Bulk Email to Parents of Candidates who Haven't Submitted an Application

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

We would like to push out a gentle nudge - in bulk - to families who haven't yet submitted an application. Has anyone done this within Enrollment Management? We would rather not send a Pushpage.

Troy Burki

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg you can create a candidate list of everyone with an application status of awaiting/started and send an official note in bulk

Bryan Lorenzo

@Troy Burki +1 on this recommendation!

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Troy Burki That was my instinct. We haven't used official notes (yet) and I haven't found a KB with how-to. Any tips?

Troy Burki

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg in Enrollment Management, go to Communication → Official Notes and you'll need to create at least a note type. When setting up the note type, scroll down to the Access section and check all three boxes for Parent of Candidate (and candidate if you want them to receive a notification as well).

After that, select the e-mail notifications button next to the note type and modify the email notification format so it just has the [author comment] placeholder in the body and [subject line] for subject. This is just how I have the notification set up. By default, it's going to read as if the message is coming from you but you can modify the sender and/or reply to email to be something else instead if you want.

From there you can pull up the candidate list with the filter for application status of not started or started and then click the box in the top left of the list and then compose official notes(s) in the bottom left. Then you just need to select your note type and fill in the message content and preview before sending. There are various placeholders you can use, along with the ability to embed images.

Let me know if this makes sense or if you have any other questions.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Troy Burki This is amazing! We want to push the message out as an email - is that a possiblity?

Troy Burki

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg Yes, by checking that email box within the note type setup it will send the note as both an email and within the Official Note messaging system in EMS. It's a good idea to use a test candidate to send a trial message and check what it looks like in email form. You can preview official notes but that's just what they look like within EMS.

Just a heads up, most people (in my experience) will respond via email but some people will respond through Official Notes and it's somewhat difficult to find those replies. Basically, you need to open up the Official Notes panel and select sent under Status and unread under Parent and you'll see them in green.

Brian LeBlanc

@Troy Burki:

Just a heads up, most people (in my experience) will respond via email but some people will respond through Official Notes and it's somewhat difficult to find those replies. Basically, you need to open up the Official Notes panel and select sent under Status and unread under Parent and you'll see them in green.

What will typically happen in these cases is that the Official Note that the parent sends through EMS will be emailed to them, because EMS treats a response to an official note as an additional separate note, and it's configured to email any official note relating to a student to whoever is set up to receive emails. It's backwards and one of those things that only makes sense looking at it from a database perspective, but that's how it works.

To get around this without having to fish through a ton of unread official note responses (especially since they don't always show up), I've appended a footer to the end of each official note email: "Please note: this message was sent via an unmonitored inbox. If you receive an email copy of a reply you sent, please forward the email to admissions@thalesacademy.org to ensure your message will be received. Thank you!"

90% of the time it works like a charm. It takes the parent five seconds to forward the message and then we're able to respond via email, which is our preferred method anyway.