Table of Contents
Using the Mass Message Tool
Updated
by Mitchell Paul-Soumis
Read Time: 8 mins
When to Use a Mass Message
The Mass Message tool exists to send a message via Email or SMS to a large number of customers, where manually selecting the recipients would be impractical due to time consumption. Mass Messages are targeted to a list of accounts based on the filters selected. As multiple filters are added, the recipients will shrink accordingly – only recipients which meet all criteria will receive the mass message.
Most commonly, Mass Messages are used to notify your customers of upcoming changes to the network such as maintenance or unexpected downtime, however, Mass Messages can also be used to inform your customers of promotional material, or temporary savings.
Mass Messages can also be used to notify customers of price increases across your service offerings.
Creation Fields
Creating a mass email message is a flexible process, as a mass email message uses completely free-form fields. In a mass message, the “From Name” and “From Email Address” represent the information that will be displayed to the message recipient. These two fields are not set; they can be changed at any time during the creation process. The Files section allows you to add an attachment to your Mass Message.
Configuring the message and the filters will be covered in additional detail in the sections below.
Creating the Message Content
The Message content utilizes the same content creation tools as the Saved Messages feature, providing the versatility of variables on a much larger contact scale.
The available variables within the Mass Message are as pictured below:
Amount Due: This variable will display the amount due on any unpaid invoices. This variable is useful for Mass Messages targeted at many delinquent customers.
Auto Pay Enabled: This variable can be used to conditionally show message content based on an account's auto-pay status.
Account Name: This variable will insert the recipient's account number into the message upon receipt.
Account Number: This variable will include the respective account number on the message upon receipt.
Company Name: This variable will include your company name on the message.
Contact Name: The contact name variable places the name of the designated recipient on the message.
First Name or Last Name: This variable will insert the recipient's first and last name per their contact information.
Common Mass Messages
Network Outage
Subject: Network Outage A-002 Tower
Body:
Hello *|FNAME|*,
This message is to let you know that we are aware of a network site issue that is affecting your services. We are presently dispatching technicians to remedy the issue and have an estimated time of repair for 2:00 PM. We will send you another message to let you know when services are restored, or we will provide a status update at 2:00 PM.Thank you for your understanding
Using Account Filters
Through the use of the available filters, you can determine which accounts or contacts will be receiving the mass message. Multiple filters can be added, allowing you to further narrow down who this message will go out to.
To add a filter, click the “Add Filter” button and then select the filter you wish to use from the dropdown menu, along with its corresponding value(s).
Below you will find a table containing all the available filters along with what each means.
Account has IP from Pool | This filter will present you with a list of all IP Pools, allowing you to select single or multiple pools to target only those accounts. |
Account has IP from Subnet | This filter will present you with a list of all subnets, allowing you to select single or multiple subnets to target only those accounts. |
Account has Service | This filter will present you with a list of all Services on your instance, allowing you to select single or multiple services to target only those accounts. |
Account has Status | This filter will present you with a list of all Statuses configured in your instance, allowing you to select single or multiple statuses to target only those accounts |
Account is Associated with Item | This filter will present you with a list of all Inventory Items created on the instance, allowing you to select single or multiple items to target only those accounts. |
Account is Connected to Network Site | This filter will present you with a list of all active Network Sites on your account, allowing you to select one or multiple Network Sites. |
Account is Delinquent | This filter is used to select all accounts that are delinquent in your instance. |
Account is in Group | This filter is used to message accounts that are within a certain Group. This filter will display all active groups on your instance. |
Account is of Type | This filter will display all account types on the instance, allowing you to select one or multiple types of accounts. |
Contact has Messaging Category Set | This filter allows you to selectively target certain contacts from accounts by selecting the appropriate Messaging Category from the list. |
Contact has Preferred Language set | This filter allows you to target only customers with a specific Preferred Language set in their contact settings, based on a sub-toggle of languages. |
Example Use Case
It is possible that the Poller cannot see all the connected customers to the AP.
We begin by first navigating to the Communications Tools > New Message > Mass. In the new window, fill out the fields as needed to provide the customers with the information needed to inform them of this scheduled maintenance. To ensure that this mass message is sent to only the customers on a specific AP, we will use the filter option to complete this task. Click Add Filter and in the first dropdown field select Account is Associated with item. In the dropdown field to the right, you will select the inventory item (AP) that is having maintenance done with it.
To ensure that the poller sees all the connected customers on the AP, you can navigate to the Network site and click on connected devices for that individual AP.Testing Mass Messages Before Sending
There may be times when you want to test out and see how the message will be received, before sending it out to your customers. Although there isn't a “preview” button available in the software for this purpose, we do have some helpful steps that can be used to accomplish this.
To follow these steps, you will first need to ensure these 3 things are in place:
- An account group for testing purposes (i.e., “Mass Message Testing”)
Expand here for help with creating the account group
To create the account group to test with:
1. Navigate to Settings menu > Accounts > Account Groups
2. Click the "Create Account Group" button at the top of the screen
3. Enter in the name, such as Mass Message Testing
4. Click "Create" - A fake customer account that can be used for testing purposes
Expand here for help with creating the fake account
To create a fake customer account to test with:
1. Navigate to the Accounts screen (click "Accounts" from the left-side navigation panel)
2. Click the "Create Account" button at the top of the screen
3. On the first page of the Create Account window, enter in all required fields; for the optional Groups field, select the account group you created in the step above
4. On the second page of the Create Account window, fill in a name and your email address for the primary contact
5. Click "Create"
Note: depending if you have any custom fields that are required upon account creation, you may also need to complete these fields on the third page of the Create Account window, before you will be allowed to click "Create" - A contact on the fake customer account that has your email address
Expand here for help with creating the account contact
If you are creating a new account, this step will be handled in step #2 above (when completing the second page of the Create Account window).
If you already have a testing account setup and skipped step #2 above, follow the steps below to add an account contact with your email address.
1. Navigate into the account you wish to use for testing
2. Click into the "Contacts" tab of the account
3. Click "Create" at the top of the tab's screen
4. Within the Create Contact window, enter in a name for the contact and ensure your email address is entered into the Email Address field
5. Click "Create"
Once the above items are in place, draft the mass message that you wish to send. When complete, add the filter “Account is in Group” and select the account group you created for testing purposes (in step #3 above). Once you've ensured that only your testing account is included in the list of accounts the message will be sent out to, click “Send Mass Message”. The message will be sent to the email address you added for the contact on the testing account.
Once you have received the message, review it and ensure everything is as desired. If further tweaks are needed, continue editing the mass message from that same mass message screen. When you are ready to send it out to your customers, remove the existing “Account is in Group” filter, and add any necessary ones for the customers you wish to send the message to. Once this is done, simply click “Send Mass Message” and your message will be sent out to all customers that you've included with the filters.
