Bulk Messages

1Overview #

Bulk Messages sends one message to many people, each filled in with their own figures. A message has a kind, and the kind knows who it is for and what it can say:

Payment reminders - each customer their bills due as of a day, as a table in the e-mail and a one-page PDF statement, with the customer portal's payment link when the portal lets that customer pay online. Supplier payment advice - each supplier a payment made to them, with the bills it settled. Salary credit notices - each employee their net pay for a payroll period from the salary register, with the make-up of it. Custom list - any parties, any wording.

You preview first: everybody the filters find, the exact message each will get, and - for anybody left out - the reason (no address, opted out, sent too recently, already sent for that payment). Untick whoever should not get it this time and Send: the run is queued and goes out in the background, a few every minute, and you follow it under Runs.

A schedule does the same by itself on its days at its time - reminders on the day a bill is 0, 7, 15 and 30 days past due, salary notices on the 2nd for last month - never sending the same kind to anybody twice within its least gap.

Every message sent is also written onto the person's conversation in Communications, related to the party (and for payment advice, the payment), and logged in the outbox under the kind's module.

2Who it is for #

• Chasing overdue bills without writing to each customer - and doing it every week by itself.
• Telling suppliers what a payment covered, the day it was made.
• Letting every employee know their salary has been credited, with its make-up.
• An announcement to a category, a few ledger groups or a hand-picked list of parties.

3What it is not for #

• One message to one person - use New message in Communications, or Messages on the ledger or the voucher.
• Marketing to leads and contacts - that is CRM > Broadcasts (with CRM and its bulk messaging add-on).
• Printing statements - Reports > Outstanding prints them; here they are only attached.

4Step by step #

1. Open New run and click the kind - Payment reminders, say. - It starts from the kind's saved template, or from its own wording.
2. Set Who: As of (today), the category (Customers), groups or parties, how overdue, the smallest amount. - Only the filters that kind uses are shown.
3. Check The message: the channel, From, Subject and the wording. Click a placeholder to copy it, and paste it where it belongs. - {Table} places the bills; {PayLink} the payment link; Attach the PDF statement adds the PDF.
4. Press Preview (F3). - Everybody the filters find, with their amount and lines; orange rows are left out, each with the reason. Click a row to read that person's message as it goes.
5. Untick anybody who should not get it this time, then press Send (F5) and confirm. - The run is queued and the page moves to Runs; it refreshes itself while the run sends.
6. Under Runs, click the run. - Every person with Sent, Failed (and why) or Left out; Conversation opens the message in Communications. Cancel the run stops what has not gone yet.
7. To make it regular: save the wording under Templates, then Schedules > Add schedule - the kind, the template, the days, the time, Days from due (or the Period) and the least gap. - It runs by itself from its next time on; its card says when it last ran and what happened.

