Consolidate Workflow Email Actions - Courses

This guide will show you how to set up your Course-based Workflows to send a single, consolidated, email about multiple Courses.

Consolidated emails are generated when a recipient was due to receive more than one email for the same Workflow Action.

Instead of receiving multiple emails, they can instead receive a single, consolidated email, this means that you can communicate more efficiently with your customers and your team!

When a trainer is set to receive sign in sheets for their Courses at the start of the day, without Consolidated Emails, they would receive a an email for each individual Course that they are running. The same goes for all the Course-based emails that you need to send such as upcoming course statistics, emails to admins for courses running today, and low course viability. If you have a lot of courses running on one day, that is a lot of different emails to analyse!

This is where the Consolidate Email options in your accessplanit platform come in handy! When the same email is generated for multiple Courses, going to the same recipient email address, then these emails can be consolidated into one. Meaning that you, your trainers, or your customers will only receive one email, with the details of the multiple Courses included within it!

consolidate email options available in the platform

Follow this page to learn more about how to consolidate emails about multiple Courses into one email!

About Consolidate Emails

Consolidate Emails is available for each of your Course-based Workflow Actions.

It works by combining what would have been individual emails for each Course, into one email.

For example, if an admin is set to receive an email at 8:00am on the start date of the Course with the details of the Course, without Consolidate Emails the admin would receive an individual email about each Course:

With Consolidate Emails, they will receive one comprehensive email about all three Courses:

When you decide to set up a Workflow Email to consolidate multiple emails together, you can decide:

How your emails will be grouped for their consolidation
While you do not need to apply any grouping and you can include all Courses that meet the rules for the same recipient within one email. you can choose to group the emails by a setting. For example, group all the Courses for the same Course Template into one email, group all the Courses for the same delivery method into one email, or all the Courses for each Course Administrator into one email
What you would like your consolidated emails to contain and look like
You can define a separate Email Template to be used when your emails are consolidated
What time frame should be used to look for emails to be consolidated together
You can choose how many minutes your platform should wait, to see if any more Courses should be included in the email, before it sends

Planning your Consolidated Email Templates

Merge fields in your emails will behave differently when they are sent for a single Course vs multiple Courses. It is important for you to learn how merge fields work when emails are consolidated, so that you can choose how you would like to format them and know how your emails will look when they are delivered!

When your platform recognises that multiple emails have met the criteria to be consolidated, there will be a check on each merge field that is included in the email.

If the merge field content is the same in all of the emails that are going to be consolidated, then the merge field will only be displayed once
If the merge field content is different across the emails that are going to be consolidated, then the merge field will be displayed as a comma separated list

Using the above example, a consolidated email about three Courses all running today would check all of the merge fields that are included in the email to decide whether they need to be displayed multiple times. If all three Courses have the same start date, or the same course name, this would only be displayed once, if all three Courses have different venues then each unique venue will be listed.

Example Email Template:	Example Email:

As you can see in the example above, the three Courses all have different names so these have each been listed.
If all three of the Courses were called ‘Mental Wellbeing’ then only ‘Mental Wellbeing’ would have been listed once.

Sometimes it is not appropriate to use commas to format the merge fields, for example if you want to display multiple merge fields about each Course together, such as their label, date and status.

In the below example, there are three Courses that all running on the same day

Example Email Template:

Example Email:

As you can see from the example above, by just using the default settings, the email has first listed the three course labels (with a comma between each one), then listed the three date ranges (again with a comma between each one)

This isn’t ideal and could be quite confusing to the recipient!

This is where you can add extra formatting to your email template, to get your merge fields to display how you want them to.

Extra formatting is all managed using the symbols: @@[ ]

You then add the Course merge fields, any additional text, and any punctuation that you want to be included between the two square brackets.

