Create, edit and send Smart Communications - Email format

Difficulty: Advanced

Required: 'Smart Communications' Add-on

The Smart Communications Add-on is designed to enable you send customized communications to stakeholders of a given Engagement Plan, List, or Organization. This article focuses on sending emails.

There are 3 Sending options:

• A single email to all participants: All recipients will be included in the same communication. 
• One email to each organization: Each organization will receive a single message addressed to all members. 
• One email to each participant: Each participant will receive an individual communication. 

To create smart emails, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Create the Smart Communication in Borealis

To create a smart email:

• Go to the 'Stakeholders' and in the Tools section, select Smart Communication ; 
• In the form, select 'Smart Email' as the type of smart communication and fill out the information. Note that details such as recipients, sending options, etc. can be modified once the record is saved.
• Click on 'Save and View', to display your Smart Email.
• Fill-in the 'General information' tab: Add a title, a sender, choose a language, enter the expected date of delivery (helpful if you plan your communications in advance) and select a sending option.
• The "Change direct reply to email?" option from the next section allows you to enter an email address that will receive responses to the smart email. Note that some automated responses from email services could be sent to the sender (rejected emails, automatic responses due to absence or vacations, etc.).
• The 'Template' section provides you with the list of tags that will be inserted in your smart email for customization purposes.
• In the 'Classification' section of the tab, add the title and description of the communication, link the email to an engagement plan, project(s) and subject categories. Please note that when the Smart email is sent, only the title and description of the communication will be added under the individual record.

2. Upload your email template

In your mailbox (e.g. Outlook), prepare your email template:

• Create the 'Body' of your email
• Wherever you want to personalize a field to a stakeholder, use the tags provided in the 'Template' section of the Smart Communication created above.
  • Example : "Dear {SALUTATION_TITLE} {LAST_NAME}"
  • The tag will be replaced by the stakeholder information (in our example: "Dear Mr. Smith"). If you need more information about these tags, click on the  icon next to the title of the field.

It is possible to add images, hyperlinks and attached documents to the template.

• If you add them in your email template, they will be uploaded to the system and added to the Smart Email.
• Attached documents can also be added later, directly in the right side section of Borealis. When the communication is ready to be sent, you will be able to choose which documents to add to your email (in case you have multiple versions of your document in the documents section). 
• You will have to fill the form and select 'Save and View'.
• Once the smart communication is created is, you will be automatically redirected to the template that represents the information you added previously.

3. Add Recipients to your Smart Email

In the main menu on the left tab

• to add individual stakeholders, click on the '+' and add recipients
• To add multiple stakeholders from a specific distribution list : Click on the 'Action' button and select 'Add members of a distribution list'.
• To add multiple stakeholders from a specific smart list : Click on the 'Action' button and select 'Sync with Smart list'.

4. Manage warning messages and data quality

At the top right corner, a warning message might be displayed.

Error message. Information must be modified/added before you can to send the email (e.g., a stakeholder has no email address). The email CANNOT be sent until this issue is resolved.

A warning message about the communication details or participants (e.g. The communication's language does not correspond with the participant's language). The email CAN be sent.

For a Smart Email with a large number of recipients, use the 'Distribution lists data quality report' to make sure your stakeholder contact information is complete and up to date. This Analytics report, filtered on the distribution list used, helps to quickly check that all stakeholders have salutation titles, email, etc. 

5. Review your Smart Email preview

To receive a preview of your email, click on the Actions button and Send preview. 

The options are:

• Send to: you can decide to send a preview either to yourself or another Borealis user.
• Warnings: warning messages are displayed (if applicable).
• Attached files: you can select to attach any documents listed in the Documents section of your communication.

After preview is sent, the information will be added in the action history of the Smart Email. When preparing more than one Smart Communication at a time, this is a good way to confirm that you sent yourself a preview for each one.

6. Send the Smart Email

After you have previewed the Smart Communication and you are ready to send your email, click on the Actions button and then Send email. 

Attached files: you can select to attach any documents listed in the Documents section of your communication 

Once you send your Smart Email, communications are created based on the Sending option selected. These communications are listed in the Communications tab and are linked to your stakeholders.

7. Track opened and undelivered emails

You can keep track of which recipients opened your emails and which emails were not delivered. The information about how many times the email has been read is on the Communications tab.

Note: This information relies on image tracking. These images may or may not be blocked depending on the recipients' settings and devices, and as such, may not accurately reflect if the email was read.