Create and Send Staff Emails
Create and Send Staff Emails Table of Contents Accessing the Create Staff Email Menu... 3 Staff Email Details... 5 Email Body... 7 Email Templates... 9 Merge Fields... 11 Attachments... 12 Staff Email Audience... 13 Campaign Reporting... 14 Launching the Email... 15 Page 2 of 17
Accessing the Create Staff Email Menu 1. This section shows you how to use the Create Staff Email function to create and send emails to Legislative staff from Democracy Direct. Steps 1a, 1b, or 1c below can each be used to begin creating a staff email. a. Mouse over Communications and click Create Staff Email. b. After performing a search for the relevant legislative staff, from the Legislative Staff Result List, select Email Staff, and then click Execute. c. From People/Places, select Current Selections and then Staff Search. Select Email Staff from the Available Actions drop down list, and click Apply Selected Action. Page 3 of 17
2. From the Create Staff Email window, enter the internal name of your email in the field provided. Note: The internal name of the email will appear in the Campaign Tree 3. Click Create. Page 4 of 17
Staff Email Details 1. View the Staff Email Details active icon. 2. From the Staff Email Details windows, update the internal name of the email (if needed). Note: The internal name will appear in the Campaign Tree 3. Type the subject of your email in the field provided. 4. Click Merge Fields to add a field or fields from the Legislative staff record into the subject line. 5. Select the Merge Field Type. 6. Select the subtype. 7. Click Merge Fields to add to the subject line of the email. 8. Enter the From Name, Reply Name, From Email Address, and Reply Email Address These are required fields to send the email; however, the email can be saved in a draft format even if these fields are not inputted. 9. Type one or multiple email addresses to send a blind carbon copy of the email. Use a semi-colon to separate email addresses. This is an optional field. 10. Insert the text that will appear as the unsubscribe link. This is a required field. 11. Select the Email Format from the dropdown menu. This is a required field. a. Multipart emails include both HTML code and plain text. This option allows recipients who can view HTML emails to receive the email in HTML code; those recipients who cannot view HTML will receive the email in text-only format. b. HTML emails can include pictures, links, and formatted text, but cannot be viewed by recipients whose email preferences are not set to view HTML messages. c. Text emails can be view by recipients, but cannot include pictures, links, or formatted text. 12. Click Save. Page 5 of 17
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Email Body 1. From the Email Body section, click Edit." 2. From the Edit Body screen, type the text of your email in the content field. Note: If you wish to use email templates to populate the email body, please see the next section for instructions on using the email templates. 3. The text editing and formatting icons mimic the icons in Microsoft Word. 4. When selecting multipart emails, toggle between HTML and text-only versions of the email using the HTML and Text tabs. You must have text in both tabbed areas to launch a multipart email. 5. Design is the default HTML editor mode, which allows you to enter and modify text, add links, etc. Click HTML to view and modify text in HTML mode. Click Preview to view the text as it will appear when sending the email. 6. Click Save. Note: When pasting text into the email body, use the Remove Special Characters icon to remove any special characters from the content field of the email Page 7 of 17
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Email Templates 1. Click Template to populate the email body with text and/or graphics. 2. From the Select Email Template list, select the template. Note: This list displays templates used for individual emails as well 3. View the template. 4. Click Clear to remove the template from the email body. 5. Click Delete to permanently delete the email from the list of templates. This functionality may not be available to all users. Note: Deleting an email template will delete the template from the individual email template list as well, so please use this feature with great care 6. Click Preview to see how the email will appear to recipients. The preview email can be sent as a test. Note: The unsubscribe link will not appear in preview emails 7. Click Save as Template to save the current email body text and graphics as a template. 8. Click Save. Page 9 of 17
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Merge Fields 1. If you want to add a merge field, please place the cursor at the spot where you want the merge field to appear and then click Merge Fields. 2. Click Merge Fields to add a field or fields from the Legislative staff record. 3. View the Merge Field. 4. Click Save Page 11 of 17
Attachments 1. From the Attachment section, click Edit. Note: This functionality may not be available o all users 2. Click Browse to locate the file from your local or network drive. 3. Click Upload to attach the file to the email. 4. View the attached file. Note: Multiple files can be attached to one email; however, there is an upper limit to the total size of the attachments added to a staff email. The system will not allow adding attachments that exceed this limit (generally 30 KB) Page 12 of 17
Staff Email Audience 1. From the Email Targets section, click the link to define the targets of the email. 2. From the Staff Email Audience search screen, use the tabs to select a category or categories to locate the staff members to include in your email. 3. Define your search criteria. 4. Click Search to generate Legislative staff member search results. 5. View the list of staff members that meet your search criteria. 6. Click Return if the search result does not meet your criteria. 7. Click Save to add the search results to the audience. Page 13 of 17
Campaign Reporting When creating a Legislative staff email, you must select a project to associate it with so that email statistics can be tracked in the Democracy Direct database. All projects are associated with campaigns, and all campaigns are associated with issues. 1. From the Campaign Reporting section, select Click Here or Edit. 2. From the Campaign Reporting section, view the list of issues, campaigns, and projects. a. Click the plus sign next to the issue with which your project is associated. b. Click the plus sign next to the campaign with which your project is associated. c. Click the project you want to associate with your email. 3. Click the Add Item button to create new issues, campaigns, and projects. 4. Click Save. 5. View the Campaign Reporting location of the email. 6. Click Edit to change the location of the email. Page 14 of 17
Launching the Email 1. View the email icons; the green check marks indicate the sections have been completed correctly. 2. Click Copy Email to make a copy of the email. 3. Click Send Test Email to send a test email to the email address in your Democracy Direct user record. Change the email address to send a test email to a different email address. 4. Click Send Email when you have finished setting up the email and are ready to launch the email to the targeted staff members. 5. Click Preview to see a preview of the email prior to launching. Page 15 of 17
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6. From the Confirmation Settings and Send Email screen, click Send. 7. Click OK to confirm the action. Page 17 of 17