• From: Canada
  • Registered: 06/12/2010
  • Posts: 69

Topic: First name and last name in emails

I would like to suggest that the email sent to customers should address them by first name and last name, rather than just the last name.

reporting/includes/pdf.report.inc

line 1005

change 

$msg = _("Dear") . " " . $contact['name2'] . ",\n\n"

to 

$msg = _("Dear") . " " . $contact['name'] .' '. $contact['name2'] . ",\n\n"
  • From: India, TN, Karur
  • Registered: 05/16/2014
  • Posts: 1,195

Re: First name and last name in emails

its  great ot see such a great work.

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3 Reply by apmuthu (edited by apmuthu 10/23/2014 02:33:27 am)

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,160

Re: First name and last name in emails

Better still, replace lines 1003 to 1006:

$to = str_replace(",", "", $contact['name'].' '.$contact['name2'])
    ." <" . $contact['email'] . ">";
$msg = _("Dear") . " " . $contact['name2'] . ",\n\n" 
    . _("Attached you will find ") . " " . $subject ."\n\n";

with

$to = str_replace(",", "", $contact['name'].' '.$contact['name2']);
$msg = _("Dear") . " " . $to . ",\n\n" 
    . _("Attached you will find ") . " " . $subject ."\n\n";
$to .= " <" . $contact['email'] . ">";

In some places it may be rude to address one by first name or by full name unless you are sufficiently acquainted with them. Hence such a change may be done with a flag in the config file or in the per company based sys_prefs table.

Alternatively, it may be included in the core as is since this will avoid ambiguity with many persons having the same last name!

apmuthu's Website

  • From: Canada
  • Registered: 06/12/2010
  • Posts: 69

Re: First name and last name in emails

It would be nice to have the option of using a title (Dear Mr. Jones).

The default was "Dear Jones", which is kind of abrupt for Western use.

  • From: Singapore, India, Chennai
  • Registered: 05/02/2009
  • Posts: 6,160

Re: First name and last name in emails

Make the title be part of the first name in this instance!

apmuthu's Website

  • tm
  • Senior Member
  • Offline
  • From: Sweden
  • Registered: 05/13/2013
  • Posts: 142

Re: First name and last name in emails

apmuthu wrote:

Make the title be part of the first name in this instance!

That would allow you to greet them with "Dear Mr. Joe" or "Dear Mr. Joe Smith", but not with the far more appropriate "Dear Mr. Smith".

And prepending the title to the surname would yield "Dear Joe Mr. Smith", which is even worse.

For now the best way is the "Dear" + name1 + name2, suggested in the first post, but the proper way would be adding a "title" field to the contact. That's a change that should not break anything.

I don't know how the templates are handled, but ideally they should be translated/adapted according to local customs. And while we're at it, the contacts should probably have a language field as well, so that documents can be issued in that particular language. That would be a nice touch in bilingual countries. Or for anyone doing business in more than one language, for that matter.