Social Good Software

Creating amazing guest experiences through innovative software solutions for the social good community

Hezel Dalimoos

How to handle the delivery of emails, bounced emails, and complaints

By

Introduction

There are times that when sending out emails with the Email Designer, some of them might get delivered, bounce, or have a complaint filed. It can happen for a few reasons, but the most common is not getting the correct email addresses at the time of purchase with Altru. We recommend that you set up the email validation service with your Altru account and follow this guide on how to handle the delivery of emails, bounced emails, and complaints to manage any email concerns you have accordingly. 

Bounce messages

Sending emails through Email Designer is not always perfect. At times it will bounce because of various reasons like invalid email addresses due to typos, the account is no longer active, or an incomplete email address. You can handle bounced emails by following the steps below.

1: Go to your Social Good Software account and proceed to Email Designer.

2: Click on the email template you want to set up and proceed to Settings.

3: Whenever an email bounces, it will go back to the From Email Address with a notification containing details of why the email bounced and other information you might need. You need to monitor the origin of your emails to capture bounce messages and correct them.

How to handle bounced emails and complaints
How to handle bounced emails and complaints
Bounce message notification

4: Click the Resend Email link. It will redirect you to the email you are trying to send to your customers. You can also see the status of your email and information related to it.

How to handle bounced emails and complaints

5: You can resend the message and correct the recipient’s email address by clicking the Send Email button. A dialog box will pop out where you can type in the correct email address and click Send Email. With this, you will be able to send the email to the appropriate person and correct any mistakes before the message goes out.

6: You can check your recent email sent by going to the Activity tab.

How to handle bounced emails and complaints

Complaints

There is a chance that your email sent is flagged as spam. It might happen because the recipient did not give their consent to receive this kind of notification, the information is not relevant to the person, or you sent the email to the wrong email address. We recommend doing an email validation before your customers submit their orders. That way, you can avoid delivering the email to the incorrect email address.

Go to the Activity tab to check if the email you sent was delivered. The From Address in your email template will always receive the complaint notification where you can check the complaint details.

How to handle bounced emails and complaints
Complaint email notification

Resending email

There are circumstances when customers ask for help because they can’t find their tickets or did not receive a reminder. Learning how to resend an email using the Email Designer will be helpful in this situation.

1: Go to the Activity tab of the Email Designer.

2: Click on the calendar and select the date you sent the email.

3: Do command+F for MAC or Ctrl+F for Windows. Type in the email address you are looking for, and click on Resend Email.

4: another way to resend an email is to go to your query in Altru and remove the note type on the sales order so that it will kick off a new email. Note that if the email address is wrong, it will still be delivered to the incorrect email address. 

Note: Only original emails that you sent out are the ones attached to Altru

Summary

We emphasized that you check the origin of your email or the From Email Address. That way, you will know if there are undelivered emails, bounced emails, or complaints and handle them appropriately. Please reach us through our support channel if you have questions or clarifications.

Implementation Guide of Deduper

By

Setting up Deduper Query in Altru

1. Log in to Altru
2. Click on Analysis
3. Click on Information Library
4. Click on Add an ad-hoc query
5. Click on Constituents, it will highlight
6. Click on Ok
7. Remove the Name from the Results fields to display
8. Add the following fields to the Results fields to display

Select the fields you would like to dedupe by clicking the arrow pointing right next to the Result fields to display

  1. Constituent > First Name (optional)
  2. Constituent > Last/Organization/Group/Household name (optional)
  3. Email Addresses > Email address (optional)
  4. Constituent > Lookup ID (optional)
  5. Constituent > Constituent record (required)

9. Make the following restrictions to the query in the Include records where:

  1. Constituent > Member > Membership > Membership ID > Not blank
  2. Email Addresses > Primary email address > Equal To > Yes
  3. Preview your results
    1. Click on the Preview results tab
      If your Preview results return more than 15,000 rows STOP HERE and go to the next section.
  4. Click on the Set save options
  5. Enter the name of your query: Membership List – Deduper
  6. Click on Save and close
  7. Click on the ‘Get OData link’ link
  8. Click copy the link and paste it to TextEdit or Notepad

More than 15,000 records

If you have more than 15,000 records you will need to create multiple queries.

1. If you came from the previous step click on Save as
2. Fill in Save query as: with Membership List – Deduper
3. Click on Select filter and output options
4. In the ‘Include records where’ you need to add one of the following options:

You will have to keep adjusting dates to get the records below 15,000, this may take some time.

