand-new member has an entirely empty profile (no xProfile fields filled in yet), the email still sends — it includes a friendly note explaining that personalised suggestions will appear once the member fills in their profile. This prevents new members from silently missing the email just because they have not yet completed their profile.
Weekly Digest
Section titled “Weekly Digest”Enable Weekly Digest — sends each member a weekly summary of their new matches. The email runs on a WordPress cron schedule. Default: off.
When enabled, a digest is sent only if the member has received at least 3 new matches since the previous digest. This avoids sending near-empty emails.
Member Email Preferences
Section titled “Member Email Preferences”These settings control the frequency-preference UI that appears on each member’s BuddyPress settings page under Settings > General > Friend & Follow Suggestions.
Allow Members to Opt Out — when on, each member sees a row in their BuddyPress notification settings with radio buttons: Instant, Daily, Weekly, Never. They can set their own preference. When off, the row still appears but tells them that email preferences are managed by the site administrator, and the admin-configured default applies to everyone. Default: on.
Default Opt-In — whether new members are opted in to emails by default. When on, new members receive emails at the frequency determined by which digest types are enabled. When off, new members start with never and must opt in themselves. Default: on.
Show in Member Settings — whether the preference row appears on the member’s settings page at all. Set this to off if you want to send emails but not give members control over frequency. Default: on.
Email frequency options available to members
Section titled “Email frequency options available to members”Members can choose from:
- Instant — the plugin sends an email when a new high-compatibility match is found, up to a configurable daily limit.
- Daily — a daily digest (requires the daily digest to be configured in a future version; currently falls back to the weekly digest schedule).
- Weekly — the weekly digest schedule.
- Never — no emails.
Editing email templates
Section titled “Editing email templates”The plugin registers its email templates as bp-email posts. To customise the subject line, body text, or layout of any email:
- Go to Emails > All Emails in the WordPress admin.
- Find the email with “Friend & Follow Suggestion” in its name.
- Edit the post like any other page. BuddyPress email template tags (wrapped in
{{{ }}}) are available.
If the email templates become corrupted or deleted, use the Reinstall Email Templates button on the Advanced Settings tab to restore the defaults.
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