Overview
There are two pages within the Data Collection Manager, Settings and Workflow Configuration, to update your data collection email notification settings.
To help guide you through this process, here are your options for email configurations:
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If you do not want to send emails related to the data collection, confirm the emails are disabled on the Settings page and the “enable notifications” flags are toggled off on the Workflow Configuration page.
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If you would like to send emails only to step 1 users,
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Leave the Workflow Task Notification Method as “This Data Collection Utilizes Task Notifications”
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Edit the Data Collection Notifications within Settings
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For more detail, select Settings: Data Collection Notifications in the Table of Contents
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If you would like to send emails to some/all steps of the workflow and want to customize email by step of the workflow,
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Leave the Workflow Task Notification Method as “This Data Collection Utilizes Task Notifications” on the Settings page
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Edit and enable the emails on the Workflow Configuration page
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For more detail, select This Data Collection utilizes Task Notifications in the Table of Contents
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If you would like to send emails to some/all steps of the workflow and want to customize email by step and workflow routing,
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Switch the Workflow Task Notification Method to “This Data Collection Utilizes Task Action Notifications” on the Settings page
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Edit and enable the emails under Workflow Configuration page
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For more detail, select This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications in the Table of Contents
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If you would like to send an email when the data collection is complete,
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Edit and enable the “End” email on the Workflow Configuration page. Under “Role Selection”, you will select the user role who should receive the email (most likely your first step user role).
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Read before editing emails:
Who can edit an email?
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If the data collection is Institution-owned, only an Institution Admin can edit the email notifications.
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If the data collection is College or Department-owned, the College or Department Admin, respectively, can edit the email notifications, in addition to the Institution Admin.
Business Object
“Business Object” is used throughout to denote the piece of the platform used to build data collection forms. A data collection can only be associated with one Business Object.
“Business Objects”: Administrative Unit, Administrative Division, College, Course, Course Section, Department, Institution, Program, Faculty Activity, Strategic Plan, Strategic Plan Objective, and User.
The data collection’s business object is listed on the Data Collection Manager (highlighted in yellow in image below):
Launch Email
For the launch of the data collection, there is only one option for email configuration.
Your first step users can only receive the invitation/launch email from the Settings page. It is important to leave this email enabled, even if you build out emails on the Workflow Configuration page. If you publish an additional business object or add an additional user later on, they will receive a launch email.
Settings Page
If your data collection has a workflow, under Data Collection Notifications in Settings, you will see “Workflow Task Notification Method”. These two radio buttons impact the capabilities of the Workflow Configuration page. If you plan to only use the emails on the Settings page, you do not need to adjust this setting. For more information on this setting, go to the section “This Data Collection utilizes Task Notifications: Workflow Configuration Option 1”.
In Settings, underneath the Workflow Task Notification Method, are three email templates. If enabled, these emails will be sent to the first step of the workflow. If you want to send unique emails to each step of your workflow, continue to the Workflow Configuration Page section. Below are the details on these three email options:
Note: Enabled emails on the Workflow Configuration page will override emails on the Settings page. If you have emails on the Settings page and Workflow Configuration page, they will not duplicate.
Data Collection Start Notifications for Data Collection Administrators
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Alerts the creator/admin of the data collection (a HelioCampus employee) of the start date via email
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Can be edited before the Activation Date
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Only sent once
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Will default to disabled, there is no need to edit or enable this email.
Data Collection Invitation Notifications
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Alerts the first step participants (the form owners) that their form is available
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Can be edited
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Sent once on the chosen Start Date
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They will only receive one email, regardless of how many forms they have to fill out
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Data Collection Reminder Notifications
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Can be edited
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Content
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Notification Frequency
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Sends a reminder to first step participants who still have a form to complete
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They will only receive one email, regardless of how many forms they have to fill out
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Sent once a day
To edit or disable these emails, click on the blue pencil icon on the right:
If you want to disable the email notification, toggle the “Disable this notification. Disabled notifications will not be sent” as seen in the image below:
Workflow ConfigurationPage
On the Workflow Configuration page, there are three Email Notifications for each step of the workflow. You edit each step by selecting the tab that corresponds to the step.
Form Submission Notification
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Receive an email when a form has reached their step
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Configuration of emails unique to each Data Collection step is organized by the Receiver of the Form from one or more steps in the Data Collection Workflow.
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Sent every time a form is received, as long as it is not an exact duplicate of an email in the same day (see Dynamic Text for more information on avoiding duplicate emails)
Task Reminder
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Sends regular reminders to participants that have not completed the form based on a frequency set by your team.
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Sent only to users who have a form on their step.
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Deadline Reminder
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If you Enable Deadline, aka a “Task Deadline”, the form will automatically be submitted to the next step of the workflow after the Task Deadline has passed.
