Invitation and Reminder Emails

The Invitation and Reminder Email folder in the Panel Variables toolbox allows you to store directly in the panel the email texts and setups that will be used when distributing the survey to the panelists. You can create as many email objects as you need.

To add an email to the container:

1. Drag-and-drop an Email object from the New Objects toolbox - , or right-click on the container and select Insert Email from the drop-down menu.



Figure 1 - Dragging an Email object from the New Objects toolbox

The email object is created and the Email Details page opens - . To edit an existing email object, either double-click on it or right-click on it and choose Edit from the menu.



Figure 2 - The Email Details page for a panel email

2. Make the selections and settings as required, and write the text of the email.

When you are using the WYSIWYG editor, you will be able to format the text by using the buttons in the formatting toolbar.

3. On completion, save the changes.

For further details on using emails, refer to the separate Professional Authoring documentation.

Properties and Fields

• Text Mode - indicates the current text editing mode. Click the toggle button in the toolbar to switch between Wysiwyg and Html Source modes.
• Id – displays the name/title of the current email object. This is the Id of this email object, as displayed in the Questionnaire Tree. The character string in this field is used to specify which email is to be used when sending an email, or changing a recurring task. The default values are “e1”, “e2”, etc. Click in the field to edit the text and enter a more descriptive title.
• Deleted – will be chosen if the email object is soft-deleted. If you uncheck the Deleted option, the email object will be undeleted.
• Read only – choose this setting if you want the email object to be locked so that no changes are made to it accidentally, either in questionnaire editing mode or when sending email in Respondents > Emailing.
• Include link – check this box to have a link (URL) to the web interview included automatically at the bottom of the e-mail (default).
• Use HTTPS – the URLs will use https:// for secure links instead of http://.

Note: On-Premise Customers must configure the system to support HTTPS to enable this option. This option will be activated after you have chosen the Include link option.

• Activate Logging -
• Send as HTML – check to send the email as HTML code. Only mail clients that support HTML will be able to read the email.
• Send as plain text – check to send the email as plain text. Most mail clients will be able to read it.

The email object will have two text fields for each language: one for HTML body and one for Plain text body. When sending email to respondents, you can choose to send the email either in one of those formats or in both in one sending. When you choose to distribute the email in both formats, the mail clients supporting HTML will use the HTML version, other mail clients will display the text version.

• Send confirmation email – check this option if you want to receive confirmation email from the system, stating that the emails have been sent. The default email address is that of the current user - yours; edit as appropriate.
• From - this shows the email address from which the email will be sent, default will be the address of the currently logged on user - you. You can change this if required.
• Display Name - The value entered in this field will be displayed in the 'From' field in the email. If nothing is entered in this field, the recipient will see the email address/name entered in the From field. Specify a valid email address in the Reply to field. When the receiver clicks his/her 'Reply to' button, the email will go to this email address .
• Reply to - specify a valid email address in this field. When the receiver clicks the 'Reply to' button, the email will go to this email address.
• Reply to Display Name - the name entered in this field will be displayed in the ‘To’ field when the receiver clicks the Reply to button. If nothing is supplied, the name entered in ‘Display Name’ will be used. For example, the ‘Reply to Display Name’ could be set to ‘DO NOT REPLY’.
• Default language - if respondents do not have a language specified in the ‘language’ column in the respondent list, if their language is not activated with the Activate language setting, or if it does not exist in the current email, they will receive the email in the default language selected here. This list contains all the languages selected for the survey. If you set default language to 'None', respondents who do not match any of the activated languages, will not receive any email.
• Disable update of noOfEmailsSent - in the event you wish to prevent the email counter from registering the email transmission (for example you may be sending reminders to respondents' managers etc. - see Override Recipient Email above), check this box to disable the Number of Emails Sent column.
• Additional survey link parameters - allows you to add custom parameters after the survey link. An example could be:

http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/pXXXXXXXXX.aspx?__sid__=encryptedid&code=1

where code=1 is the additional parameter. This could previously be achieved by constructing the URL by piping in ^sid^and ^respid^, however this was not possible with encrypted system request parameters in the URL. This field allows you to include additional URL parameters in the survey link in email when using encrypted system request parameters. The field supports piping from the respondent list (with ^s). It works both for piped links (with ^slink^ or ^secureslink^) and when the "include link" checkbox is selected.

• Custom headers - use this field to add custom headers to the email. The syntax is:

X-name:value

X-name2:value2

You can use piping to "personalize" the email. Here the syntax is:

X-name:^pipedValue^

These headers will be added after the internal Forsta headers. Note that you cannot use the X-Forsta prefix in custom headers.

• Custom survey link text - (located at the bottom of the page) allows you to insert clickable text instead of the survey URL in HTML email. Note that this applies only to HTML email. This could previously be done by constructing the URL by piping in ^sid^ and ^respid^, but it was not possible with encrypted system request parameters in the URLs. This field makes it much simpler to create a text such as "Click here to take the survey", or even include an image tag. The correct < a href=---> tag will be created in the HTML. This works both for piped links (with ^slink^ or ^secureslink^) and when the "include link" checkbox is selected.