Contact Participant Groups

1 Actions
2 Testing Mail Dispatch
3 Send Invitation Mails

English | Deutsch

The e-mail dispatch options, which are opened via the Contact participant groups button, allow you to target mails to specific participant groups without having to first perform a search in participant administration.

The tab contains an overview of the dispatch options available as well as the number of
participants who have the respective status.

Actions

You can trigger the following actions by clicking on the respective link:

Send test e-mail to yourself: Enables you to send a test e-mail to a user-defined email address and optionally create a corresponding tester account at the same time.
Send invitation mails: Will automatically select all persons existing in participant administration, irrespective of their disposition code (except participants with disposition code 15). Clicking here will open the mail dispatch window, and you can either write an e-mail or select a mail template.
Send invitation mails (only those who didn’t get an invitation so far): Will automatically select all persons who have not been invited yet (disposition code = 11). “Invitation mail” type templates are available in the mail dispatch window.
Send reminders: Will automatically select all persons who have not yet started the survey or who have not yet completed it. You can choose which participants are reminded: only those with disposition codes 11, 12 or all participants with disposition codes 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 23. In the mail dispatch window, you can then select the template for the reminder mail.
Inform successful participants: Will automatically select all participants who have completely finished the survey (disposition code 31, 32). Therefore, this function is particularly well suited for thank you-mails. “Invitation mail” type templates are available in the mail dispatch window.
E-mail to first page viewers: Will automatically select all persons who have viewed the first page of the survey but have not clicked on the Submit button (disposition code 20). These participants can then be sent a specific reminder mail.

Testing Mail Dispatch

With the Send test e-mail to yourself option you can send a test e-mail to a userdefined e-mail address and optionally create a corresponding tester account at the same time.

You can enter your own or any other e-mail address.
- If the specified e-mail address already exists in the participant administration of the project, the e-mail will be sent to the respective participant.
- If there is no participant with the specified e-mail address, a new tester account will be created based on your input and the e-mail will be sent to this account.
- Please note that the specified e-mail address will be used both as recipient and sender recipient address, even if you select a mail template with other values.
You can select the mail template (type: invitation mail). If you want the recipient of the test e-mail to log in and test the survey, the template should contain wildcards for the login data, i. e. survey link, code and/or password. When sending the mail, these wildcards will be replaced with the corresponding data of the tester.
If you are not using an already existing tester, you can, in addition to e-mail address and mail template, also specify the first name and name of the new tester account to be created. If the mail template contains the wildcards #u_firstname# and #u_name#, these will be replaced with the respective details. Other wildcards will be replaced only if an appropriately prepared set of participant data is available.
In order to try out the test function, click on the Contact participant groups button in the participant administration.
Select the action Send test e-mail to yourself.
This will prompt a dialog where you can enter various basic data required for sending e-mail. Enter the tester data and select the mail template.
Click on Send test mail to initiate the test.

If you want to test the complete mail process, i.e. receive the mails, you should only use either your own e-mail addresses or addresses of users who have given their consent.

Send Invitation Mails

You will go through the entire mail dispatch process, from selecting the recipients and filling in the form to checking that the mail has been sent success- fully.

Switch to the Contact participant groups tab in Participant administration. It offers various options for contacting participants with a specific status.
Click on the Send invitation mails link.
Select the desired mail template, and confirm by clicking on Apply mail template.

Please take into consideration that only those mail templates that fit the respective action area will be offered for selection. For example, if you are in the area of the “Send invitation mails” function, only the templates of the “Invitation” type and of the “Default” type, which can be used anywhere, will be offered.

Make sure that the proper mail format has been selected. Otherwise change the mail format and confirm by clicking on Apply mail format.

It is important to select the proper mail format before entering content: different input boxes are used for the various formats.

If you wish to make use of the advanced mail settings, open this section and make the desired changes.
Check the content and settings of the mail template.
Tick the “Personalized dispatch” checkbox if you wish to use the recipient’s real name.
Enter the subject.
Select the sender. If the desired sender is not available, you can click on the Add mail sender link to open the menu for creating new senders (Chapter 12.4, p. 536) in a new window.
Formulate the content of the invitation mail. You can display an overview of the wildcards you can use by clicking on the question mark icon.
If you wish to add an attachment, it should be uploaded in the “Add an attachment” field. Locate the desired file, and click on Attach file to add it.
Click on the Preview mail button to check the result.
In particular, check whether the wildcards are replaced correctly.
If you want to save the mail for future use, tick the “Save as mail template (includ- ing wildcards)” checkbox and enter a title for the new template.
If you are satisfied, click on Send.
The Mail transmission report menu gives you an overview of the mails that have been sent.