How does "Communication" work?

Do you want to reduce the time you spend sending out emails? If yes, this is the article for you!

You can find the automated communication function under the tab called "Communications" in the Project menu. There are two more tabs under "Communications" called "Scheduled Tasks" and "Communication History". In this article, we will focus on "Scheduled Tasks" and how you can create automatic messages.

These are the steps needed to schedule an automated message:

1. Click on "Add Message" and name the message. Please be as clear as possible when choosing a name, as this name will only be visible to administrators. In this example, we are choosing the name "Message sent to everyone who hasn't logged in 7 days after invitation".
   
   
2. Set the trigger/s. You can choose to add triggers under "Matching ALL of these rules" or "Matching ANY of these rules". What you choose depends on your needs. In this example, we are going to choose "Matching ALL of these rules" as we want the participant to check all rules in order to receive the message.  

These are triggers you can choose between:

• Activity (One page in your project)
• Module (A collection of activities in your project)
•  Participant:
  - First seen: First time logged in to the system
  - Last seen: Last time logged in to the system 
  - Last email: When the user last was emailed
  - Activated: When the user was activated in the platform
  - Access Expired: If the user or course has an expiration date
  - Status: Which status has the user
  - Number of logins: How many times have an user logged in
• Event (If you have an event in your project/course)
• Date (Date and time)

In this example, we are choosing the two following triggers:

• Participant → Activated → Exactly → 7 days ago
• Participant → Number of logins → Exactly → 0

1. Select your channel (this is where you decide on what channel your message will be sent to your recipient/s). In this example, we are choosing "Email". 
   
   
2. Choose your audience (this is where you decide to whom the message will be sent). In this example, we are choosing "Participant".
   
   
3. Write your message (you can choose if you want to use an email template or if you want to write a custom message). Read more here about where you can create your own email template. In this example, we are writing a custom message.
   
   
   
   
4. Set a start date and a stop date.
   
   
   
   
5. Save the settings for this automatic message by clicking on the button "Save and Close".
6. Remember to click on "Activate".

1. Congratulations! You have now created an automatic message.