Sending an email to the event participants

The below guidance is also applicable to sending emails from content hubs, with the exception of scheduling emails based on the event start and end dates, as these dates do not exist for content hubs.

There are two approaches for sending emails from your workspace:

• In the Email > Mailings section, where you can select an email template and a target or custom segment of your app users, in order to send your email.
  This approach is best suited for sending emails to larger groups of individuals.
   
• In the Users > App users section, where you can select one or more individual App user(s) and select an email template in order to send your email.
  This approach is best suited for sending emails to a small number of specific individuals.

Whatever approach you choose, you will always need to:

1. Select the recipients (individuals or target groups).
2. Select the email template to be used.
3. Choose between sending it immediately or later, scheduling it at a specific future time, or based on the event start/end date/time.

Note: Only Backstage users with the "manager" role in the workspace are able to send emails from the workspace.

Send an email to a segment of your app users

You can send an email to a specific segment of your audience by following the below steps.

Go to Emails > Mailings via the workspace main menu, and click on the Send email button:

In the Send email options, select the Target audience to send the email to:

Below is a breakdown of these target groups:

- All users - This includes all the users in the Users list, except the canceled users.
- Invited to app - not activated - This is only the users that have already received an email from the workspace that contains an invitation link ({{_webapp_link}} or {{_app}} link. This group can for example be used to send reminder emails to access the event.
- Not invited to app - This is only the users that have not yet received an email from the workspace that contains an invitation link. This group can for example be used to send an initial invitation email to access the event.
- Active users - This is only the users that have already accessed the app.
- Custom targeting - Here you can select a custom group of users. More information on using custom targeting.
- Registered, not activated - This is only the users that have registered for the event but have not yet accessed the app.

For more information on sending emails to attendees that are invited via a RSVP invitation, or follow-up invitation emails to RSVP invitees using custom targeting, read on here.

Next, select the email Template that you want to send. Here we have selected the default event invitation email, that contains a unique link for the user to access the event:

More information on each of the email templates is available here for reference.

Now, choose When to send your email. There are three options to choose from:

Now: The email will be sent immediately:

Specific date/time: Select a date and time in the future for sending the email:

Triggered by event times: Here you can choose to when to send the email, based on the event start date/time or the event end date/time:

Before sending your email, you can see the full list of users that will receive the email, by clicking on the SHOW LIST button. This list includes all the participants that meet the targeting criteria, and can be downloaded as an Excel file:

The app users in this list are sorted alphabetically based on their first name.

Note: if any of these participants have unsubscribed, they may be shown in this list, however will NOT receive promotional emails.

Also, if the list exceeds 500 recipients, the users will not be displayed here, and instead you’ll need to download the list as an Excel file:

Once you have made your choices, click on the Schedule button to confirm.

Note: If you are sending an email campaign to recipients from the same organization (using the same email domain) and that it exceeds 500 recipients, the system will display an information note indicating that it will send out the emails in batches in order to optimize email deliverability.

Selecting specific user(s) and sending them an email

This approach is best suited for sending emails to a single or a small number of specific individuals.

In the list of users, you can select one or more users (or all users), using the checkboxes to the left, and then click on Send email:

This will display the same options as explained in Send an email to a segment of your app users, except the need to choose a segment of your audience, as you have already selected the users to whom you will send the email:

How to edit a scheduled email

Once an email has been scheduled, before it is sent Backstage users can access and edit it if needed. For example, they may wish to modify the timing, target or the email template used.

This can be done via the Emails > Mailings section in the workspace, where there is a list of all the mailings that have been created.

Important: Only scheduled emails can be edited, and only if they are to be sent more than 10 minutes in the future.

In this list, only the emails that are scheduled (and only if the email will not be sent within the next 10 minutes) can be edited. This is done by clicking on the Edit button for the mailing:

Select the email template that you want to send. Here we have selected the default event invitation email, that contains a unique link for the user to access the event.

Clicking on the Edit button displays the mailing options, as they were configured when the mailing was created:

Here the user can make any necessary changes to the target, template, and when the email will be sent, and click Schedule to confirm.

To note, if the modification made by the user will result in the email being sent within the next 10 minutes of the change being made, a message will appear explaining that once the change is confirmed the user will no longer be able to edit the email. The user will have the option to confirm the changes made or to discard them.

Notes and recommendations

Only Backstage users with the "manager" role in the workspace are able to send emails from the workspace.

More information on each of the email templates is available here for reference.

Only scheduled emails that will not be sent within the next 10 minutes can be edited. Users can also cancel a scheduled email by going to the Emails > Mailings tab, and clicking on the trashcan button for that emailing campaign in the list.

Emails can be scheduled up to 45 days after the end date of the event. The email date and time is set based on the workspace's timezone (as specified on the screen beneath the time).

Before sending the email to your audience, we recommend that you send yourself a test email so you can check how it looks. Please also note that a workspace must be in production in order to send invites to more than one user at a time.

If you are sending emails to a large audience that is internal to an organization, we recommend that you ensure that the organization's system is able to manage the volume of emails that will be sent out.

We also recommend that invitation emails are sent with sufficient advance with regards to the event start date/time, to provide early access to the event. If your participants are using the mobile app, this will also give them plenty of time to download and activate the app. It will also give you time to send a reminder email if needed before the event start date/time.

More recommendations on making sure that the invitation emails sent from Backstage are safely received by your participants are also available in the Configuring email systems for app activation article.