This article discusses an advanced feature of Zengine that is appropriate for administrative users with a previous understanding of configuring and using the Auto Email plugin. If you are not yet comfortable with that tool, we recommend reading the article Auto Email before continuing.
In addition, we recommend being familiar with form relationships and how they affect the submission portal experience, Listing Steps, and/or the Progress Reporting feature before attempting to set this feature up by yourself. For assistance, please contact the WizeHive Support Team.
Contents
Overview
The Auto Email Due Date feature is a configurable option in the Auto Email plugin. Unlike auto emails configured to send to a recipient based on a folder change of a corresponding form record, the due date feature will automatically send an email to a recipient relative to a date entered into a Date field on a form record (either on that date, or a number of days before or after that date).
This feature is intended to be used to remind awarded applicants to submit required progress reports via the submission portal within a designated time frame. For the feature to work properly, the designated Date field would need to be completed with a due date in advance, either manually by a program administrator, or using a custom automation set up by WizeHive.
This feature is currently fairly limited and requires specific form setups and configurations to function properly (see Requirements and Example Configurations below). Within these boundaries, there are a few different configurations that function well.
Note that in many cases, scheduling Bulk Emails for this purpose may be better for a specific program or workspace. For more information, see the articles Bulk Email and Auto Email (Auto Email vs. Bulk Email).
This article will discuss general requirements to use this feature, explain how to configure an auto email to send based on a due date within the Auto Email plugin, and provide details on creating successful configurations when using either Progress Reports or Single Form Steps for reporting in a submission portal.
Requirements
Before the auto email can be configured to send relative to a due date, certain form and field requirements in the workspace must be met. Because this Auto Email feature is meant to be used to remind applicants to submit progress reports, the specifics of these requirements will vary somewhat based on the way that progress reports are set up in a workspace’s submission portal; please see the section Example Configurations in this article for any requirements that may be unique to that setup.
There are three main ways that a program workspace can handle progress reporting:
- Progress Reporting Feature of Submission Portals - this is best for programs with set timelines for reporting, in which all awardees are expected to submit the same report by the same deadline for a set number of reports.
- Single Form Step(s) - in the submission portal, awarded portal users will progress through one or more Stages, each of which will require them to complete a single unique report (a Step). Each report form will be unique and will have a one-to-one form relationship with the primary form. This is best for programs in which each awarded applicant must submit one report, or a few single reports that contain different questions from other reports (i.e., a Mid-Year Report and a Year-End Report).
- Listing Step - in the submission portal, a Listing Step is set up for a reporting Stage; awarded portal users in that Stage can fill out the same form multiple times on their own timeline. The reports form has a one-to-many relationship with the primary form. This is best for programs in which awarded applicants will have different report deadlines from each other, but fill out the same report each time.
The Auto Email Due Date feature is easiest to set up and use when it is paired with a reporting setup using the Progress Reporting feature of submission portals. This is because the Auto Email Due Date feature requires the reports to exist in Draft status before the auto email will trigger; if the report record is completed (i.e., not a draft) or doesn’t exist, an email will not be sent on the designated date, even if everything is configured correctly.
However, the Progress Reporting feature automatically creates draft records for each required report as soon as the primary form record (which is linked to those reports) is moved into the folder associated with the submission portal reporting stage. Using the Auto Email Due Date feature with other reporting setups is possible, but requires administrators to perform one or more actions manually, or a custom automation that does these actions instead.
Generally, any configuration requires a Reports Form (i.e., the form that is filled out and submitted by awarded portal users) to be linked to a parent form that contains a date field which is used as the trigger for the auto email (known as the Due Date Form). In addition, the Reports Form must contain the recipient email address or be linked to a form that does. Usually, this is the primary form of the submission portal. Whether the Due Date Form and the primary form are the same depends on whether the reporting setup uses the Progress Reporting feature, a Listing Step, or Single Form Steps.
The due date for each report must be entered into the date field on the Due Date Form designated in the auto email configuration before it will send. This can be done manually ahead of time, or by custom automation, depending on the setup used. The auto email will be triggered to send a number of days before or after the date entered into this field, or on the date itself, depending on how the auto email is configured.
