Birthday Emails in Workflow

Megan Krapf

I attended a recent training about sending automated emails using Workflow. They talked briefly about the functionality of sending automated "happy birthday" emails through using Workflow, but I'm still confused about how to actually do it. Does anyone know?


Thanks!

Carrie Aranda

You will need to start with a Constituent list that filters based on birthday.  Once you have the list, create your happy birthday email (make sure to mark the email as being used for workflow) and then build your workflow.  When you create the workflow, select your constituent list and make sure to check the box "Apply workflow to new constituents added to this list".  This will refresh your list and send the email to constituents as they enter your list.  Then just add the email you created to the workflow plus any other steps.  Once you are finished, activate the workflow and it should start sending emails.

Megan Girvalo

Carrie Aranda‍ - are you successfully using workflow for birthday emails? I set up a test workflow to make this work with a few staff records. It worked fine day one but although the list has refreshed 24hrs later, it still hasn't added the next person to the workflow. I've set it up as you mentioned below and according to this youtube video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2BXZMV-GZo&feature=youtu.be


Have you noticed if the daily emails send consistently at the same time each day? For example, yesterday i received my birthday email at 12PM but today its already 2PM and the next person hasn't received theirs yet.




 

Carrie Aranda

We have not yet set up birthday workflows due to a organization merger that happened at the beginning of 2020.  I am still working on integrating and standardizing data from combining two very different donor databases.  There are inherent issues with birthdays in one of the data sets that I need to fix before setting this up. However, I do have an automatic workflow set up to send thank you emails to our monthly donors when their gift is processed.  I do notice that the list refreshes and the emails send at different times of the day but I have not had any issues with the emails not being sent.  I haven't paid too much attention to it since it has been working well for several months.

Megan Girvalo

Hi Carrie,


Thanks so much for coming back to so quickly. It's good to know that it works successfully for other purposes. I think I will give it a day or two to see if it sorts itself out and then go from there.


Thanks again

Megan

 

Megan Krapf

I set up birthday emails in workflow and they have been working just. I've noticed that the email list gets refreshed at midnight east coast time, which is 9 p.m. my time here in California. So the birthday email actually goes out a little after 9 p.m. west coast time the day before the person's birthday. When you're setting up the list you want the workflow to use, make sure you check the box "Apply workflow to new constituents added to this list". That way it refreshes each day. 


I too tried do a test workflow where I changed my birthday in the database so it would send the email to me. But for some reason it sent the first time, but each subsequent time I updated my birthday the email did not send to me. Not sure why. But now I have just let the workflow run and haven't had problems. You can always check the people it sends the emails to and make sure they do in fact have a birthday on that day. 


I hope this helps!

Carrie Aranda

Megan Krapf‍, the reason it did not send another birthday email once you changed your birthday is that constituents can only be added to a workflow once.  Therefore, since you had already been added to the workflow with birthday #1, when you changed it to birthday #2 it didn't add you because you were already in the workflow and had received the email.  With my monthly donor workflow, I have to create a new workflow every month in order for monthly donors to continue to receive a thank you for their gift.  In this way, it is not a bad thing because it ensures that they do not get the same email month after month.

Beth Gibney

I have not yet explored this because at our organization, husband and wife share a record.  I export a report each month including the primary or the spouse and we mail cards to whoever has a birthday in that month.  Is there a way to email if the records have both husband and wife?  I'm thinking we can't do that anyway, because in our database, over the years, the spouse email was added to the primary email tab, so unless a major cleanup was done, the birthday email would/could be going to the wrong person.  Thoughts?

Julia Kalinkina

Yes, unfortunately, constituents are not allowed to enter the workflow more then once. We were going to send a bequest kit email each time a person requests it (no matter how many times - we do get some repeated requests), and we can't do it - the email gets sent once, and then we have to manually dig out those ones who submitted repeated requests and send the email manually With birthdays, it's obviously the same thing - you have to create a new workflow at least once a year.


But... while I was typing it, I thought it might be a good thing - Blackbaud forces us to review these emails often enough so the supporters don't get the same content again haha.