Reminder Notification for Enrollment contracts

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Hive minds: need help here!


I recently discovered that the remind notification setting is VERY limited for contracts: if we override the "master" due date, the family with the modified date will NOT get a remind notification when I select "when activated." We generate contracts in waves and they are due 2 weeks after being issued.


Any ideas as to the best way to manage this in a way that allows us to push out reminders?

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Sarah Bienvenue‍ - any suggestions?

Coco Parham

Hi Lauren,

We set reminders a few times. First reminder is a week before due, then change them to 1 day before due. Since our contracts are due during spring break, and the reminders only go 7 days after due date, the last reminder goes out through out Communications office, instead of through the contract reminder. That way they can see who opened the email and track that information. Hope this helps.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Coco Parham‍ Do you have custom due dates for different contracts?


Our obstacle is not when to send the reminders but that reminders to families who have a custom due date simply are not pushed out (at least not on demand, aka "When Activated").

Coco Parham

Lauren, we do not use custom due dates. All returning are due one date and newly accepted another. Frankly, we put that in the body of the contract so it is hard-coded as well as the reminder email.


For those accepted in rolling admission, they are given a set amount of time, stated in their accepted letter so we don't have to create another contract.


I'm sorry I cannot be more help.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

In any case, Coco Parham‍, thanks for sharing your experience!

Sarah Bienvenue

Hi Lauren, I can check to see if it's possible for us to take into account a custom due date. Stay tuned.


thanks,

Sarah

Jamie Cross

Interesting. I thought the programming logic for sending out a contract reminder with the "Send when activated" option doesn't care at all about due dates, just contracts that do not have a status of "Submitted" or "Processed".


Sarah: Is that not how "Send when activated" works?


Lauren: I did find that to get the "send when activated" reminder notifications email out on a contract that was already previously active I had to go in and make the form "Inactive", save it, then go back in set it to "Active" and then save it for ANY reminder email notifications to go out. I noticed this when checking my "Notifications History" and didn't see any emails go initially.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Jamie Cross‍ Since we generate contracts in waves (read = some batches, and some one-by-one), if I set the Reminder Notification to "Active" and "send when activated," all those with outstanding contracts (if the due date wasn't overwritten) gets another reminder. So if I generate some contracts in the morning and more in the afternoon, families are getting multiple reminders* in a day. You're correct in that reminders are not sent to those that have been submitted (whether or not we have processed them yet).


The issue is that if we have added custom due dates, no reminders are being sent. ?


*Of course, they probably need the prod, but it just is pesky to send multiple ones in such a short amount of time!

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Sarah Bienvenue‍ - any updates?

Karla McNamee

We are new to Blackbaud this year, I didn't send any automated reminders because I was afraid of not doing it correctly and sending reminders to those that didn't need them at that time.


I am hoping for a great update to this features, it seems like it should be much easier to personalize.

Sarah Bienvenue

Hi all, we have some changes coming to this area before next contract season, stay tuned.


thank you,

Sarah

Art Bryman

@Sarah Bienvenue - what has been implemented?

Kelsey Huijgen

Hi @Art Bryman, Sarah is no longer at Blackbaud, so I'll jump in on her behalf. I'm not aware of any changes that may have been made for the contract season Sarah mentioned below, but we did make a couple of changes this year related to the Due date setting that will hopefully makes this less of an issue for those who are handling contracts in waves or batches.

First up, there's a new Due date setting that allows you to have the system set a due date based on a # of days after the contract is generated (ie. 14 days after generated). The contracts that are generated using that setting will still follow the notification options selected at the contract level, though each will be on a different cadence based on when they were generated. This makes it so you're not having to set so many custom due dates.

If you are setting custom due dates, you now have 2 options to select from on that student's contract: Reminder Days (lets you choose which day a reminder goes out specifically for this student) or Use contract settings reminder options (follows the same cadence defined on the contract level, even with a custom due date). That second setting is new and also lends more flexibility to how you're handing reminders for custom due dates.

Hopefully one or both of those changes will help ease the frustration around reminders and due dates!

Thanks,
Kelsey Huijgen, Product Manager