Participants - Email
The Email settings provide options for setting up email for participants in the sample file. For example, at the start of a project you might send a message to everyone inviting them to participate in the survey. Later, you might setup a second job that sends reminders to those respondents who have not yet taken the survey.
Email provides the following options:
Respondent selection
Respondents can be selected based on any field in the participant table, allowing respondents to be selected from a queue, a set of queues, or using other criteria. You can send email to all selected respondents. Alternatively, send to a fixed number of respondents who are chosen either from the start of the queue or at random. An advanced query editor is available for participant selection and the user interface allows you to view the query output.
Customized and personalized message texts
If you want to include information from a respondent's sample record, or the value of a project property, insert a placeholder in the message text and the appropriate values are substituted for the placeholders when the messages are sent. This feature provides options for addressing respondents by name, and including the URL for starting the interview as part of the message.
Email header
User friendly text can be defined for the From and Reply To email addresses in the email header. For example, you can specify Survey from Customer for the invitations@customer.com From email address. Participants would then see from: "Survey from Customer" invitations@customer.com in the email header. The email header text strings are translatable.
Email body
You can select existing email body translations, or create new translations. You are also provided the option of an HTML or plain text editor when editing the email body text.
Test messages
Check how the message appears to respondents by sending a test message.
Project status
You can specify that the job can be run only if the project has a particular status.
Translation languages
You can specify existing, and create new, translations for specific email messages.
Activity recording
A field in the sample record now automatically records which respondents received which email via a note of the time and date at which the email was sent.
Email validation
All emails entered in the Email activity user interface are validated against a customer configurable DPM property.
Repeat emails
If you rerun an email job, messages are only sent to respondents who were not sent the original email.
Scheduling emails
The Schedule link can be used to schedule email batches. You can specify how often, and to whom, email jobs are sent. Batches are sent using a .mrs script that can be scheduled via Windows Scheduler. Both the Email Scheduling Wizard and the .mrs script, used to send the emails, are configurable.
The Email Scheduling Wizard provides options for scheduling email jobs. The wizard opens after you click Schedule on the Email Jobs dialog.
A set of SQL tables are used for scheduling and tracking email batches. The email object model, that is used in the batch sending script, is available for other scripting purposes (if required).
Tracking emails
The Status column indicates when a schedule is active. The Progress column shows the current number of emails sent.
Delayed sending of emails
There is no direct link between setting up an email job and running it. All job specifications are saved and are run only when selected from a list of email jobs for the current project.
Maintenance facilities
Job specifications can be edited and deleted as required.
Dealing with email problems
You can specify the email address of a user who is to be contacted if there are problems. This user is also the person who receives test emails. See
Naming a user for test and problem messages for more information.
Note Email does not support SMTP servers that are set up to require authentication.
Email jobs
Name
Enter a name for the email job.
From
Enter the email address that will display as the sender.
Reply Address
Enter your name (or email address) or the name (or email address) of the person on whose behalf you are sending the message. Whatever you type here will appear as the sender's name in the recipient's message box.
Priority
Select the email priority from the list. You can choose either a High, Medium, or Low priority.
Project Status
Select the status that the project must have in order for the email to be sent. You can select more than one status.
Email text tab
Subject
Enter a subject for the email message.
Send as
Select either HTML or Plain text. HTML provides formatting options (bold text, italics, and so on), while Plain text does not.
Body
Displays suggested message text, complete with substitution markers for inserting respondent or project specific information. You can accept this text as it is, modify it, or replace it with different text.
Preview
Click to preview how the email will display.
Substitutions
If you want to insert the value of a Sample Management field or project property into the message text, click in the text at the point you want to make the insertion, then click Substitutions and select the field or property you want to insert from the dialog box that is displayed. The property name appears in the message text enclosed in curly brackets and will be replaced by the appropriate value when the email message is sent.
Email address field from sample
Select the Sample Management field that contains recipient email addresses.
Write date and time that email was sent to sample
When selected, the date and time when the message was sent, as part of each recipient's sample record, is recorded. The recorded time is in UTC, and is not configurable to any other timezone.
Sample field in write to write
Select the name of the sample field from the list.
Note Use the above two options if you want to prevent the same message from being sent to respondents more than once.
If a respondent is sent the same message more than once, the date and time field information is overwritten each time a new message is sent.
Send emails to this address when test emails are sent or when there are problems
Enter an email address that will be sent messages when test emails are sent or when problems are encountered.
Participants tab
Choose queues
Select the queues from which recipients can be selected.
Note The list only shows queues that contained sample records at the time the mrDPMServer3 service was started. This may mean that the list may contain out-of-date information, for example, because records have been moved into a queue that was previously empty or because a queue that contained records is now empty. You may need to ask your UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer - Server Admin administrator to stop and restart the mrDPMServer3 service in order to view an up-to-date queue list.
To restrict your selections even further do the following:
Choose a field to filter participants
Select a field to be used for filtering participants. The list shows all fields in the sample table except Queue.
Choose filter value(s)
Select the values that the field must contain in order for respondents to be selected. The list shows all values present in the selected field.
Send email to
▪All participants meeting the criteria specified above: Sends email to all participants that meet the previously specified criteria.
▪A maximum number of participants: Sends email to only the number of participants you specify.
▪First x: Sends email to select respondents from the top of the list (of those matching the selection criteria).
▪Randomly selected: Sends email to random respondents (of those matching the selection criteria).
This email can be sent to the same participant more than once
When selected, email is allowed to be sent to the same participant more than once. This option is only available if you enable Write date and time that email was sent to sample on the Email text tab.
See also