Blast Email - Automatic Reminders

Informing a Plan Sponsor that they have Data Collection to complete on PlanSponsorLink is the easy part. Sometimes, a Sponsor will finish it right away—to much rejoicing. But for those that don't, it can take multiple reminders before they finally sign in to PSL to complete their work. While it's possible to use Blast Email to manually send a reminder where needed, PensionPro also has the ability to schedule these reminders after the Data Collection request is made and send them automatically at regular intervals.

Requires Add-On: Automate Compliance

Compatible Tiers: Team, Business

Note: Some items may not be available in all tiers.

Overview of Automatic Reminders

Before working with automatic Blast Email reminders, it is helpful to understand the concepts presented in the following articles:

In Blast Email, a reminder is sent to a Plan Contact to indicate that they still have an open Data Collection on PlanSponsorLink which has not yet been completed. These reminders are typically sent some time after an initial request is made. The following Blast Email Mailing Types are used for reminder emails:

Census Reminder
General Web Collection Reminder
Distribution Reminder

Blast Email Templates with these Mailing Types can either be sent manually at any time (following the standard Blast Email process) or automatically at regularly-scheduled intervals. If the latter, the user scheduling a reminder can choose what Template is used, how often the reminder is sent, and the start and end dates.

Once created, the reminder will be sent automatically via Blast Email at the scheduled interval until Data Collection is completed or the reminder's end date is reached. PensionPro can also notify the firm before the reminder is sent to allow time to make changes. Scheduled reminders can be viewed, edited, and deleted from the Plan and Contact tabs as well as a global Dashboard.

Note: Blast Email Preferences also apply to automatic reminders.

Working with Automatic Reminders

Requires Security Rights: Blast Email

Blast Email reminders that are already in effect can be viewed in one of three locations. The Scheduled Interactions grid is similar in function across locations, but varies in scope:

Location	How to access	Description
Scheduled Interactions Dashboard	Dashboards > Scheduled Interactions	Global view of all scheduled reminders
Plan tab	Plan tab > Scheduled Interactions view	Scheduled reminders for the given Plan
Contact tab	Contact tab > Scheduled Interactions view	Scheduled reminders for the given Contact

Scheduled Interactions locations

Each row of the Scheduled Interactions grid represents a scheduled Blast Email for a single Contact. This grid contains the following information:

Status	The result of the last attempt to send this reminder (Sent or Failed). Select to view a Send Log for this reminder. Remains blank if the reminder has not yet been sent. Only available on the Scheduled Interactions Dashboard.
Title	The Blast Email Template used for the reminder.
Type	The Mailing Type of the reminder (Census Reminder, Distribution Reminder, etc.).
Plan Cycle / Project	The name of the Plan Cycle (Team tier) or Project (Business tier) associated with this reminder.
To	The Contact who will receive the reminder.
Send To Role	The Plan Contact Role that determined the To recipient. This Contact Role cannot be deleted from the Plan while the reminder is in effect, but can be changed to a new Role without disrupting the reminder.
From	The Employee or static email address that will show as the sender.
Send From Role	The Employee Plan Role that determined the From sender (if applicable).
CC	Indicates whether the reminder will also include any corresponding CCs (per the Blast Email Template).
Plan Name	The Plan associated with this reminder.
Frequency	The frequency at which the reminder will be sent. Options are Daily, Weekly, Bi-Monthly, and Monthly.
Start Date	The date the first reminder is sent.
Reminder Disabled	Refers to the 7-day internal notification that is sent to the firm in advance of the automated reminder being processed. If Yes, this notification will not be sent. This will always be disabled for Daily reminders.
Reminder Notification Date	If the above notification is not disabled, this is the date it will be sent to the firm. The receiving email can be customized in Blast Email Preferences.
End Date	The date the automated reminder will stop being processed. A reminder won't be sent at this time (unless this date coincides with the scheduled frequency).
Date Scheduled	The date the next reminder will be sent. Reminders will be sent on weekends if applicable.
Created By/On, Updated By/On	Reminder creation and edit details.
Active	Indicates whether the reminder is active and in use. This column is hidden by default, as are inactive reminders. To view these items, use More > Show Inactive.

Columns on the Scheduled Interactions grid

Hover over a reminder in the grid to display the Edit and Delete options on the right-hand side. The following items can be edited:

Start Date and End Date
Whether the reminder is Active
- Deactivating the reminder will stop it from being sent; it can be reactivated later. This is a good way to "pause" reminders.
Whether a 7 Day Internal Reminder is sent to the firm
- This option is not available for Daily frequency.