Auto Email Configuration Options and Fields
An Auto Email can be set up to send on a due date, rather than a folder movement, by setting up an auto email as usual (see the article Auto Email (Creating a New Auto Email) for more information) but selecting different configuration options:
- Start by navigating to Settings & Tools → Auto Email and select + Add Email to begin a new auto email configuration.
- Give the auto email a descriptive name in the Title field as usual. The Email Settings section at the bottom can be filled out as normal at any time.
- Select the dropdown option next to Trigger On and change it to Relative Due Date. Upon doing so, a message in a yellow box and a few new fields appear.
-
Fill out these Form Settings configuration fields (see image) as appropriate, using the information about each configuration setting below the image.
-
- Recipients Form: Select the form that contains the records that will trigger the auto email. For this type of setup, this should normally be the reporting form that is filled out and submitted by the awarded applicant in the submission portal (i.e., the Reports Form).
- Email Field: Select the email field that contains the email address of the intended recipient. An email-validated text field can be selected, either on the Recipients Form or - most commonly - a linked parent form, such as the primary form.
- Trigger On: This is set to Folder by default. Select Relative Due Date to configure an auto email to send relative to a date field. (The fields below will only appear if this option is selected as a trigger.)
- Due Date Form: Select the form that contains the date field used to store the report due date(s). This should be a linked parent form to the Recipients Form. The Recipients Form and Due Date Form cannot be the same form.
- Due Date Field: Select the date field on the Due Date Form that will be used. This field on the Due Date form needs to be filled in before the auto email will be sent.
-
Email Reminder Timing: Select one of the three options:
- Before Due Date: The email will be sent a certain number of days before the date in the Due Date Field. This is useful for warning recipients that a deadline is coming up.
- On Due Date: The email will be sent on the date entered into the Due Date Field. This is useful for letting recipients know that the deadline is “today.”
- After Due Date: The email will be sent a certain number of days after the date in the Due Date Field. This is useful for notifying recipients that they have passed the report deadline.
-
Email Reminder Send Dates: Select the +Add Reminder Date button to open a dialog box to schedule the email.
- A - Select the dropdown menu on the left to indicate the number of days that the email will be sent before or after the date in the Due Date Field. If Before Due Date or After Due Date was selected for the Email Reminder Timing option, users can select between 1 and 30 days before/after the due date, respectively. If On Due Date was chosen, users will only be able to select one option (“On Due Date”).
- B - Choose the approximate time that the email will be sent, on the designated day. Emails will be sent out at approximately that time, within a 2-hour window, depending on the number of emails to send and the Zengine network queue.
When finished, select Save + Continue to close the dialog box with the settings saved, or Cancel to return to the previous screen without saving the settings.
Complete the Email Settings section as normal, then Save and Activate the auto email.
IMPORTANT - An auto email configured this way will be sent automatically based on the date entered into the designated Due Date Field/Form. If many report (Recipients Form) records are linked to the same Due Date Form record, then emails for all of those records will go out at approximately the same time. In this way, the effect is much like scheduling a Bulk Email to be sent at a future date and time.
However, unlike Bulk Email, the Auto Email Due Date feature will only function if the Recipients Form records that trigger the email to go out are in Draft status. If these records are complete, or do not yet exist, the email will not send. The submission portal Progress Reporting feature will automatically create draft records of each report when a primary form record is changed to the associated folder/Stage, but if other configurations using Listing Steps or Single Form Steps are used, those draft records must be created manually by an administrator or by a custom automation set up by WizeHive.
Example Configurations
The Auto Email Due Date feature can be successfully used to remind awarded applicants of report due dates with three different reporting structures: although the Progress Reporting feature is the easiest and simplest of these to set up and use, configurations for reporting involving Single Form Steps and Listing Steps can make use of this feature. However, the last of these - Listing Steps - requires a fairly complex set of custom automations to work properly. Because implementing custom automations requires assistance from WizeHive, this configuration type will only be summarized rather than discussed in detail.
Each reporting structure requires a slightly different setup and auto email configuration.
Progress Reporting
This configuration is best if a program workspace uses the submission portal Progress Reporting feature to collect progress reports. The Progress Reporting structure is best used for programs with specific reporting periods that apply to all awarded applicants; it does not handle variable reporting schedules very well.