For example:
@@[@@CourseLabel @@DateRange (@@Status) ]
This would generate:
Emergency First Aid at Work 16/12/2024 09:00 - 13:00 (Fully Booked) Starting a New Business 16/12/2024 09:00 - 15:00 (Available) Mental Wellbeing 16/12/2024 09:00 - 17:00 (Available)

As another example but with a new line added between each Course:

For example:
@@[@@CourseLabel @@DateRange (@@Status)
]
This would generate:
Emergency First Aid at Work 16/12/2024 09:00 - 13:00 (Fully Booked)
Starting a New Business 16/12/2024 09:00 - 15:00 (Available)
Mental Wellbeing 16/12/2024 09:00 - 17:00 (Available)

If you would like to include a new line after each Course, make sure you press 'Shift' on your keyboard when you press 'Enter', to make a new line rather than a new paragraph.

Here are examples of how you can format your merge fields to display the details of multiple Delegates clearly within your emails.

No formatting

This example contains no formatting, and we get a list of Course labels, following by a list of Course dates, followed by the number of delegates registered for the Courses.

The merge fields have been added to the Email Template as:

@@CourseLabel - @@DateRange (@@CandidatesBooked Delegates Booked)

Example Email Template:	Example Email:

Display each Course with it’s label and date together with a comma between them

In this example we have introduced some formatting to display the Course label and date together, with a space and a comma added after each Course.

Please note that with this approach a comma is added to the end of each Course’s details, including the last one.

The merge fields have been added to the Email Template as:

@@[@@CourseLabel - @@DateRange, ]

Example Email Template:	Example Email:

Display each Course with it’s label and date on a new line, and include the number of delegates in brackets

This example has both the Course label forename and the date range surname displayed together, followed by the number of delegates on the Course in brackets with the text ‘Delegates Booked’, each Course is listed on a new line.

Please note that there has been a new line added after the “Delegates Booked)” before the square brackets are closed, this is how your platform knows to add a new line after each Course in the email. New lines should be added by pressing 'Shift' on your keyboard when you press 'Enter', this makes a new line rather than a new paragraph.

The merge fields have been added to the Email Template as:

@@[@@CourseLabel - @@DateRange (@@CandidatesBooked Delegates Booked)
]

Example Email Template:	Example Email:

Display each Course as a paragraph of information

This example shows how you can display a lot of information about the Courses in one email.

Please note that there has been two new line added after the “Delegates Booked” line before the square brackets are closed to provide a clear separation for each Course. New lines should be added by pressing 'Shift' on your keyboard when you press 'Enter', this makes a new line rather than a new paragraph.

The merge fields have been added to the Email Template as:

@@[@@CourseLabel
Course Date: @@DateRange
Course Status: @@Status
Course ID: @@ID
Venue: @@VenueLabel
Delegates Booked: @@CandidatesBooked

]

Example Email Template:	Example Email:

Display Course Details in a table

This example displays a table of Course information, there are two columns with the first containing the Course label, the second containing their date range.

The merge fields have been added to the Email Template in the first table column as:

@@[@@CourseLabel
]

and within the second table column as:

@@[@@DateRange
]

Example Email Template:	Example Email:

Once you have decided how you would like to format and display your Course details in your consolidated emails, you are ready to create your Email Templates!

Create your Consolidated Email Template

Consolidated Email Templates are added and edited from the same page in the platform as standard Email Templates

Open the ‘Administration’ menu from the Profile options at the top-right of your platform, click the ‘Email Templates’ menu option to access the Email Templates DataGrid.

Creating a Consolidated Email Template

We recommend using your standard Email Template as a basis for your Consolidated Email Template, that way you can be sure that when the email is consolidated there will not be any missing information that is included when the email is not consolidated, here are the steps:

Find your existing standard Email Template by applying filters and/or searching the Email Templates DataGrid
Right-click on the Email Template, and select ‘Edit’ from the context menu options
Take a note of the Module assigned to the Email Template
Highlight and copy the entire contents of the body
Close this Email Template
Click to Add a new Email Template
Provide your Email Template with a name and include the word ‘Consolidated’
Select the same module that was selected for the single Email Template
Provide your email with a Subject
Paste your copied email body into the ‘Body'
Update the content of the email to cater for multiple Delegates being listed within it, using your choice of formatting/layout to display the Delegate merge fields
Click 'Save & Close' to finish creating your consolidated version of this email!