  • Add Constituents > Date added > Before > Specific Date > Pick a day.
  • Add Constituents > Date added > Between > Pick a day > through > Pick a day.
  • Add Constituents > Date added > After > Specific Date > Pick a day.

In many cases, you will use all three situations. Make sure all dates are covered in your queries. It is best to start with the Before search and build your queries from there. It is important to keep track of your dates or else you may get bad data.

  • Scenario 1 (Two queries required)
    • Before 1/1/2020
    • Between 1/1/2020 through 1/1/2022
    • After 1/1/2022
  • Scenario 2 (Three queries required)
    • Before 1/1/2020
    • On or After 1/1/2020
  • Scenario 3 (Four or more queries required)
    • Before 1/1/2004
    • Between 1/1/2004 – 12/31/2007
    • Between 1/1/2008 – 12/31/2012
    • Between 1/1/2013 – 1/1/2019
    • After 1/1/2019

5. Click on ‘Save as’
6. Fill in Save query as: with Membership List – Deduper – [DETAILS OF THE SEARCH]
example: Membership List – Deduper – Before 1/1/2020
7. Click on the ‘Get OData link’ link for each query that was created
8. Click copy on each link and paste it to TextEdit or Notepad

Create your Deduper with Social Good Software

1. Log in to Social Good Software
2. Click on Apps
3. Click on Deduper
4. Click on Create Deduper
5. Enter the name of the query (Membership List – Deduper) and click on Next
6. Click on Add ODATA link
7. Enter the URL from Altru and click on Next

If had more than 15,000 results and had to break up the queries, this is where you will add all the ODATA links related to that query. Repeat the previous two steps for all additional queries associated with this action.

8. Click on Next
9. Deduping Keys

These are the criteria you will use to find possible matches. This is an “AND” function meaning they have to meet all of the requirements to be matched.

  1. First name > Enabled (recomended)
  2. Last/Organization/Group/Household name > Enabled (recommended)
  3. Email AddressesEmail address > Enabled (recommended)

10. Click on Next
11. Select the System Record ID and click on Next

This is required to merge or delete.

12. Exclude records with the same value
*This allows you to exclude certain criteria, most likely you will leave this blank *

13. Click on Next
14. Click Create Deduper

Settings

  1. Click on Deduper you created
  2. Settings (right side of the main page)
    1. Check to see if the settings are correct.

Start Deduping

1. Click Constituents

This should auto-populate, but you may need to click on Find Duplicates or Sync Activity to update the records. The list will be sorted by the largest number of duplicates.

**WARNING: Read the following options before choosing which method you will use. Each option has its benefits. For more information on which option to use check out the FAQ document here: https://help.socialgoodsoftware.com/article/2479-faq-for-duplicates **

Removing Duplicates

1. Merging records

  1. Click on the Duplicate Record
  2. Click on View Record on all records to determine which account you want to make the “primary”.
  3. Click Merge Records
    • If you get the “Merge Configuration Missing” error it is because you don’t have the Development Data Entry settings in your Altru account.
  4. Set the Source Record
    • This is the non-primary record.
  5. Set the Source Record Action for this record
  6. Set the Destination Record
    • This is the primary record.
  7. Click Merge Records
    • Merging can take a while.

2. Deleting Email

  1. Click on the Duplicate Record
  2. Click on View Record on all records to determine which account you want to make the “primary”.
    1. For the non-primary accounts, if you want to delete the email, click ‘Delete email’.
    2. Remove Email Address.
  3. Ensure Email Addresses/Email address is selected
  4. Click Next
  5. Removal of Email Address Process
    1. This pop-up will walk you through what is happening on the back end to remove the email address from that record.
  6. Check the box “I agree to the steps above and have made a backup.”
  7. Click Remove email address

3. To see the records being removed:

  1. Click Sync Activity
  2. Click Request Data
  3. Click Constituents

How the relative to date email setting works

By

Do you have members who auto-renew more than once? Or do you have a monthly membership program where you would like an email to go out to members every month? Keep reading to learn how to use the relative to date frequency option in your email settings to send the same email relative to date. 

You may want to use the relative to date option for an email if you would like to send the same email to a recipient relative to dates such as a membership renewal or expiration.

View our recommended auto-renew query

There are many kinds of emails with different purposes based on the needs of an organization. Social Good Software supports three types of emails. 

What is the difference between the 3 email types?

Email Frequency settings 

You can find this setting on the email settings page under the option called “Frequency”. The frequency automatically defaults to be sent out immediately.

1. Frequency – Immediately 

  • This option will send the email immediately after you create it. 
  • It requires a note type in the query to determine if the email was sent out.

