Advanced Notify

Advanced Notify is a rule engine for order emails. Instead of one fixed admin notification, you build a list of rules — each rule watches for a condition (a billing country, an order status, a specific product, a vendor, or a stock level) and reacts to it: adding extra recipients, sending a separate templated email, or emailing a low-stock report.

You can combine as many rules as you need, in any order, without touching a single line of code.

What Advanced Notify Can Do

Advanced Notify supports five rule types:

Rule type	What triggers it	What it does
Country Rule	The admin order-notification email is about to send	Adds extra recipients (matched by the order's billing country) to the admin email
Order Status Rule	The admin order-notification email is about to send	Adds extra recipients matched by the order's current status
Product Rule	The customer order-notification email is about to send	Sends a separate, fully templated email for each matched product found in the order
Vendor Rule	The customer order-notification email is about to send	Sends a templated order-summary email to each vendor whose products were part of the order
Category Rule	Your server's cron scheduler calls the Advanced Notify cron URL	Emails a low-stock product report for products in the chosen categories, filtered by a stock quantity range

Requirements

• PHP 8.3.0+
• Joomla! 6.x
• J2Commerce 6.x

Installation

Advanced Notify is a separate add-on available from the J2Commerce Extensions Store. It is not included with the core J2Commerce 6 component.

1. Purchase and download the plg_j2commerce_app_advancenotify.zip package from the J2Commerce website.
2. In the Joomla admin, go to System -> Install -> Extensions.
3. Upload the ZIP file, or use the Install from URL option.

Enable the Plugin

1. Go to System -> Manage -> Plugins.
2. Search for Advanced Notifications.
3. Click the red X in the Status column to enable it — it turns into a green checkmark.

Configure the Plugin

Open the plugin's settings (System -> Manage -> Plugins -> Advanced Notifications) to set the following options.

Field	Description	Default	Options
Admin Recipient Change Type	How the extra recipients from matched Country Rule and Order Status Rule conditions (and the recipients on a Product Rule condition) are added to the outgoing email.	Add to BCC	Add to BCC — recipients are blind-copied, invisible to other recipients. Add to CC — recipients are copied openly, visible to everyone on the email. Replace Recipient — the matched recipients completely replace the normal "To" address(es).
Category Low-Stock Cron URL	A read-only field showing the exact URL to add to your server's cron scheduler so Category Rule low-stock emails go out on a schedule. See Scheduling the Category Rule Cron below.	—	—
Debug Mode	Turns on debug logging for the plugin, written to the Joomla log directory.	No	Yes / No

Click Save when you are done.

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Replace Recipient discards the original "To" address entirely for that email — use it only if you genuinely want matched recipients to be the sole recipients, not an addition to your usual admin address.

Scheduling the Category Rule Cron

Category Rule low-stock emails do not send automatically when an order is placed — they send when your server's cron scheduler calls a special URL. The plugin builds this URL for you from your J2Commerce Queue Key.

1. Go to J2Commerce -> Configuration (or click Options in the toolbar of any J2Commerce admin screen) and open the Store Settings tab.
2. Confirm the Queue Key field has a value. This is a security key that ensures only your own server can trigger the cron job.
3. Go back to System -> Manage -> Plugins -> Advanced Notifications and copy the value shown in Category Low-Stock Cron URL. It looks like this:

index.php?option=com_j2commerce&task=cron.execute&command=category_notify&cron_secret=[your-queue-key]

4. Add the full site URL plus this path to your host's cron job manager (cPanel Cron Jobs, Plesk Scheduled Tasks, or a curl/wget command in a Linux crontab), scheduled to run as often as you want low-stock checks to happen — daily is a common choice.

tip

If your host does not offer a cron scheduler, a free external "cron ping" service that calls a URL on a schedule works just as well — the endpoint only needs a plain HTTP GET request.

Managing Rules

Rules are managed on their own screen inside J2Commerce, not in the plugin's parameter form.

