Save Reminders as Order Comments
Available since v1.3.0
Planned feature — not yet active. The underlying code exists but is disabled. The toggle does not appear in the Back Office and no order comments are written in the current release. This guide documents the intended behavior so you know what to expect when the feature ships.
Keep a private, staff-only record of every reminder email directly on the order it belongs to, without any extra tools or log files.
Overview
When this feature becomes available, enabling Save the sent messages privately in the Order Thread will instruct the module to append a copy of every reminder it sends to the corresponding order's message thread inside your Back Office. The copy is marked private — your customers cannot see it and will not receive a notification about it.
The purpose is a built-in audit trail. Rather than checking an external email log or the module's own reports, you will be able to open any order in Orders and immediately see which reminders were sent, when they were sent, and what each one said. This is especially useful if customers dispute a cancellation or if your support team needs to understand the full communication history at a glance.
The setting is global: when it is on, it applies to every reminder message the module sends, regardless of which payment method the reminder targets or which reminder schedule triggers it.
Configuration
The steps below describe the intended configuration flow. The toggle does not appear in the Back Office in the current release.
When the feature ships:
- Go to Modules > Module Manager, find Order Payment Reminders Pro, and click Configure.
- Scroll to the Settings or Advanced Options section.
- Find the Save the sent messages privately in the Order Thread toggle.
- Switch it On and click Save.
No additional setup is required. There is no per-reminder toggle — the setting is all-or-nothing.
Settings Reference
| Field | Values | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Save the sent messages privately in the Order Thread | On / Off | Off | When on, appends a private copy of each sent reminder to the order's message thread. Visible to Back Office staff only. |
How It Works
After each reminder email is dispatched successfully, the module looks up the customer thread associated with that order. If no thread exists yet, the module creates one automatically — this is standard PrestaShop behavior and does not affect anything else on the order.
The module then appends a new message to the thread. The message body contains the same content that was sent in the email. The message is marked private, which means:
- It appears under Orders > [Order] > Messages in your Back Office.
- It is not visible to the customer in their account area.
- It does not trigger any notification email to the customer.
The email send and the order comment write are two separate operations. If saving the comment fails for any reason, the reminder email still goes out — the comment failure is logged but does not block delivery.
Test Mode Interaction
While Test Mode is active, the module redirects reminder emails to your test address rather than real customers. The order comment, when this feature is live, will still reference the original order — so the thread entry will be accurate even though the email went to your test address.
Usage Examples
Example: Verifying a cancellation dispute
A customer contacts you claiming they never received a payment reminder before their order was cancelled. With this feature enabled, you open the order in your Back Office, navigate to the Messages tab, and see two private entries — a 3-day reminder and a 1-day reminder — both timestamped before the cancellation. You can share this record with the customer or use it internally to confirm the reminders were sent.
Example: Onboarding a support team
Your support staff handles customer inquiries directly from the Orders screen without switching to the module's own interface. With order comments enabled, they can see the full reminder history inline on every order, so they know exactly what was communicated and when, before replying to the customer.
Example: High-volume stores with multiple reminder schedules
You run three reminder messages — at day 3, day 7, and day 10. With this feature on, each order accumulates one private comment per reminder sent. A staff member opening an order that has been in the pipeline for 8 days will immediately see two entries and know the third has not fired yet.
Important Notes
- Private only. Saved comments are marked private. Customers cannot see them from their account and will not receive any notification.
- No duplicate emails. Saving a comment to the order thread does not trigger any email to the customer. It is a silent internal record.
- Thread creation. If the order has no existing customer thread, the module creates one. This does not affect other functionality on the order.
- Global setting. This applies across all reminder messages — there is no per-reminder toggle planned.
- Multi-shop. The setting will apply across all shops in a multi-shop environment. There is no per-shop override in the current design.
- Employee attribution. When the cron job runs without an active admin session, the comment may be attributed to employee ID 0 rather than a named staff member. This is a known limitation to be addressed before the feature is released.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| The toggle does not appear in the Back Office | You are running version 1.3.0 or earlier. This feature is not yet active. Upgrade to the version that enables it when it is released. |
| A reminder was sent but no comment appeared on the order | Verify the toggle is on and that the cron job completed without errors. Check your server's cron log or the PrestaShop logs for any errors reported by the module. |
| The order thread was created but shows no employee name | The cron runs without an active admin session, so the employee ID is 0. This is a known limitation and does not affect the content of the saved message. |
| Comments appear but contain only partial message content | The comment is written from the processed message body before variable replacement — if variables failed to resolve, the raw placeholder text may appear. Check that your custom variables are correctly configured. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this feature available right now?
No. As of version 1.3.0, the code is in place but entirely disabled. The toggle does not appear in the Back Office and no order comments are written. It is planned for a future release.
Will my customers be notified when a comment is saved to their order thread?
No. The comment is saved as a private message. PrestaShop does not send notifications to customers about private messages, and the comment does not appear in their account area.
Where do I find the saved comments once the feature is live?
Go to Orders, open the individual order, and look at the Messages tab (sometimes labeled Order Messages depending on your PrestaShop version). Private messages appear alongside any messages staff have sent manually.
Can I choose which reminder messages get saved as comments, or is it all-or-nothing?
The planned implementation is a single global toggle. All reminders or none — per-message control is not part of the current design.
What happens if saving the comment fails — does the reminder email still go out?
Yes. The email send and the comment write are separate operations. A failure to save the comment is logged but does not prevent the reminder from being delivered to the customer.
Will enabling this option slow down the cron job on high-volume stores?
The additional database write per order is lightweight. For most stores, the overhead is negligible. If you notice a significant slowdown after enabling it, report it so it can be investigated.
Does this create a customer-facing message thread the customer can reply to?
The thread is created as a standard PrestaShop customer thread, but the message is marked private. Customers will not see it in their account area and cannot reply to it directly from the storefront.
Related Features
- Global Configuration — where the Save Reminders toggle will appear once active
- Reminder Messages — configure the content and schedule of each reminder
- Cron Setup — the cron job triggers both email sending and order comment writing