5The fields #

• New run - What to send
• Kind - Payment reminders, Supplier payment advice, Salary credit notices, Custom list - and any kind a later module adds. A kind is offered while one of its modules is licensed.
• New run - Who - Drawn from the kind - each kind shows only the filters it uses.
• As of - Payment reminders: the day the bills are due on - usually today.
• From / To - Supplier payment advice: the days the payments were made. Salary credit notices: the payroll period.
• Category - A ledger group's primary category - Customers, Suppliers... Blank = any. Changing it clears the groups.
• Ledger groups - Only parties under these groups. Blank = every group of the category.
• Only these parties - Find by name (two letters or more, Enter) and click to add; × removes. Blank = everybody the other filters find.
• Overdue at least / at most - Payment reminders: which bills count, by days past their due date. 1 = anything overdue.
• Also falling due within - Payment reminders: bills not yet due that fall due within this many days.
• Employee groups - Salary credit notices: only these groups.
• Payment voucher types - Supplier payment advice: only payments by these voucher types.
• Amount at least - Leave out anybody whose total is below this.
• Skip bills with a cheque - Payment reminders: a bill with a cheque already received against it is not asked for again. On to start with.
• New run - The message
• Start from - A saved template of the kind, or the kind's own wording. What you change is for this run only.
• Name of the run - How it is listed under Runs. Blank = the kind and today's date.
• Channel - E-mail (the table and the PDF), SMS or WhatsApp (a short form). A person without that kind of address is left out, with the reason.
• From - E-mail: a mail account or a hub mailbox. Blank = the default account.
• SMS profile - SMS: the gateway profile. Blank = the default.
• WhatsApp number / Approved template / Template values - WhatsApp: the number, a template Meta approved, and one value per {{n}}, separated by |.
• Subject / Message - With placeholders - {Name}, {TotalDue}, {Table}, {PayLink}... - filled in per person. E-mail is plain text: blank lines make paragraphs.
• Attach the PDF statement - The same table as a one-page PDF with the company's name. Not for SMS.
• Include the payment link - Payment reminders: {PayLink} becomes the customer portal's payment page - only for customers the portal lets pay online.
• Placeholders - Click one to copy it. Hover to see what it becomes. Every kind has {Name}, {ContactName}, {CompanyName}, {CompanyPhone}, {CompanyEmail}, {Today}.
• Preview
• Send (tick) - Untick to leave a person out of this run. A person left out for a reason cannot be ticked.
• Left out because - No e-mail address / No mobile number, Asked not to receive these (opt-out), Sent one ... - under the N-day gap, Already sent for this document.
• View statement - Downloads the selected person's PDF exactly as it will be attached.
• Runs
• Status - Queued (waiting its turn), Sending, Done, Cancelled.
• People / Sent / Waiting / Failed / Left out - The run's counts, from its people.
• Delivered / Read / Replied / Bounced - What happened after the messages went: Delivered and Read from the SMS gateway's and WhatsApp's reports (e-mail reports neither), Replied = people who answered afterwards, Bounced = e-mails a mail server refused.
• Then / Replied (a person) - Delivered, Read, Bounced or Failed later - and when they first answered. Conversation opens the exchange in Communications.
• Why not - On a person: why it failed (the mail server's or gateway's answer) or why they were left out.
• Cancel the run - Stops whatever has not gone yet. What has gone stays gone.
• Schedules
• Name / Active - Unique name; off = paused.
• Kind / Template - What it sends: a SAVED template of the kind, as it stands on the day it runs.
• Days / At - The days of the week and the time of day (the server's clock).
• Least gap, days - Nobody gets this kind again within this many days of the last one - whichever run sent it.
• Days from due - Payment reminders: e.g. -3, 0, 7, 15, 30 - a customer is reminded on the day one of its bills is exactly that many days past due (negative = before), with all its bills due.
• Period - The period kinds: which days each run covers, counted from the day it runs - Yesterday, Today, the last 7 days, this month so far, last month.
• Who - The same filters as a run, kept with the schedule.
• Templates
• Kind / Name - Which kind it words (fixed once saved); unique name within the kind.
• Inactive - Not offered for new runs; a schedule using it stops and says why.
• Use the kind's wording - Puts the kind's own subject and message back for the chosen channel.
• Opt-outs
• Party / Of which kind / Why - A party who receives no bulk messages - of every kind, or of one. Honoured by runs already queued too, for what has not gone yet.
• How - Entered on this page, or Replied STOP - the party answered STOP by SMS, WhatsApp or e-mail (its first line). Answering START takes a Replied STOP opt-out off again; an entered one stays until somebody removes it.
• Bounced addresses - Under the opt-outs.
• Address / Code / The mail server said / Times / Last - An e-mail address a mail server refused for good, with its words. Red = still bad; grey = cleared in the last 30 days.
• Clear - After correcting the address on the party's contact person: messages go to it again. If it bounces again it comes back.

6Rules and integrity #

• Send sends what you previewed - Send is offered only after Preview, and only while the filters and the message are what you previewed - change either and preview again.
• A run keeps its own copy - The wording is copied onto the run, and each person's figures are frozen when it is queued - editing a template later, or a bill being paid meanwhile, changes nothing already waiting. Preview again for fresh figures.
• Never the same thing twice - Supplier payment advice is never sent twice for the same payment and supplier. A schedule's least gap keeps any kind from reaching the same person again too soon.
• Your scope - A run finds only the parties your report option lets you see (all, your branch, your group). A schedule runs with the scope of whoever last saved it.
• Pace - Messages go out a few every minute (Settings: bulk messages sent per minute, shared with the CRM's broadcasts), oldest run first - a large run takes a while, by design.
• On the conversation - Each message sent is written onto the person's conversation in Communications - related to the party and, for payment advice, the payment - and logged in the outbox under the kind's module.
• STOP and START - A party who answers STOP (SMS, WhatsApp, or an e-mail whose first line is STOP) gets no bulk message of any kind from then on - and, with CRM, do-not-contact on that channel. START undoes only what STOP did here; the CRM's do-not-contact is cleared by somebody allowed to.
• Bounces - When a mail server refuses an e-mail the hub sent, its report comes back to the mailbox the hub reads: the message becomes Failed (Bounced) and the address is listed under Bounced addresses, and later messages leave it out. The report itself never becomes a conversation. This needs the sending address to be a mailbox the hub reads.

7Shortcut keys #

• F3 - Preview (New run).
• F5 - Send (New run) - or Save the template or schedule being edited. In the confirm window, OK.
• Esc - Cancel the edit; with nothing being edited, close the page.

8If something does not work #

9For an administrator #

• The sender - The API server's Communication Hub worker sends and runs schedules each minute - one sender per database at a time. Pace: setting 255.
• The payment link - CustomerPortal:PortalBaseUrl on the API server, and the portal's own settings with online payments on.
• A new kind - A module adds a kind on the server (a class in BulkCommKinds.All) - no table, page or script change; the page draws its filters and placeholders from it.

10Settings it uses #

• 255 - Bulk messages sent per minute (General settings): the pace of every bulk send, the CRM's broadcasts included. Default 60.