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You can enable the Deadline Reminder Notification to send an email at the frequency of your choice:
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2-d = 2 days before the deadline
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1-w = 1 week before the deadline
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Note: Be cautious when using the Task Deadline. Is there a workflow routing option that allows for the form to be sent back to that person? Are the form items editable at a later step? If the answer to both of these questions are no, forms will be pushed forward even if they’re blank and they would be unable to fill in the data, resulting in incomplete forms.
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Workflow Task Notification Method
Within the Data Collection Manager under Settings, you will see the “Workflow Task Notification Method” options:
‘This Data Collection utilizes Task Notifications’
‘This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications'
This Data Collection utilizes Task Notifications: This option alerts a user when the form reaches their step.
This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications: This option alerts a user when the form reaches their step with a custom message based on the workflow routing. This is the most elaborate and customized email configuration option.
NOTE: The Workflow Configuration page does not load until the Data Collection is In Progress. Therefore, you cannot set up these emails until the data collection is In Progress.
This Data Collection utilizes Task Notifications: Workflow Configuration Option 1
This Data Collection utilizes Task Notifications: This option alerts a user when the form reaches their step.
Go to the Workflow Configuration page.
Select the step of the workflow receiving the email along the top tabs. Then, customize each email for each step. You will need to toggle ‘Enable Form Submission Notification’ on and press SAVE for all of the emails you would like sent.
This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications: Workflow Configuration Option 2
This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications: This option alerts a user when the form reaches their step with a custom message based on the workflow routing. This is the most elaborate and customized email configuration option.
After the second step, if there is an approval/reject step, where the user can “approve” the form or “reject” it. If rejected, the form goes back to the original person who filled out the form to make the necessary changes. Thus, the original form owner gets the form initially when the data collection launches, and can get it again anytime the form has been rejected and needs them to go back and edit it.
By using Task Action Notifications, you are able to customize the message, so that when the user receives the form from a rejection, the email notification will be different than when the user first receives the blank form.
After you have selected ‘This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications’ in the Settings and pressed ‘Save Setting’, go to the Workflow Configuration settings. You will now see two sets of tabs, which allow you to customize the emails based on the step and each workflow routing within the step.
Note: The emails should be formatted based on who is receiving the form, not the step sending the form. If you need to edit the emails the Step 2 user receives, go to the Step 2 tab and edit those emails. The screenshot below shows the email the Step 1 user would receive if the Step 2 user sent the form back for edits.
HelioCampus Duplicate Email Filter
The HelioCampus email notification service will not send the exact same email (Subject Line and Body) to an individual more than once per day.
If a second email is generated based on activity in the data collection form that day, the duplicate email(s) will be withheld. It is not sent the following day. The user will never receive the duplicate email(s) from that day.
However, the same email can be sent each day, so the user will still continue to receive emails throughout the lifespan of the data collection.
If you want a user to receive an email anytime a form is ready for them to edit and appears in their action items:
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Utilize the “This Data Collection utilizes Task Action Notifications” setting, detailed in the previous section
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Utilize Dynamic Text (detailed in the next section) to add custom information to the emails, allowing them to be unique per form, step, and/or workflow routing option.
Dynamic Text in Emails
Dynamic Text allows you to add in unique fields related to the data collection, participant, and form. Dynamic Text is available for both Settings and Workflow Configuration emails.
When editing the email, you will select the Dynamic Text dropdown and then select the item you wish to include. You must leave the {{ }} - this is how the system knows that data needs to be replaced when sending. The brackets will not appear in your final email.
Settings Page
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DataCollection
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Data Collection Administrator: Do not use; this will be the name of a HelioCampus employee
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Data Collection End Date: Can be changed above in settings
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Data Collection Start Date: The date the data collection started
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User Name: User Name of the person receiving the email
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Data Collection Name: Found on the top bar. The same as the Data Collection Schedule Name in most cases.
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Participant Name: Name of the person receiving the email
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Url: Link to their HelioCampus homepage/dashboard
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AcademicYear
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Academic Year End Date
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Academic Year Name
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Academic Year Start Date
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Term
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Term End Date
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Term Name
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Term Start Date
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Term Type
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Workflow Configuration Page
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DataCollection
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Data Collection Name: Found on the top bar. The same as the Data Collection Schedule Name in most cases.
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Participant Name: Name of the person receiving the email
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Url: Link to their homepage/HelioCampus dashboard
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DataCollectionTask
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Task Deadline: Only to be used if Task Deadline is enabled
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Task Name: Name of the step of the workflow, i.e. “2. Dean Review”. Not the step that was just completed, but the step it is on now.
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DataCollectionForm
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Business Object: Name of the individual Business Object i.e. ‘Nursing’, ‘Intro to Nursing’, ‘Student Housing’, etc.
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Form URL: Direct link to the form
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Submission Date and Time: Date and time the form was submitted at previous step