Email Messages - Configuration and Bulk Emailing

Summary

This article describes how to configure email messages in EngageIP and how to use custom views on reports to send configured email messages to multiple recipients. Sending out bulk email or notifications to customer groups or company employees based on filtered criteria is simple with the use of 'Views' which are available on any report on the Reports tab or elsewhere in the system.

EngageIP will only send email to unique email addresses configured on contacts within accounts returned in your filtered report. So if bob@test.com exists more then once in the database, that email address will only receive one email message even if bob@test.com is the email contact point for multiple accounts returned in the report.

In order to send email you will first need to Configure SMTP Email Settings in EngageIP, see the guide Email Settings Configuration for instructions.

Creating Canned Emails

Note: HTML and plain text are allowed if you use only one or the other in the body. The subject field should not contain HTML

To create canned email (predefined) messages do the following:

1. Click on the Setup tab

2. Locate the Communication Services section and click on Email Messages

3. Click on the Add button in the lower right to load the Add window
   

   

   • Name - enter a descriptive name for the email such as 'Payment Overdue', 'Welcome Email' or 'Promotional Offer' (note: to create templated or token based emails reference the instructions at bottom)

   • Subject - enter what you wish to appear on the subject line of the email.  For instance "Notice of Overdue Fees', 'URGENT: Your Account Has Been Suspended!', etc. Tokens CAN be used in the subject, such as $User.Name

   • Body - enter the body of the email. To display details such as the customer name you can use "tokens" i.e. $Contact.FirstName $Contact.LastName. A Sample message is below:
     Dear $Contact.FirstName $Contact.LastName,Welcome and thank you for signing up with
     Fast Internet Services. Please see your login information below:Access URL:
     http://www.fastinternet.com/CustomerPortalUsername: $User.Name Password:
     $User.Password The payment type we have on record for your account is:
     $User.GetUserDefaultPaymentMethod().GetUserPaymentMethod().GetPaymentType().Name
     If you have any questions or comments, please let us know Thanks! Fast Internet Service

     • For a complete list of tokens see the Available Tokens section below

   • From Name - enter the name the customer will see in their inbox, i.e. 'Customer Service'

   • From Address - enter the address the email will appear to come from,  for example: 'support@companyname.com'.  Note this will also serve as the 'reply address' should the customer respond to the email

   • Contact Type - define which customer contact the email should be sent to.  For example Technical Contacts, Billing Contacts, Administrative Contacts, etc.  Note: if the address does not exist the email will be sent to the billing contact if not already specified

   • Owner Email Settings - (available in  EngageIP 8.5.11.0 or later) specify the email address the message will be sent from.  Each email message you create can be sent from a different address (support, customer service, billing, abuse, etc.), the SMTP settings for each sending address simply need to be configured.  If you leave this field blank, the smtp settings defined as 'Default' will be used.  For more information on smtp settings and setup instructions see the Email Settings Configuration guide.

Testing Outgoing Email

To test sending email you can do the following:

1. Ensure your canned email is created

2. Ensure your SMTP information is entered and correct on Email Settings page

3. Surf to or create a test account in EngageIP

4. Add your email address to the 'Billing Contact' on that account

5. Add a package (without bill now) on the account

6. Click on package list

7. Ensure that you see the package in the list

8. Click 'Email' link top right corner of the package list

9. Select your canned email

10. Click Send

11. Check your email in 30 seconds to confirm it was sent

Email Notifications When Starting/Finishing Bill Runs

New in EngageIP 8.6.0

EngageIP 8.6.0 has two new email related fields on the bill run screen:

Two stock email messages are present in EngageIP under the Root Owner, 'Bill Run Started (Default)' and 'Bill Run Completed (Default)'. As the field names suggest these email messages are sent out when a bill run begins and/or when a bill run finishes. The default email messages can be copied over into other owners email settings as needed, or your own custom email messages can be used to notify you when a bill run begins or finishes.

When a 'Start' or 'Finish' email message is configured on a bill run the message will be sent to a contact on the branded owner user. The contact that the email goes to on the owner user is determined by the Contact Type specified in the email message configuration (the same email destination behavior as any other email message you setup).

Sample Start Bill Run Notification Email:

Adding Carbon Copy (Cc) Recipients

Note: you cannot use tokens (user, contact or contactpoint) in the email message body if you are sending the email message to multiple recipients (for a complete list of tokens see the Available Tokens section below)

1. Click on the Setup tab

2. Locate the Communication Services section and click on Email Messages

3. Click on the name of the email message you wish to edit

4. On the page that loads locate the Email Recipient Types Per Contact Types heading and click the Add button in that area

   

5. On the page that loads under Contact Type select the contact you wish to CC for the message in question and select "Cc" in the EmailRecipientType

   

6. Click the Save button when finished

7. To add additional carbon copy recipients repeat steps 4-6 above

Sending Bulk Emails

1. Click on the Reports tab

2. Select a report that gets you closest to the list that you want to email.

   • If there is not a sufficient report, you can create a custom report that gets you the account data set that more closely resembles the customers or accounts you need to send the messages too, you would then use the filter and follow the instructions below same as with the stock reports.

3. Further refine the list by using the 'View' link to filter down to the exact accounts required (this can be based on user name specifically, or possibly bill group, or roles). As shown below, there are 3 saved views, one that returns all customers in the organization that should receive a newsletter, one that will email 3 users for testing, and  one that returns the full  list of employees in the organization.
   

   

   Once the view is saved, click on it to filter the report

4. Verify that the users now showing in the report are the correct recipients of the message

5. Click 'Email' in the top right corner

6. Select the email message from the drop down list

7. Click Email. The system will begin to send emails and the interface will stop loading when its completed the send email process

   

Available Tokens

The tokens available are below, if you are looking for any other tokens, please contact LogiSense Customer Care

Note: you cannot use tokens (user, contact or contactpoint) in the email message body if you are sending the email message to multiple recipients (see Adding Carbon Copy (Cc) Recipients section for more information on how Carbon Copy functionality is configured)

Creating Custom Email Tokens

If you require additional tokens to those listed in the section above custom tokens can be created using Actions. Action scripts gather information which can then be mapped to custom tokens, see the sample code below.

Contact billingContact = getBillingContact(user);
if (billingContact != null)
{
    context2.Add("Date", String.Format("{0:MMMM d, yyyy}", DateTime.Now));
    context2.Add("FirstName", billingContact.FirstName);
    context2.Add("LastName", billingContact.LastName);
    context2.Add("AccountNumber", user.Account);
    context2.Add("InvoiceBalance", invoiceTotal.ToString("C"));
    context2.Add("tableCell", tableCells.ToString());

    string emailAddress = getBillingEmailAddress(billingContact);

    if (emailAddress != "")
    {
        Email.Send(user.GetActingOwner(), user.ID, emailAddress, em.Subject, em.Body, em.FromName, em.FromAddress, context2, attachmentCollection.ToArray());
    }
}