Learn about how to create a note type for a sales order query

2. Frequency – Specific time 

  • You can set the time when you want your emails to go out. 
  • Note type is also needed to know if the email was sent out at the specified time.

Learn about how to create a note type for a membership query

3. Frequency – Relative to date 

  • Needs to add to the query output fields the purchase date, transaction date, expiration date, or another relative field. 
  • This option does not require a note type in the query but needs a date like the renewal date, date of purchase, and so on to be able to send out an email relative to a datel
  • A note type is still required in the email settings in order to create a note in Altru that the email went out

Do you need to email the same person multiple times?

Read about how to bypass the email limit of one email in the following article.

How to bypass a single email limit per email type

Summary

Sending emails can be right away, at a specific time, or relative to date. Depending on which frequency option you select, you will either need a note type in the query or a date in the output field.

If you have additional questions, please reach out to us at support@socialgoodsoftware.com.

How to edit membership portal content

By

Edit your membership portal content to align it with your organization’s design and style. Follow the steps provided below to know how to modify each page of your portal and add touches based on your organization’s preference.

Steps to edit membership portal content

1: Go to your Social Good Software account.

2: Click on Development.

3: Proceed to the Membership Portal.

4: Go to Settings then click the Membership Portal link to preview its content.

5: You can edit the membership portal content by going to the Designer tab. 

6: Click the pencil sign to start adding an image and edit the content. When adding an image, click the delete icon and then upload the picture.  Make sure that it has the exact image size required by the portal to avoid being cropped. You can also add an Alt tag for it.

7: Preview to check the changes you made, then click Save if you are happy with the output.

8: You can edit the following  pages the same as the above example:

  • Login
  • Verify email
  • Register
  • Opt-in
  • Account lookup
  • Phone lookup
  • Membership lookup
  • Help
  • Email’s found

9: As for the following, you need to log in to your account before you can make changes to these pages:

  • Overview
  • Orders
  • Refunds
  • Membership
  • Account
  • Questions and Answers

10: To edit the above pages, log in to your SGS account then go back to Designer and refresh. Below is the Overview page that you can modify, click on the pencil sign and change the labels as you want. Save the changes you made if you’re content with the output.

11: You can proceed to other pages and make necessary changes by going to the Preview Page. You can also check what these pages and sections look like on desktops, tablets, and phones.

You can edit your membership portal but some pages require you to log in to your account while other needs you to log out.

Please reach out to us through our support channel if you have more questions. 

How to batch process email removals from Altru

By

Sending the same email multiple times to a household because of a shared email address among the members of the family who signed up to your organization may be one of the problems you are currently facing. Worry no more! we have a solution to that. if you want to have a clean list of individuals without shared email addresses, you can refer to the article “Detaching emails from constituent records process” to learn how to do email detaching, or you can go to your entire list and detach email addresses from constituents and assign primary email addresses. To learn how the latter works then keep on reading.

Email removals through the batch process

1: Go to your Social Good Software account and proceed to Development.

batch process email removal

2: Click on Data Imports.

batch process email removal

3: Proceed to Create Data Import button.

batch process email removal

4: A dialog box will pop out where you need to name your import activity. Click Next.

batch process email removal

4: Select the means you want your data to be imported. In this example, we will go to File upload. Click Next.

batch process email removal

5: Select the action you want to happen. Once done, click Next.

batch process email removal

6: You also have the option to receive a notification when the process end. Click next.

batch process email removal

7: You are now ready to import your data, just click the CREATE DATA IMPORT button.

batch process email removal

8: Click on the file you just made. 

9: You can now upload your file but before you do, make sure that the email addresses and System Record ID of the constituents where you want to remove the shared email addresses are in place. Other information is not necessary.

batch process email removal
Note: The System record ID that you need is the one for the account where you want to remove the shared email address. It can be found using the Deduper tool or through Altru. As for the email address, you have to put the one that you want to remove from the constituent record.

10: If your file is ready then click UPLOAD.

batch process email removal

11: You can proceed to Preview to check the information you just uploaded. You also need to go to Settings and do some adjustments. Once done, click on Save Settings.

Email address: Email
System record id: System record ID

batch process email removal

12: Proceed to the Activity and click the Batch Import button.

Note: Once the batch process starts, it cannot be stopped so make sure that your list is final. It also takes a while for this process to complete depending on the data it processes.

13: If you are done with the batch process of email removals then you will have the following result: 

Batch Email:

If you have more questions please reach out to us through our support channel.