1. Go to J2Commerce -> Apps.
2. Find Advanced Notifications and click Manage Rules — or open the plugin itself (System -> Manage -> Plugins -> Advanced Notifications) and click the Manage Rules button in the toolbar.

You will see the Advanced Notifications Rules list — every rule you have created, with its name, type, and ordering.

Creating a Rule

1. From the rules list, click New Rule.
2. Fill in:

Field	Description
Rule Name	A label to help you recognize this rule later, for example "EU VAT team" or "Low stock — Electronics".
Rule Type	One of Country Rule, Order Status Rule, Product Rule, Vendor Rule, or Category Rule. This cannot be changed once conditions have been added, so choose carefully.
Ordering	A number controlling where this rule sits in the list. Lower numbers run first.

3. Click Save (or Save & Close).

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You must save the rule before you can add conditions to it — a new, unsaved rule shows a notice asking you to save first.

Adding Conditions

Once a rule is saved, its Conditions section appears below the rule fields. Click Add Condition to add a row, fill in the fields for that rule type, and click Save in the toolbar to store all of the rule's conditions at once.

Each rule type has its own condition fields:

Country Rule

Field	Description
Country	A multi-select list of billing countries that trigger this condition. Choose All to match every country.
Admin Email	One or more email addresses (comma-separated) to add as recipients when the order's billing country matches.

Order Status Rule

Field	Description
Order Status	A single order status. When an order carries this status, the condition matches.
Admin Email	One or more email addresses (comma-separated) to add as recipients when the status matches.

Product Rule

Field	Description
Product	A searchable multi-select field — start typing a product name or SKU and choose one or more products from the results.
Admin Email	One or more email addresses (comma-separated) that receive a dedicated email whenever a matched product appears in an order.
Subject / Body	The email template sent for this condition — see Email Templates below.

Vendor Rule

Field	Description
Vendor	A multi-select list of vendors. Choose All to match every vendor, or pick specific vendors.
Subject / Body	The order-summary email template sent to the matched vendor(s) — see Email Templates below.

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A vendor only receives their email if their vendor profile has a valid email address on file. See Troubleshooting if a vendor rule seems to be silently skipped.

Category Rule

Field	Description
Category	A multi-select list of the product categories to check for low stock.
From Stock Quantity	The minimum stock quantity to include in the report (products at or above this level are candidates).
To Stock Quantity	The maximum stock quantity to include (leave at 0 for no upper limit).
Admin Email	One or more email addresses (comma-separated) that receive the low-stock report.
Subject / Body	The report email template — see Email Templates below.

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Only products with Manage Stock enabled, Allow Backorder disabled, and Availability enabled are eligible to appear in a Category Rule report. Products that allow backorders or don't track stock are intentionally excluded.

Email Templates

Product Rule, Vendor Rule, and Category Rule conditions each have their own Subject and Body fields — this is the actual email that gets sent, written by you.

The body accepts J2Commerce's standard order tags (the same tags used in your regular order-notification emails, such as the customer name, order number, and order total) plus one special tag unique to that rule type:

Rule type	Special tag	What it inserts
Product Rule	[PER_ITEM]	The details of the single matched order item that triggered this email.
Vendor Rule	[VENDOR_ITEMS]	The list of order items belonging to that vendor.
Category Rule	[PRODUCT_ITEMS]	The list of low-stock products found by this condition, with SKU and current quantity.

tip

Leave Subject or Body blank to skip sending for that particular condition — Advanced Notify only sends a templated email when both fields are filled in.

Removing a Condition

Click Delete on the condition's row and confirm. This only removes that single condition — the rule itself remains.

Deleting a Rule

From the rules list, select the checkbox next to one or more rules and click Delete in the toolbar.

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Deleting a rule also permanently deletes all of its conditions and email templates. This cannot be undone.

