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Contact Groups of Entrants and Viewers Using the Entrant Mailout Functionality

The Entrant Mailout allows Admins to email a groups of Users by specifying a criteria which can be sent at a specified date and time. For example, upon approaching an Entry deadline, an email can be sent only to Entrants who have unsubmitted Entries or to Entrants who have not paid their invoices. As the emails can be setup in advance the workflow can be completed as part of the Award setup and Admins can then be sure the reminders will be sent as required. The system will scan at the time the email that is due to send and will only contact Users who meet the criteria.

Despite being named Entrant Mailout, this function can be used to contact Judges and Viewers to remind them to vote, login and view Entries, submit scores or just to send general reminders.

There is also an option to contact Nominees. This option is only available if Transfer Entries to a New User has been switched on for the instance. To find out more about this option read the Transfer Entries user guide.

How to Set Up Templates for Entrant Mailout

You can set up templates for Entrant Mailout using the same process as you would to create templates for Email Bundles ie. all templates must be prefixed with Mailout/ .

  1. Log into the Admin Interface
  2. Go to Actions>Misc
  3. Under the Email Management section, choose Email Templates
  4. Click Add
  5. On the Add new Email Template Type page give your template a Name (prefixed by Mailout/ ) , and decide if you want it to be Award-Specific
  6. Click Save and Close
  7. The Add new EmailTemplate page opens. Set the following:
  8. Enabled? Yes
  9. Include Standard Header and Footer? As you require
  10. Emails To Queue In This State? As you require
  11. Deliver Priority? As you require
  12. BCC – if any users who are not entrants or viewers need to receive the emails then they can be included in the BCC section of the template. Each email must be separated by a comma and a space. Emails addresses specified here will receive a copy of each email generated for the template
  13. Set the Subject as you require – remember that if the Subject is blank an email won’t send, even if Enabled
  14. Input the body copy in the Content field, as you require – for more information about how to write copy for email templates and using special values view the Manage Email Templates guide.
  15. Click Save and Close

Sending a Test Email

If you have not used the feature before and wish to view how the new template will appear to Users then you can use the Test function to send some test emails.

  1. Log into the Admin Interface
  2. Go to Actions>Misc
  3. Click Entrant Mailout.
  4. Select Test from the Mode option
  5. Select which ‘mailout/ Template to use (see above)
  6. Enter the email addresses you want to send the test to in the box provided. Each email address must be on a separate line
  7. Click Schedule and the Confirm Mailout Details page opens
  8. Enter the required Date and Time in the Start sending field OR leave blank to begin sending as soon as you hit Send on this page
  9. In the Repeat every field, choose Do not repeat. The email can be sent at regular time intervals to chase up payments but this is not necessary for this test
  10. Enter a Batch name for this test email so you can identify the emails on the Email List.
  11. Enter a ‘From address‘ and ‘From name‘. If you leave these fields blank, the email will be sent from the address and name specified in the instance configuration values
  12. If you want to receive a notification of when the email is sent, enter an email address in the field ‘Send notification to‘, otherwise leave it blank
  13. If you prefer the email to be added to the Email Queue without sending until you manually release it, tick the box ‘Just add emails to queue without delivering‘. Otherwise, leave it unticked, to progress to automatic sending. The Manually Releasing Emails guide details this process
  14. Click Send when you are ready.

How to Send an Email to Entrants

The function treats Viewers and Entrants as separate groups so email jobs can only be created for each group separately. This section details the functionality for entrants.

