Confirmation messages serve two purposes. They give you a way to thank a person for signing up "in writing", and they serve as a reminder to the person. A notification message is how you inform someone of the disposition of a signup request.
You can setup Confirmation and Notification messages for all signup actions except those related to scoring a judged contest or filling out an Immediate-style questionnaire. These are called info-only signups, and auto-messages do not apply to them because the signup does not commit the person to doing anything beyond filling out the form.
If you setup an auto-message, then when the action occurs, the affected person is sent the message you designed for that action. However if you do an action on behalf of an email-less person, PRESTO displays a notice to this effect.
Note:Event staff can track signup actions as they occur by viewing the Audit Trail page. Observers/agents do this via the link at the top of Self-Signup Home, and admins via the rightmost MORE menu).
You can view or customize a message template by clicking on its link. Also even though auto-messages are sent by PRESTO, the received message's From field shows a staff person. You control who in the message template for each type of auto-message.
You control whether/how a confirmation or notification is done by selecting the desired policy from its dropdown menu in the Each's Auto-Message Policy column. Note that the policy can be changed at any time. For example, you might want to turn off signup confirmations right before you request signups for a new event, until the rush of signups slows down.