How It Works

1. When an order status changes and J2Commerce prepares to send its admin notification email, Advanced Notify checks every Country Rule and Order Status Rule condition against the order's billing country and current status, and adds any matching email addresses using your configured Admin Recipient Change Type.
2. When J2Commerce prepares to send its customer notification email, Advanced Notify checks every Product Rule and Vendor Rule condition. Matched Product Rule conditions each fire a separate templated email; matched Vendor Rule conditions group the order's items by vendor and send one summary email per vendor.
3. On the schedule you set up, your server calls the Category Low-Stock Cron URL. Advanced Notify checks every Category Rule condition, looks up matching low-stock products, and sends the report email if any products are found.

Tips

• Order matters for admin rules. If two Country Rule or Order Status Rule conditions both match the same order, their recipient lists are combined and de-duplicated — you won't get the same address twice.
• Use "All" sparingly. A Country Rule or Vendor Rule condition set to All matches every order — useful for a catch-all notification, but easy to forget about later.
• Test with Debug Mode on while you're setting up a new rule, then turn it off once you've confirmed emails are sending correctly.
• Keep templates short and focused. The special tags ([PER_ITEM], [VENDOR_ITEMS], [PRODUCT_ITEMS]) already format the item/product details as a list — you don't need to re-list products in your own text.

Troubleshooting

Emails Are Not Arriving

Cause: A condition or its email template is incomplete, or Joomla's mail configuration is misconfigured.

Solution:

1. Open the rule and confirm the matching condition is actually saved (row still shows after a page refresh).
2. For Product Rule, Vendor Rule, and Category Rule conditions, confirm both Subject and Body are filled in — a blank template is skipped silently.
3. Go to System -> Global Configuration -> Server and confirm the Mail Settings are correct, then send a test email from Joomla itself.
4. Enable Debug Mode in the Advanced Notifications plugin settings and check the Joomla log directory for send failures or errors.

The Category Rule Cron Never Fires

Cause: The scheduled job is calling the wrong URL, or the cron_secret value doesn't match your current Queue Key.

Solution:

1. Go to System -> Manage -> Plugins -> Advanced Notifications and copy the current Category Low-Stock Cron URL value exactly.
2. Compare it against the URL configured in your cron scheduler — if the Queue Key was ever regenerated in J2Commerce -> Configuration -> Store Settings, the old scheduled URL is now invalid and must be updated.
3. Test the URL by pasting it directly into a browser address bar (with your site's domain in front) — a working request returns a plain success response.

Vendor Emails Are Never Sent

Cause: The matched vendor has no email address on file, so Advanced Notify has nowhere to send the summary.

Solution:

1. Go to J2Commerce -> Vendors (or wherever vendor profiles are managed on your site) and open the vendor in question.
2. Confirm the vendor's address record includes a valid Email value.
3. Save the vendor profile and place a new test order containing one of that vendor's products to confirm the email now sends.

A Product or Category Never Shows Up in a Report

Cause: The product's stock settings exclude it from low-stock checks, or its category isn't selected in the condition.

Solution:

1. Open the product and confirm Manage Stock is enabled, Allow Backorder is disabled, and Availability is enabled.
2. Confirm the product's category is included in the Category field of the Category Rule condition.
3. Confirm the current stock quantity actually falls between From Stock Quantity and To Stock Quantity.

What's New in J2Commerce

Advanced Notify has been rebuilt from the ground up for J2Commerce 6:

• Native Joomla 6 architecture — no more legacy framework dependencies; the plugin uses standard Joomla plugin, model, and controller patterns.
• No jQuery — the rules and conditions screens run on modern, dependency-free JavaScript.
• Secure AJAX everywhere — every save, delete, and search action is protected by a CSRF token, a login check, and a J2Commerce permission check.
• Standard plugin configuration — all settings live in the normal Joomla Plugins manager, just like every other J2Commerce plugin, instead of a bespoke settings screen.
• PayPal merchant-email swap retired — the old feature that could redirect PayPal proceeds to a different merchant email inside a Country Rule condition has been removed. J2Commerce's PayPal integration now uses REST API client ID/secret credentials tied to a single connected account, so there is no merchant email field left to swap.