To add recipients to a bulk communication

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The procedure to add recipients to a bulk communication is as follows:

  1. Navigate to Quick Menu > Communication Engine > Communication > Bulk Communications. The Bulk Communications window is displayed.
  2. Expand a generation management method and select an associated bulk communication from the alphabetical list, or type its name into the Search Bulk Communications field. By default the list is filtered to show Current communications. An alternative filter can be applied using the Filter by drop-down field: Expired, Future or All combinations 1.
  3. Click on Recipients. The Recipients tab is activated.
  4. Click on Add Condition 2. The Statement Builder window is displayed.
  5. Define one or more conditions to control the recipients to be included within the bulk communication distribution list. This requisite step is covered separately in the topic Understanding the advanced statement builder.
  6. Click on Save 3. The defined statement algorithm is displayed for reference purposes.
  7. Click on Run Criteria. All records matching the conditional arguments are returned in the Recipients summary table.
  8. To manually refine the cohort, click on Fix Recipients before applying the complementary action buttons Add Contact, Remove Contact and Upload, as appropriate.
  9. Optionally, to clear the 'protected' status of the finalised cohort, and therefore apply afresh the original criteria statements whenever the bulk communication is executed, click on Unfix Recipients. An explanation of the scope and characteristics for each inter-related action is included in the table below.


Note

1 The Search Bulk Communications field will match against any element of the communication name.

2 Once a condition has been created this option will become inactive.

3 To edit an existing statement algorithm, click on Edit Condition; to start afresh, click on Remove Condition and repeat steps 4 through 6.


Action Button

Description

Fix Recipients

Once the initial target recipient cohort has been compiled using filtering conditions constructed within the Advanced Statement Builder, the list can be protected; thus, when the communication is generated, the original criteria statements will not be applied afresh. Subsequent manual adjustments can then be instigated to finalise the desired cohort using a combination of Add Contact / Remove Contact / Upload.

Add Contact

Using standard search techniques, an additional contact record can be included within the recipient cohort, not already captured through the range of conditions applied to the data set.

Remove Contact

By activating the Select tick box against one or more contacts displayed within the Recipients grid, these can be removed en bloc from the communication target list.

Upload

To compile the recipient cohort in the most efficient way, browse to an external data mapping file containing a list of target recipients in a prescribed CSV format, with the reference number for each entry matching a desired contact record already held within the database.

Unfix Recipients

Once a correspondence list has been protected, an end user can then apply minor alterations in a controlled way, using a combination of Add Contact / Remove Contact / Upload, in order to revise the cohort. However, by clearing the ‘protected’ status, the end user can force the original criteria statements to be applied afresh when executing the bulk communication, therefore overriding any manual adjustments.


See related topics...

Bulk communications creation overview

Understanding the advanced statement builder

To create a new bulk communication

To run a bulk communication

Communication definition management overview

To assign parameters to a communication definition