Email Broadcasting in Orbit
Release 1.10.00 Email Broadcasting in Orbit
Before You Begin
Apteco integrates with 25 Email Service Providers (ESPs see Apteco Integrations), the process of broadcasting an email starts with creating the Message in the web-based control panel for the ESP, the configuration for each ESP is different and not detailed here, the information you need will differ depending on your role, for example you may need access to the ESP web-based control panel to confirm and use an Upload Only export.
Useful to have before you start:
We are rolling out this feature in stages, in Release 1.10.0 you can use this feature only if you have PeopleStage installed.
The following technical settings are also required:
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PeopleStage Enabled in [Orbit API Configuration/System name/PeoplStage Service
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One or more campaign-able tables in Peoplestage in [File / Administration / Diagram Settings Editor]. Please note if you haven't been here before you will need to clear the blank [keycode event] to enable the [ok] button
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The Orbit Audiences Role in Faststats
The final version of this release due later this year will allow Orbit users who do not have PeopleStage to use this feature, to broadcast or upload only to an ESP
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The Message Name in the ESP to use
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The Email Channel name to use in the Delivery drop down
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The Channel must already exist in PeopleStage
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You will need to have the Publisher role to see the Channels in the Delivery drop-down in Orbit
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The Export Audience To Campaign Feature must be Enabled in Application Settings - Features
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Have any Upload Only Channels prepared, it's useful to name the channel to identify it as Upload Only - See note below
The Upload and Broadcast is not scheduled it is on a NOW schedule
We are adding the ability to configure the ESPs email Channel from within Orbit in a later release
Upload Only - To use the Upload Only you must configure an Email Channel by selecting the Upload but don't broadcast check-box on the Output Settings tab of the Channel Editor, Orbit will reognise it as an Upload Only channel
Audience
You can create an email broadcast in Orbit in three ways:
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Create a new Audience
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Use an existing Audience
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Create an Audience from a Dashboard
Step 1 - Create an Audience
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From the Audiences page select New Audience
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Start adding Data Variables under the Includes section
Find Data Variables
To add a data variable, you can either search or browse:
Searching or Browsing Data
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Click Include codes in search to show the defined codes
- or Browse data to access your FastStats System explorer folders and navigate and select the require variable and category:
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or Search for URNs or FastStats Selections
Variables, or categories within variables, containing the keyword are presented in the filter list for selection.
Exclusions
Exclusion criteria are added to the Excludes section of your Audience. Follow the same process to search for criteria and apply AND or OR logic.
The counts for both the Includes and Excludes are displayed against each grouping. The overall Audience count is displayed at the top of the screen next to the resolve table level.
Adding AND OR Logic
To continue building your Audience criteria:
- Hover your mouse over the variable added to access and select AND or OR logic to combine the next variable
In this example we are applying AND logic to combine Gender with Banded Region of the “North”.
- Click on AND
- Use Search data… to find the Banded Region variable and select the North category
As you define your Audience, the count continually updates to reflect the number of records currently meeting your criteria.
Important: Where you hover determines where the AND/OR logic is applied.
In this example, hovering on the Banded Region variable name and selecting OR will apply OR logic between Banded Region and the next variable, e.g. Region – “South East (Outside M25):
However, hovering on the edge of the outer border (as shown) allows you to apply the AND or OR logic to the Gender variable as a grouping:
- Use Search data… to locate the Email Address variable
- Click on the drop-down menu and select Has ranges and wildcards of and enter *@*.*
This allows you to select only people who have a valid email address.
Step 2 - Prepare the Export section
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Select an Export Template to use with the Upload
The Template should be arleady prepared by an administrator to use with your ESP
See Export Templates
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Select the ESP to use in the Delivery drop-down menu
If you choose to use use an email channel that has been configured for Upload Only you will not see the Message Template
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To Upload and Broadcast search for a message in the Message Template cell.
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Click Export
The Confirm Export message box loads
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Click Export to Upload and Broadcast the List to the ESP
Step 3 - Orbit Creates a Campaign
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You can click on the Campaign link to monitor the progress
Campaign Monitoring Steps
When a campaign is being processed it moves through several steps, these are displayed in Orbit:
Running Steps
The first step to run is the Audience step, Apteco creates an Audience to use in the campaign
Next is the Delivery step, this indicates that the list has been delivered to the email service provider
Completed Steps
Audience and Delivery steps will be listed with details about the campaign:
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Time Started - The time the step started
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Time Finished - The time the step finished
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Communications - The Count of the items in the list which will be People for an email
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Error Messages - Any error messages will be displayed here
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Status -
Additional message at the top of the Campaign Monitoring page
PeopleStage status: Manual Approval is not currently displayed in this tab
If the Campaign only shows an Audience step it may be a campaign started in PeopleStage with a Manual Approval step