Example Progress Reporting feature used in a submission portal
When the Progress Reporting feature is set up in a submission portal, the Reports form used must contain a Linked Form field to the primary form of the portal, a Linked Form field to a Reports Name form that contains the report names, a text field for the Report Name (copied automatically from the Reports Name Form), and a date field that is filled in when the report is submitted (this is NOT the Due Date Field for the auto email).
When an applicant’s primary form record is changed to the folder associated with the Progress Reporting Stage, a draft record for each required report is created and automatically linked to both the primary form and the Report Names form. This is what allows this configuration to work with the Auto Email Due Date feature relatively seamlessly.
In this scenario, the Auto Email Recipients Form should be the report form completed by the awarded applicant. However, the Due Date Form should not be the primary form; instead, the due dates for each report can be put on the Report Names form, and that form can be used as the Due Date Form in the Auto Email configuration.
To enable this, a date field must be added to the Reports Name form. This new date field is intended to contain the Due Date for each report. This due date will need to be entered manually by an administrator before a reporting cycle begins; however, it only needs to be entered once per cycle (and should be updated with new dates the following year/reporting cycle).
Because each draft report record is automatically linked to the appropriate record on the Report Names form, this enables the Report Names form to be set as the Due Date Form in the Auto Email configuration with no further action needed on the part of the administrator.
Finally, the email field containing the recipient's email address should be located on the primary form. Because only email fields on the Recipients Form or directly linked to it as a parent form can be used in auto emails, this configuration will not work if the email address is only on the Profile form. In addition, while the email field can technically reside on the Reports form, this should not be used.
The forms should be configured as shown in the image below:
With this setup in mind, the Auto Email configuration will appear as follows:
- Recipients Form - the Reports form
- Email Field - a text field validated as an email address that exists on the Primary form
- Due Date Form - the Report Names form
- Due Date Field - the date field on the Report Names form
Auto Email Due Date configuration for a workspace using the Progress Reporting feature. Note that the specific form names used here may differ from workspace to workspace.
Once configured, the administrator workflow at the beginning of a reporting cycle will be as follows:
- Administrators should fill in the Due Date field on the Report Names form for each report in a cycle. All awarded applicants will follow the same schedule and will receive auto email reminders at the same time.
- Administrators can change the folder of the awarded applicants' primary forms to the folder associated with the submission portal reporting stage, either using Bulk Actions or one at a time.
If everything is set up correctly, the desired auto email reminders will be sent out automatically for each required report to all awarded applicants.
Single Form Reports
This configuration is best if a program asks awarded applicants to submit a unique report each time, meaning that the Progress Reporting feature will not work (as it uses the same form for each required report). Each separate report will be set up as a separate Stage/Step in the submission portal workflow, using a different form for each report. Though it requires a bit more manual labor on the part of the administrator, this setup handles variable reporting schedules well, since each awarded applicant can have unique due dates created. It is also suitable if a program structure requires administrators to approve each report before the awarded applicant gains access to the next one.
Submission Portal reporting workflow using four Single Form Steps/Stages.
The image above shows a sample submission portal workflow for a Single Form configuration, but please note that each Stage can have more than one unique report required. In addition, the “Submitted” External Stage after report stage is typical, but not required; those Stages can be removed if administrators do not need to approve each report, and will require a manual folder change to move the awarded applicant into the next required report stage.
In this setup:
- Each report is a separate form, which is associated with the correct report Step in the submission portal
- The Primary form must contain one folder for each report Stage, and each folder is associated with the correct Stage in the submission portal
- Each report form contains a Linked Form field to the Primary form with No Duplicates enforced (creating a 1:1 relationship)
- The Primary form must contain the Auto Email email field and one date field (for the due date) for each unique report
- One Auto Email must be set up for each unique report/due date
- A draft record for each report must be created manually by an administrator or by a custom automation in the administrative workspace before the auto email is meant to be sent
IMPORTANT - Typically, in a Single Form or Listing Page reporting configuration, the report record is only created when the awarded applicant first accesses the form in the submission portal as they begin to complete it. However, because the Auto Email Due Date feature requires a draft record of each report before it will send, this is typically too late for the auto email to be sent. Because of this, a draft record must be created before the auto email should be sent, either when the awarded applicant enters the first report Stage (all draft reports will be created at this point), or when each submitted report is approved and the applicant enters the next report Stage.
