Auto-Email Options - Genius CE & Enterprise

Introduction

The Auto-email functionality enables the authorized user to select from or create automated emails based on different actions triggered within your instance. This includes emails sent out when accounts, enrollments, completions, etc. are created-- among other things. These emails can be set to be sent automatically or can be manually sent by an admin user at any time. 

Here is a list with descriptions of all of the available built-in automated email templates. 

• Admin > System Setup > Default Templates

Name	Description
AUTO_CERTIFICATE_EXPIRES_1MO	Certification Expired
AUTO_COURSE_COMPLETION	Sent to learner when their enrollment is set to COMPLETED
AUTO_COURSE_DROP	Sent to learner when their enrollment is set to DROPPED
AUTO_COURSE_INSTRUCTOR	Sent to instructors when they are added to teach a course-section
AUTO_COURSE_REGISTRATION	Sent to learner when they are enrolled in a course
AUTO_COURSE_REQUEST_DENIED	Sent to students when course requires approval and their request to register for a course is denied
AUTO_CREDIT_REQUEST_DENIED	Sent to learner when the credit is denied
AUTO_DAYS_AFTER_SECTION_COMPLETION	Sent N days after enrollment exit/completion date
AUTO_EXTERNAL_FILE_APPROVED	Sent to students when external file is Approved
AUTO_EXTERNAL_FILE_DENIED	Sent to students when external file is Declined
AUTO_JOB_EXECUTION_SUCCEEDED	Job Execution
AUTO_LEARNINGPATH_REGISTRATION	Sent to learner when they are enrolled in a learning path
AUTO_MANAGER_ASKING_FOR_APPROVAL	Sent to manager asking for course approval
AUTO_MISSING_EXTERNAL_FILES	Sent daily to all learners missing or denied required documents
AUTO_NEW_USER_CREATED	Sent to new user when their account is created/approved
AUTO_NEW_USER_DENIED	Sent to new user when their account is denied
AUTO_PASSWORD_REQUEST	Sent to user when they request their password
AUTO_PASSWORD_RESET	Sent to user when they forget their password
AUTO_PREREQUISITES_LEARNER	Sent to learner when one or more course prerequisites have not been successfully completed.
AUTO_REGISTRATION_INVOICE	Sent to learners after they purchase items from the catalog. ENABLE_REGISTRATION_INVOICE parameter must be set to '1'.
AUTO_REQUIRESAPPROVAL_LEARNER	Sent to learner notifying that course requires approval
AUTO_SUBSCRIPTION_REGISTRATION	Sent to learner to confirm the subscription was activated successfully.
AUTO_WAITINGLIST_INSTRUCTOR	Sent to instructor when a learner is added to the Waiting List for a course they instruct.
AUTO_WAITINGLIST_LEARNER	Sent to learner when they are added to Waiting List.

Editing Default Auto-email Templates

To edit existing auto-email templates, click on the pencil edit icon next to the template name you'd like to edit. It is a best practice to keep the naming conventions of the templates the same. The content of the email can be changed in any way, but the original name has to remain the same for the system to read the data correctly.

1. Click the pencil icon to edit.
2.  Edit the message of the email to reflect whatever you'd like. You are able to utilize our template and built-in editor OR you can add your own custom HTML.
3. To ensure that the email comes out as you want it to, be sure to preview and validate it before saving.

Enrollments

To send bulk auto-emails for enrollments, Navigate the Enrollment menu to Bulk Actions. The Bulk Action page allows to perform the search of the learners based on the given filters:

• Affiliation: allows to select all the learners within a specific affiliation or a group defined in the system.
• Category: reflects all the enrollments in the courses that have the selected Category assigned.
• Course: will show all enrollments in a given course.
• Section: shows all enrollments in a given section of a course. E.g. the potential notification may only apply to the Accounting 101 (F2F) section.
• Grade between: searches for enrollments in the specified grade range
• Term: allows to select learners of the specific learning cycle, e.g. Spring 2024, Ongoing, 2023. The terms are defined by the system administrator.
• Start date/ End date: allow to pick a concrete start date to search for or specific end date, based on the existing enrollment data. E.g. - Find everyone whose enrollment ends on Dec 31, 2023.

Advanced filters allow to narrow down the search even more. Those include:

• Instructor: lists learners who are enrolled into the courses with the instructor selected.
• Learning Path: searches all the learners enrolled into the given learning path.
• Certificate Expiration Date (before/after): allows to search for the specific date of the certificate expiration.
• Enrollment status: searches the specific status of the enrollment (active, dropped, dropped_grace, completed, blocked, future)
• Pacing: searches for the learners who fit the defined pacing criteria, based on the course assignments.
  • Due Dates pacing--> where each assignment has a due date and this defines number of assignments behind or ahead
  • Explicit pacing--> where you define the number of assignments per week
  • Implicit pacing--> where the system defines pacing based on the assignments number and course duration. E.g. course lasts for 12 months and has 24 assignments; it's expected to complete 2 assignments per month.
• Logins: searches for X number of logins in Y number of days.
• Coach: searches all the learners assigned to the given coach.

Custom criteria filters allow you to create a database search based on the learner, course, or enrollment properties using the standard operators.

If the custom search will be used in the future, the filters can be saved and reloaded.

Once the audience is defined and the searched returned the data, the next step would be to set up the Auto-Email.

• Click on the button below the search results to add “New Auto-Email”.

Crafting the Message

There are few ways to create a message for the auto email. The easiest one is to select the pre-defined template message from the drop-down menu.  The templates for the Enrollment menu can only be created by the users who have access to the Administration > Default Templates.

If the template with the type of ENROLLMENTS does not exist, then the menu will be empty.  Otherwise, select a template and define the sender's name and email.

The checkbox to Modify Existing Template (create a copy) allows to alter the content and the variables of the chosen template.

‘Update Sample’ button allow to preview the message where all the variables are replaced with the proper values.

Periodicity.

The last step of the auto-email is to set the Periodicity or how often this email should trigger.

• The periodicity can be defined based on the selected day, but not the time, e.g. Every_Sunday, Every_1^st_of_month, last_Friday_of_month, etc. 

The actual time when the notification will be sent out depends on the background server job that an admin can control.  It’s located under Administration > Edit Jobs > AutoEmails.  The admin can select the most suitable time according to their time zone.

• All the existing Auto-emails are listed in the Enrollments > Auto-Emails menu, where they can be updated or archived.