Can I make any other changes to the Blast Email reminder?

The subject and body of a scheduled reminder email can be changed by editing its corresponding Blast Email Template. Other Template settings—such as the Sender, Recipient, and CCs—will be set once the reminder is scheduled and cannot be edited. If these items need to be changed, a new reminder will have to be created (that is to say, by sending a new request Blast Email).

Note: Once all Data Collection steps are completed (either by the Plan Sponsor, or by the TPA in PensionPro), the reminder will be automatically deleted to prevent further notifications. This is also true if completion is removed from the Request step, or if this step is unlocked. In either case, the reminder cannot be recovered.

Creating an Automatic Reminder

Requires Security Rights: Blast Email

The only way to schedule automatic Data Collection reminder emails is by first sending a corresponding Data Collection request. The option to use automatic reminders is found in Step 1 of the request's Blast Email Template, and is managed on a per-Template basis. The instructions in this section demonstrate how to set up a Blast Email Template so that the appropriate automated reminders are scheduled any time the Template is sent. For full instructions on creating and sending a Blast Email Template, refer to the article Blast Email.

To instruct PensionPro to schedule automated reminders when a Blast Email Template is used:

Navigate to the Blast Email Templates grid and select Add to create a new Template. Complete the required fields, then Save & Open.
- Alternately, double-click an existing Template to open it for editing.
On Step 1 of the Blast Email Template, select Edit at the top-right of the grid. The corresponding window displays.
Mailing Type must be set to any Request-type email (Census Request, General Web Collection Request, etc.).
Set the remaining fields as desired.
Select Schedule Automatic Blast Email Reminders for this Blast Email. Additional options will be displayed.
Choose a Reminder Template.
- This is the Blast Email Template that will be used for the reminder email. Only Templates with the given Reminder Mailing Type will be included in this list; for example, a Census Request email can only schedule Census Reminders.
- Be sure to review the Sender and CC settings on the Reminder Template prior to sending the request; these cannot be changed after the reminder is scheduled.
Select a Frequency and the First Scheduled Reminder Date.
- Combined, these options will set the reminder schedule.
- Reminders using a bi-monthly or monthly frequency will adjust appropriately if the First Scheduled Reminder Date is set to the last day of the chosen month.
(optional) Select a Final Scheduled Reminder Date. The reminder will no longer be processed after this date.
(optional) Select Receive notification 7 days before Automatic Blast Email Reminder is sent to have PensionPro send the firm an internal notification in advance of the reminder.
Select Save and continue with the remaining steps of the Blast Email Template.

PensionPro is warning me that the Reminder Template I chose may prevent delivery. What does this mean?

Due to technical limitations, Blast Email Templates that contain a large number of merge fields can sometimes time out and fail during the sending process. When receiving a warning about a Template preventing delivery, it's best to review the indicated Template and limit the number of merge fields in use.

Warning: PensionPro may be unable to create a scheduled reminder if the Reminder Template conflicts with with the chosen Contact/Plan in some way (for example, if the reminder email would be sent from an Employee Role that doesn't exist on the given Plan).

After the request Blast Email is sent, PensionPro will add new automatic reminders for each Contact/Plan that was selected in the Template. Entries for these reminders can be viewed in any applicable Scheduled Interactions grids.

Viewing Automatic Reminder Status

Once automatic reminders are in place, PensionPro tracks when they are sent and can alert the firm if any setup errors resulted in the reminder failing to send at its scheduled time.

Note: PensionPro can only report on reminders that fail due to system errors. After a reminder is distributed, PensionPro is unable to determine if it was successfully delivered to the recipient or not.

Automatic reminder status can be reviewed in two ways:

via the Scheduled Interactions Dashboard
via failure notification email

Status logs on the Scheduled Interactions Dashboard

The Status column on the Scheduled Interactions Dashboard will read either Sent or Failed to indicate whether the most recent attempt to send the reminder was successful. If no status is available, the reminder has not yet been sent.

Selecting a reminder's Status opens its Send Log in a new tab, showing all previous attempts to send the reminder, including the date, who it was sent to, and the result. The Message column will include an appropriate error message in the event of failure.

Failure notification email

After PensionPro processes all scheduled interactions for a given date, in the event that any reminders failed to send, an email alert will be sent to the Blast Email Reminders Recipient Email Address specified in Blast Email Preferences. This email will list the failed reminders and the reason for failure. This email is not generated if all reminders were sent successfully.