This article applies to all Connect site administrators.

Your Connect site uses two types of emails: automatic notifications and custom messages that the Site Manager composes and sends manually to multiple recipients. Custom messages are sent using the Email Blast tool.

To access the Email Blast, go to your manager panel and select Communication > Email Blast from the sidebar menu.

Several steps are involved in sending an e-mail blast. To keep instructions as clear as possible and to reflect the organization of your actual screen, these steps have been divided into the following steps:

• Step 1: Build the Recipient List
• Step 2: Create the Email Message
• Step 3: Save and Send the Message

In addition, this article shows how you can view a sent message.

Step 1: Build the Recipient List

A message sent through the email blast will go to all active users on your site unless you use the filter to generate a list of specific recipients.

To access the user filter from Communication > Email Blast, click User Filter, located near the top of the Email Users page.

Note: By default, the "results" number is the total number of users on your site who have email addresses associated with their accounts. Once you filter the list, that number will decrease.

As shown below, there are several elements to the user filter.

• A feature to add a new filter. To set up additional filter, click the plus (+) sign. You can add as many filters as you like.
• Dropdowns for applying filters. Filtering works the same way here as it does in the user-management area (located in Volunteerism > Users). To learn more about applying filters, click here.
• A Submit button - Once you have added all filters, click Submit to filter the list. Once the list has been filtered, the "results" number will change to reflect the number of filtered users.
  
• An option to save the filtered list. If you save a user list, you can retrieve it later from the dropdown on the right-hand side of the Email Users page.
  

Step 2: Create the Email Message

Once you have submitted your filters and narrowed down your recipient list, you're ready to create your email message.

Note: There is no filter to send a message to members of a particular team. You can, however, email a team via the team-management area (Volunteerism > Teams).

Note: To load a previously saved email, select the email from the Load Saved Email dropdown on the right side of your screen.

Form fields are described below.

• Campaign Name – A campaign name is required for tracking purposes but will not be part of the email that is sent out. (In other words, the recipient will not see the campaign name.)
• From – The default “from” address is no-reply@yourdomain. To change it, clear the field and enter a different e-mail address. You may need to have a custom return address verified before you can send the email successfully.

  Note: The "no-reply" address is recommended for keeping your emails clear of spam filters.

• From Name - Your organization's name as it appears in the recipient's inbox. (If you leave this blank, it will read "No Reply.")
• Subject – Enter a subject for the e-mail.
• Message – Note that the Text Editor is used for the email body, which means you can use bold, italics, and underline, as well as adding images and links.

How to Use Email Tags

Email tags are listed to the right of the text editor.

Tags are a great tool for personalizing emails that are being sent to a group. For example, if you select the “to_firstname” tag, the program will replace that tag with the recipient’s first name in the email that is sent. 

To select a tag, place your cursor in the body of the email and click the tag you want to select. The tag appears at the site of your cursor. You can cut, copy, or otherwise move a tag within an email as if it were any other test; just be careful not to corrupt the text of the tag itself (i.e., the text between the double curly brackets).

Available tags for email blasts are listed in the following table:

How to Insert Surveys and Event Information

Inserting survey links and event information works similarly to inserting tags. Once you’ve placed your cursor in the part of the message where the link should appear, click Insert Survey or Insert Event and then select the survey or event to insert.

Note: The Insert Survey and Insert Event options are displayed only if your site content includes surveys and events, respectively.

Step 3: Save and Send the Message

Now that you’ve completed your email, you have options for saving and sending it. These options are all located at the bottom of your Email Users page.

• Click Save Email, located at the bottom-right of your screen, to save the email for later (as either a draft or a template for future use).
• To send a test message to yourself (recommended), click Send Me a Test.
• To send the message to all selected recipients, click Send Email Blast.

Note: When you click to send the message, an alert indicates your number of email recipients. To complete sending the message, click OK.
Note: To delete a saved email, load it from the dropdown and then click the X that appears next to it.

Viewing a Sent Message

Once sent, a message cannot be viewed from the Communications tab. To view a sent message:

1. Go to Volunteerism > Users.
2. Click the recipient's first name, last name, or Edit icon.
3. Click Emails. You will see a list of all emails that have been sent to the user.
   
4. Click the email’s subject line to view the email blast.

For more information on the Emails section of the user-management area, click here.