When sending your bulletin, you can choose to do so immediately (Send Now), or you can schedule your bulletin for a certain day or time. Scheduling your bulletin is a helpful tool that allows you to build up a content schedule, ensuring regular communication to your subscribers.
If your user account is configured to receive courtesy copies, you will receive an email with your bulletin message when it is sent by the system. This message lets you see how your bulletin appears to your subscribers. It states who sent the bulletin, which topics were selected for it, and how many subscribers were intended recipients. Note that the courtesy copy uses the default From Address for the account, which might not be the same From Address that was actually used for your bulletin.
Prerequisites
Before you can send or schedule your bulletin to your subscribers, you must satisfy the following requirements:
- Your bulletin must have a subject line.
- Your bulletin must have content in its body (if you are building a bulletin in the Advanced Bulletin Editor, the template you chose will satisfy this requirement).
- You must build an audience -- select either topics (with optional criteria) or segments.
If any of these elements are missing, you will receive an error message. In addition to these requirements, we highly recommend you also perform the following steps prior to sending or scheduling it:
- Test your bulletin:
- Review the content by expanding the bulletin in a preview view.
- Send a test message to multiple email clients.
- Perform A/B testing with a sampling of your subscribers.
For more information about these steps, see Testing Your Bulletin and Using Bulletin Filters for A/B Testing.
Sending Bulletins
To send your bulletin immediately:
- Create a bulletin.
- Select your bulletin audience and channels.
- Go to the Send Options section.
- When using the standard bulletin editor, this section is at the bottom of the page.
- When using the Advanced Bulletin Editor, navigate to the Send page. The system will automatically check that all requirements have been satisfied and display any error messages at the top of the page.
- Select the applicable send options (see below for more information)
- Click Send Now.
- When using the standard bulletin editor, this button is at the bottom of the page.
- When using the Advanced Bulletin Editor, this button is at the top of the page.
Note: You cannot un-send a bulletin after completing this step.
For information about viewing bulletins after they have been sent, see Navigating the Bulletins Pages.
Scheduling Bulletins
To schedule your bulletin:
- Create a bulletin.
- Select your bulletin audience and channels.
- Go to the Send Options section.
- When using the standard bulletin editor, this section is at the bottom of the page.
- When using the Advanced Bulletin Editor, navigate to the Send page. The system will automatically check that all requirements have been satisfied and display any error messages at the top of the page.
- Select the applicable send options (see below for more information)
- Click the calendar icon next to the Scheduled Send Time field.
- Set the date and time. This setting follows the default time zone set for your account.
- Click Done
- When using the Advanced Bulletin Editor, select the check box under Scheduled Send Time.
- Click Schedule.
- When using the standard bulletin editor, this button is at the bottom of the page.
- When using the Advanced Bulletin Editor, this button is at the top of the page.
Your bulletin will be sent on the day and time you specified. Note that for a bulletin to properly send at the scheduled date and time, the administrator who created that bulletin must continue to be an administrator for that topic until it is sent. If the administrator is deleted or removed from the group or topic before the bulletin they created is sent, that bulletin will not be sent as scheduled.
For more information about managing scheduled bulletins, see Navigating the Bulletins Pages.