Testing your Consolidated Email Template

Before you update your Workflow to send your consolidated Email Template, first test that your email displays as expected when it send.

From your Email Templates DataGrid, click to ‘Edit’ your Consolidated Email Template
Click the ‘Preview’ button at the bottom of the window
Select multiple Courses to preview your Email Template with
Important Note: If you plan to group your consolidated course emails (e.g., by Course Type, Course Template, or Delivery Method), please select courses that share the same value for this setting.
For instance, if you’re grouping emails by Course Template, only select courses with the same template to ensure you preview the email accurately, just as your recipients will see it.
Please note that grouping course-based emails is not a common practice.
Review the preview to check that your merge fields all display as expected
Send a copy of the email to your inbox to check that the email displays as expected

Once you are happy with your consolidated email template, you can move onto updating your Workflow Action to send your consolidated Email Template!

Update your Workflow Action

The Consolidate Email options can all be found when you are adding or editing a Workflow Email Action, this means that you can update any of your existing Workflow Email Actions to support Consolidating Emails!

When you set your Workflow Action to support consolidating emails, then you will be able to select which Email Template you use for standard emails (an email about a single Delegate) and you will be able to select a different Email Template for your consolidated emails (an email about multiple Delegates).

Here are the steps and available settings for consolidating emails:

Open the ‘Administration’ menu from the Profile options at the top-right of your platform
Open the ‘Workflow Templates’ menu option to access the page where you can manage your Workflows
Find the Workflow that you’d like to support consolidated emails by applying filters and/or searching the DataGrid
Right-click on the Workflow, and select ‘Actions’ from the context menu options
Click to ‘Edit’ the Workflow Action
Check the 'Consolidate multiple emails together for the same recipient' option
This option activates the consolidate email functionality for this Workflow Action
If this option is not checked, then the other Consolidate Email options will be hidden
Select a ‘Timeframe to consolidate emails’
This option is where you define how long your Workflow Email will wait to see if Courses should be consolidated into an email together.
When a Course meets the rules of the Workflow and the email is ready to send, the Workflow will wait for the timeframe to see if any other Courses meet the rules for this email recipient. If there are other Courses, they will be consolidated into one email together. Otherwise the email will send after the timeframe. Any additional Courses that meet the rules added after the timeframe has passed will be included on a different email.
1. We recommend using the ‘5 minutes’ option for any Course emails where it may take several minutes to process information, for example 'Course Cancellations' emails.
2. The ‘1 minute’ option is recommended for any Course emails that are triggered based on fix time or x days or hours before/after the start date, for example 'Courses Running Today' emails.
Select how you would like your consolidated emails to be grouped using the ‘Group consolidated emails by’ option, here are some example for how you could group:
1. If you leave this option blank, all Courses who match your Workflow’s criteria within your chosen time period will be grouped together in one email (this is the most commonly selected option)
2. If you group by 'Course Template ID', the recipient will receive separate emails for each Course Template, listing the Courses for each course
3. If you group by 'Venue ID', the recipient will receive separate emails for each venue, listing the Courses for that venue.
Select the consolidated Email Template that you created earlier as the ‘Consolidated Email Template’
Click ‘Save' to confirm your changes and support consolidated emails with this Workflow Action

FAQs

How do attachments work on consolidated emails?

Documents attached to your email from your 'Files' will only attach to your consolidated emails once, for example Terms and Conditions documents
Document Template attachments would all be attached for each Course, for example a sign-in sheet attachment would include each Course’s sign in sheet on the one email, please note that if the attachments would cause the email size to exceed 20MB then the email will be split to ensure each sent email is under 20MB and be able to be received by the major email clients