  1. Log into the Admin Interface
  2. Go to Actions>Misc
  3. Click Entrant Mailout.
  4. Select Live from the Mode option
  5. Select which ‘mailout/ Template to use (see above)
  6. Select Entrants for Which type of user
  7. Decide what the Selection is based on: By entry (contacting the users about an entry( or By invoice (contacting the user about an invoice or payment)
  8. Select whether to Deduplicate emails. ‘Yes’ means that an email will only be sent to each address once if there are multiple entries/invoices for the same address. ‘No’ means a user will be sent a separate for each entry/invoice that meets the criteria
  9. Select whether the email will only be sent to a contact’s Primary email address, or whether it will be sent to other emails addresses in the account
  10. Decide whether to Exclude users who have been sent this email previously, and if so based on how many times they have been sent it before. This option can be used if a recurrence is going to be set so that after X number of times the user stops receiving the email
  11. The following options differ if you have selected to email by Entry or Invoice:
    1. If By entry
      1. Select the Award/s, Category/ies (Option only appears if one Award is selected), Entry Statuses and Invoice Statuses, credit approved users can be excluded if invoice options are selected, which are used to select the group of Entrants to be contacted
      2. If your entry form has a date-based question on it, you will also be asked whether there is a Date Supplied For to be factored into the selection – and if so, what date range to be included for this. By default this field is set to ‘no date dependency
      3. If your entry has email questions then you have the option to send the email to the address specified as an answer to one or more of the email fields. A further option allows the email to only be sent to the addresses specified in the email field excluding the entrants
    2. If By invoice
      1. Choose the Award/s which are used to select the group of Entrants to be contacted.
      2. Choose whether this will be for invoices that are Paid, Unpaid or both Either Paid or Unpaid, credit approved users can be excluded if invoice options are selected.
    3. If By Media Item
      1. Select the Award/s, Category/ies (Option only appears if one Award is selected), Entry Statuses and Invoice Statuses, credit approved users can be excluded if invoice options are selected, which are used to select the group of Entrants to be contacted
      2. Select the Media Item Types (Video, Audio, Image, Document)
      3. Select the Media Item Status (Placeholder, Uploading, Transcoding, Complete, Failed)
  12. Select Who to CC on the email if required
  13. Click Schedule and the Confirm Mailout Details page opens
  14. Enter the required Date and Time in the Start sending field OR leave blank to begin sending as soon as you hit Send on this page
  15. In the Repeat every field, choose how frequently the email is to be sent OR select Do not repeat for it to be sent once only. The email can be sent at regular time intervals, for example, to chase up payments and remember it is important to set an end date or the system will send the email indefinitely
  16. Enter a Batch name for this test email so you can identify the emails on the Email List
  17. Enter a ‘From address‘ and ‘From name‘. If you leave these fields blank, the email will be sent from the address and name specified in the instance configuration values
  18. If you want to receive a notification of when the email is sent, enter the email address in the field ‘Send notification to‘, otherwise leave it blank
  19. If you prefer the email to be added to the Email Queue without sending until you manually release it, tick the box ‘Just add emails to queue without delivering‘. Otherwise, leave it unticked, to progress to automatic sending. The Manually Releasing Emails guide details this process
  20. Click Send when you are ready

How to Send an Email to Judges/Viewers

The function treats Viewers and Entrants as separate groups so email jobs can only be created for each group separately. This section details the functionality for Judges/Viewers.

  1. Log into the Admin Interface
  2. Go to Actions>Misc
  3. Click Entrant Mailout.
  4. Select Live from the Mode option
  5. Select which ‘mailout/ Template to use (see above)
  6. Select Viewers for Which type of user
  7. Decide whether to Exclude users who have been sent this email previously, and if so based on how many times they have been sent it before. This option can be used if a recurrence is going to be set so that after X number of times the user stops receiving the email
  8. Select the Award/s, Category/ies (Option only appears if one Award is selected), Score Statuses, Voting Statuses and if the user has Logged in which are used to select the group of Viewers contacted
  9. Click Schedule and the Confirm Mailout Details page opens
  10. Enter the required Date and Time in the Start sending field OR leave blank to begin sending as soon as you hit Send on this page
  11. In the Repeat every field, choose how frequently the email is to be sent OR select Do not repeat for it to be sent once only. The email can be sent at regular time intervals, for example, to chase up payments and remember it is important to set an end date or the system will send the email indefinitely
  12. Enter a Batch name for this test email so you can identify the emails on the Email List
  13. Enter a ‘From address‘ and ‘From name‘. If you leave these fields blank, the email will be sent from the address and name specified in the Configuration Values
  14. If you want to receive a notification of when the email is sent, enter the email address in the field ‘Send notification to‘, otherwise leave it blank
  15. If you prefer the email to be added to the Email Queue without sending until you manually release it, tick the box ‘Just add emails to queue without delivering‘. Otherwise, leave it unticked, to progress to automatic sending. The Manually Releasing Emails guide details this process
  16. Click Send when you are ready

Note – Please review this guide to see how to edit or delete an Email Job.