Design and send an email message

When you create and design an email in Messages, it is sent only once. You can edit the email before you send it, but not after.

Tip: For best practice information about email, refer to Blackbaud Email Delivery Best Practices.

From Email, click Messages. Messages appears.

Click New message. The Select Template screen appears.

In the Template field, select a template. To decide on a template, consider the type of email you will write. For information about email templates, see Templates

In the Site to select template from field, select a site to narrow the list of templates you can use for the message. You can select a template from another site even though the message is for the site you are currently on. If you do not host multiple websites, your single site defaults in the field.

Click OK. The New message page appears.

Note: To see the scroll bar on an email message, use a screen resolution greater than 800 x 600.

In the Recipient lists field, select the lists of recipients to include on the message.

If the message uses a template with a data source other than "Appeal," click the binoculars. The Select Target Lists screen appears. The grid displays the saved email lists that you have security rights for and that match the data source type selected on the template.

Tip: For more information about data sources, see Template Data Sources.

You create and store email lists in Lists. Lists include individuals from offline constituent queries and imported lists. When the message uses a list with "Constituents" as the data source, individuals must have an email address that matches the type selected in the Email address type field on the template or message. Otherwise, the message is sent automatically to the primary email address on the individual's constituent record. When an individual’s record is marked Requests no email, the individual is excluded from the list and does not receive the email message. For more information about Lists, see Lists.

Note: If the message uses a template with "Appeal" as the data source, the Recipients field automatically populates with the appropriate subscribers list. This list is based on the people who subscribed to the appeal category on an Email Signup form, which can include both registered and anonymous website users. To include additional recipients, click Add additional recipient lists. For information about the Email Signup Form, see Forms.
Enter criteria to narrow the list and click Filter. The grid displays the lists that meet the criteria.

Note: When the template’s data source is “Chapter,” you can filter chapters by the Chapter Manager part name. In the Filter by Name field, enter the name of the Chapter Manager part. The grid displays the available chapters in a “Chapter Manager part name — Chapter name List” format. For example, “Alumni Chapter Manager — San Diego List” contains the members of the “San Diego” chapter created by the Chapter Manager part named “Alumni Chapter Manager.” To send the message to the members of a chapter, add it to the Selected Lists box.
To add a list, select it and click Add. The list appears in the Selected Lists box. You can include multiple email lists.

Depending on your website environment and configuration, sending to a large list of recipients may cause performance issues. If you experience this, we recommend you include smaller queries or fewer queries in the list. For more information, see Create an email list.
To remove a list from the Selected Lists box, select it and click Remove.
Click OK. You return to the New message page.

To send the message to a test group, such as people in your organization that need to approve the message, in the Test lists and Test emails fields, specify recipients for a test version of the message.

In the Test lists field, click the binoculars to select the lists of recipients for the test version. The Select Test Lists screen that appears has the same options as the Select Target Lists screen.
In the Test emails field, enter email addresses if you do not use email lists or if you want to include recipients who are not in your lists.

Note: We recommend that you send the email message to test recipients before the final recipients. The test recipients can review the message and verify its design in multiple email client readers. You can create lists of test recipients in Lists. For information about lists, see Test Lists.

In the email identifier fields, enter a name for the email message, a subject to include in its Subject field, and an email address and name to include in the From field.

Note: If the template includes a subject, it automatically appears in the Subject field. You can edit the subject as necessary.

In the Issue date field, enter when you created the email message. By default, the current date and time appear.

In the Send after date field, enter when to send the email message. By default, the current date and time appear. However, you can schedule the email for a future date or time. For example, you may be out of the office for the next month but need to send your regular weekly email during that time. Or you may design an event marketing campaign and schedule email messages to send as reminders one week, three days, and the day before the event.

To send the email at a future date or time, enter the date and time. The website does not process the email until the date and time you enter when you click Send final.

If you delete the email before the date you enter in the Send after date field, the program does not process the email and it is not sent to recipients.
To immediately send the email when you click Send final, leave the current date and time.

