Automated emails or email notifications are emails sent out automatically from the platform to registered users or to a group of registered users. They are triggered by their own actions, actions by others or events happening on your platform. As an admin, you can define which notifications people should or should not receive and each user can also individually decide which notifications to receive. Any user can also customize their own notifications preferences.
What automated emails are sent out and when?
Automated emails on your platform are used for 2 objectives:
Informing your users about what's happening on the platform when they're not there.
Making sure they find their way back to the platform at the right time.
Here’s the complete overview of all automated emails. You can also consult an example of every email (English only) over here:
Who? | When? | |
New idea | Only for admins and project managers of the project the idea has been posted in | Every time someone posts an idea in a project I can moderate |
When a new comment was written in a project I can moderate | Only for admins and project managers of the project the comment has been posted in | Every time someone adds a comment to an idea
|
When the status of an idea the user voted for has been changed | All non-admin users | When you changed the status of an idea they voted for |
When the status of an idea the user commented on has been changed | All non-admin users | When you changed the status of an idea they commented on |
When a new comment has been placed on an idea the user voted for | All non-admin users | When someone commented on an idea they voted for |
When a new comment has been placed on an idea the user commented on | All non-admin users | When someone else commented on an idea they commented on before |
When a user gets invited to the platform | All non-admin users | When you've sent them an invitation from the platform |
A weekly overview of the activity on the platform (for citizens) | All users | Every week when ideas have been added to the platform |
A weekly overview of the activity on the platform (only for project managers) | Only for project managers | Every week |
A weekly overview of the activity on the platform (only for administrators) | Only for admins | Every week |
When my idea gets published | All users | After publishing their second, third, fourth, ... idea |
When a user’s first idea gets published | All users | After publishing their first idea on the platform |
When a user requests a password reset | All users | After indicating they forgot their user password |
When a user registers on the platform | All users | After completing their registration on the platform |
When a user accepts my invitation | Only for admins | After a user accepted the invitation you've sent out from the platform. |
When a user is given project moderation rights | All users | After receiving project moderation rights for a specific project on the platform. |
When a user is given admin rights | All users | After receiving admin rights to enable them to manage the whole platform. |
When an admin deletes my comment | All users | After you deleted their comment. |
When a user is mentioned in a comment | All users | After someone tagged them with '@name' in a comment. |
When the status of my idea changes | All non-admin users | When you changed the status of an idea of which they are the author |
When a user marks an idea as spam (for administrators and project managers)
| Only admins and project managers of the respective project | After a user marked a specific idea as spam |
When a user marks a comment as spam (for administrators and project managers) | Only admins and project managers of the respective project | After a user marked a specific comment as spam |
When a user receives a reply on their idea | All users | After someone else commented on the idea they are the author of |
When a user receives a reply on their comment | All users | After someone else replied to a comment they are the author of |
New project phase | Project participants | When a new phase starts in a project to users who participated in that particular project. |
Define what email notifications to (de)activate on your platform
To manage your platform's notifications, go to the 'Automated emails' tab in the ‘Messaging’ section of your platform. There, you'll find a full overview of each type of notification that the platform is sending out. The title indicates both when it is sent out and who will receive it.
By switching the toggle off or on, you can disable or enable a specific notification. Disabling it will make sure no-one will receive this email notification anymore from now. Enabling means they will receive it, unless they individually indicated they don't want to receive it.
Some toggles can't be switched off. These notifications are the ones that are critical for the proper functioning of the platform. For example, the password reset notification can't be switched off. Otherwise, people wouldn't be able to reset their password.
Each user can also individually choose which emails to receive and which ones not. This can be done in 2 ways:
Unsubscribing directly from within each email
Deactivating each email on his or her profile page on the platform
Changing the ‘reply to’-email address of the email notifications
Automated emails always include a link to the platform, specifically to the content that is relevant for that email.
E.g. When a user gets a notification because someone commented on an idea he voted on, the email contains a link to that idea or comment.
Users are not supposed to reply to that automated email. However, it is impossible to prevent someone replying to such an automated email. CitizenLab doesn’t usually process those reply emails. If you want to be the recipient of those unexpected replies, please pass us your general reply-email address (info@..., hello@...., communication@... ) via the support chat bubble. We will add it for you in our back-end.
Changing the content of the automated emails
It is impossible to change the email of the sender of the automated emails (always notifications@citizenlab.co), nor to personalize the content of automated emails. We keep the content as neutral as possible so the content fits for all CitizenLab platforms.
We continuously monitor our existing automated emails. ‘Are the emails engaging enough?’ ‘Do people unsubscribe?’ Based on that information, we take action:
we change the email content,
we group similar emails in 1 email,
we tweak the conditions for an email to be sent out
If you’d find glitches or typo’s in one of the emails or you want to suggest an improvement, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team with your suggestions by using the chat bubble in your admin panel.
Need more help or support? Contact our Support Team via the chat bubble.