This can be done one of two ways:
- Manually - an administrator creates a draft report form record using the Create Draft plugin.
- Custom Automation - one or more automations can be programmed to create one draft record for each report and link the draft record to the appropriate primary form.
The forms should be configured as shown in the image below:
One Auto Email must be set up for each due date reminder/report step in the workflow. For each, the Recipients Form should be set as the unique report form and the Due Date Form should be the Primary form.
Due Date Fields for each report on the Primary form
Auto Email setup for Report 1 (example shown: Mid Year Report)
Auto Email setup for Report 2 (example shown: Final Report)
Notes:
- This setup can handle variable reporting schedules well, as each applicant can have unique dates set on the Primary form due date fields.
- In addition, if some awarded applicants are not required to submit all reports (for example, a program awards both 1-year and 2-year grants), a single complete reporting workflow can be set up and administrators can elect to “skip” later reports for some applicants by not moving their Primary form records into the folders associated with those reports.
-
A custom automation can also be set up to fill in the dates in the Due Date Fields (for example, the date could be set to 30 days after the Primary form record is changed to that folder). This can be combined with a custom automation to create draft records of the report forms, as described above.
- Contact your Client Success Manager at WizeHive to find out about custom automations for your workspace.
- If a custom automation is not created for this purpose, administrators will need to manually add the dates to these fields. This can be done individually or using Bulk Actions for a subset of records.
Once configured, the administrator workflow at the beginning of a reporting cycle will be as follows:
- Either an administrator or a custom automation will fill in the Due Date Fields on the Primary form.
- Either an administrator of a custom automation will create a draft record of one or more of the unique report forms and link it to the Primary form.
- The administrator will change the Primary form folder to the one associated with the first report stage.
- The Auto Email will trigger and send at the appropriate time, given that the date entered is after Steps 1-3 are completed.
- An awarded applicant will log into the submission portal, complete the first report, and submit it.
-
An administrator will review the submitted report if desired, and repeat Steps 1-4 (if necessary) for each subsequent report Stage until all are submitted
Listing Step Reports (Custom Automation Required)
An Auto Email Due Date Reminder can be set up if a workspace uses a Listing Step for reporting, in which the report form is configured as a Listing Step in the submission portal. However, the requirements in this setup are quite complex and difficult to set up. This scenario encounters a number of problems under normal circumstances:
- The Reports form is linked to the Primary form in a 1:many relationship. If a single auto email is set up with one Due Date Field and multiple draft report records, the auto email configuration will send an "due date reminder" email for each draft report all at the same time. This is obviously not ideal; each email should be sent separately an appropriate amount of time relative to the due date.
- However, a separate auto email for each Due Date Field cannot be created to solve this problem, since the Recipients Form is the same for each, even though multiple draft report records linked to the same Primary form may exist. This will result in multiple emails being sent (one for each draft report record), multiple times (one for each configured auto email).
To resolve these problems, a separate “Report Due Dates” form must be set up, which mimics the “Report Names” form used in the Progress Reporting setup described above, and contains one record for each required report with fields for the name or type of report and the due date. Furthermore, the following actions must be performed before the auto email will trigger on a due date:
- The due date must be completed for each report record on the “Report Due Dates Form” (this action must only be performed at the start of a reporting cycle)
- Draft records of the Reports form must be created for each required report (for each awarded applicant) and linked to both the Primary form and the appropriate record on the “Report Due Dates” form
Performing these actions manually is impractical with large numbers of awarded applicants. Thus, a custom automation is more or less required to perform these actions. Alternatively, a Bulk Email can be used to remind awarded applicants of upcoming progress report deadlines if a number of applicants are expected to submit reports at the same time.
If you are interested in using the Auto Email Due Date feature and your program uses a reporting structure with Listing Steps, contact your Client Success Manager at WizeHive to schedule a consultation.
What did you think of this article? If you found this article helpful, let us know below! If you have suggestions for how to improve this article, please leave a comment. Your feedback helps us improve the experience for everyone.