The Appeal field defaults to the appeal selected for the template the message uses. When this field is blank or if you want to change the appeal, click Change. The Appeal Search screen appears. For information about how to use the search screen, see Search Screen.

The Email address type field defaults to the type selected for the template the message uses. When this field is blank or if you want to change the type, select it from the list.

To receive responses from recipients at a different email address than the one you use to send the message, click More Options and enter the address in the Reply Address field.

Under Notifications are to be sent to the following addresses, select Failures to receive failure messages when email messages are not delivered. In the field beside the checkbox, enter an email address to receive failure messages.

Note: Failures are email addresses that do not receive messages. Failure can also be called non-delivery receipts, bouncebacks, UnDeliverables, or Delivery Status Notifications (DSN). For information about how the program handles failures, see Bounced Email Management.

The bottom pane displays the email's default content. To format the message’s appearance and layout, use the HTML editor.

For information about the HTML editor, refer to HTML Editor.

Warning: Blackbaud recommends that you use inline styles, such as <div style=”background-color:Blue;”>Welcome color</div>, when you create and design the email content. Do not define classes or use external references because email vendors, such as Gmail or Outlook, are not guaranteed to render the styles correctly when the recipient reads the email.

When you design an email message, you must include hyperlinks to the Privacy Page specified on the Settings tab in Sites & settings and a User Email Preferences Form on your website. For more information, see Page settings.

To personalize the message with information about the constituent, add merge fields.

To display the list of available merge fields, click Merge fields on the Insert tab in the toolbar.

If the message is based on a template with a "Constituents" or "Chapter" data source, the merge fields that appear are based on the export definition selected for the template. For more information about templates and export definitions, see Design an email template.
To add a merge field to the message, double-click or drag and drop the field in the content area.
In the body of the email, put fields where you want them to appear. For example, enter “Hello, First Name.” In the email, the recipient reads “Hello, [the recipient’s first name].” To move a field, click and drag it to the new location.

Note: When you add a link in your message to a Blackbaud Internet Solutions web page, the URL contains valuable information to track data and to automatically populate biographical information on your web page. Use this example to identify each piece of data the URL includes: http://www.yourdomain.org/DonationForm&srcid=[source ID]&srctid=[source type ID]&erid=[email recipient ID]&trid=[tracking ID].
To add conditional content to the message to customize it for different types of recipients, click Conditional content on the Insert tab in the toolbar. For more information about conditional content, see Add Conditional Content.

Click Save.

Send the message

To send the message to the test recipients, click Send test. The message may take a few minutes to send if you use a large list. When the program sends the email message, you return to Messages.

When you receive the test email, verify the message and its components look and work correctly before you send the final email.

Note: Test messages do not display merge field data. Instead, the program includes placeholders where the merge data will appear in the final message. Also, the program disregards the value in the Send after date field when you click Send test and immediately sends the test message.
To send the message to its final recipients now or at the scheduled date and time, click Send final. The Send Status tab appears for you to view the target lists, the number of recipients in each list, and when the lists were last refreshed.

To make sure the latest recipients are in the queries that the lists use, click Refresh Lists. An informational message then appears for your review before clicking Start Refresh to begin the process. After it completes, click Yes on the tab to actually send the final email to recipients.

Note: You are not required to refresh the lists before sending the message.

When you send the final email, one more refresh occurs automatically for lists that use dynamic queries. This may cause the recipient numbers on the Sent Status tab to differ from the final sent numbers that appear in email reports. If your lists use static queries, this does not apply. For more information about email statuses, refer Email Delivery Status.
To send the message to the test or final recipients at a later time, click Return. You return to Messages. The new email appears at the top of the list. To send the email, click Click here to edit this email message. When the email message opens, click Send test or Send final.

Note: Each email is sent with a text version in addition to its HTML-formatted version. Email client readers that display text only either display this text version or generate a text version fro the HTML. You cannot alter the text version of the email.