Send Customized Emails

I second the option of sending emails for purposes of reminders, thanks yous, and follow-ups!

We do plan on implementing more email options. I'm not sure how quickly we'll get that in.

This kind of feature can be a bit tricky to implement, as we have to set things up to prevent abuse. Most people would be fine, but this is a case where one "bad apple" could get us in trouble by violating SPAM laws or running afoul the bulk mail policies major email providers and getting us blacklisted. But we are working on it, and will get something implemented as soon as we can.

thanks, I look forward to this.

We do not currently have a way to send emails directly from MyAnswers, other than the automatically generated ones.

You can use the CSV export to get a list of all the email addreses. 

We do not currently have a way to send emails directly from MyAnswers, other than the automatically generated ones.

You can use the CSV export to get a list of all the email addresses. 

Can you explain what the CSV is and how do I acsess it?

A .csv is a spreadsheet file. You can download it by going to People, then Students, click Manage All Students, then go to Print/Download and select Download Student List.

Hello,   Please add back the mass email for future release.  I love the update but I miss that feature

I'm not sure what you're referring to, as even in the old VBS Manager we didn't support mass emailings. The method has always been that if you wanted to send an email to everyone, you'd need to download the registration spreadsheet of the registrations, and then paste the email addresses into a email window.

We do not currently provide a way to send emails, other than the automatically generated ones.

You can use the download option to get a list of emails you can use to send notifications outside of MyAnswers.

In previous years an automatic reminder email, that you were able to edit, was sent to students a few days before the first day of VBS. Is this option not available anymore?

No, VBS Director does not include support for a reminder email at this time.

I agree that this would be very helpful because throughout the week as we used the CSV option we ran into a few issues 

1. The CSV export exports all STUDENT data. We wanted to email parents. If the parents brought multiple children we had to delete the duplicate students so that we could email just the parents. 
2. We created a list in Mailchimp (the server that we use to email parents). I completely understand d the concerns with a few bad apples that makes it difficult to send custom emails directly from the platform. But every time a new person signed up for VBS we had to either manually identify them and add them to our Mailchimp list or if it was a large group of new registrants, create a brand new Mailchimp list. Would their be a way to better sync with common outside servers like Mailchimp, Vertical Response, etc.? Or has there been any progress on the SPAM concern? (Like requiring people to give concern to be emailed when they sign up before allowing churches to email them from the AiG platform). 

I look forward to your response. I’ve heard a lot of great things about improvements you have made based on feedback received from churches and overall we have been very impressed with your curriculum and technology. At our VBS, one of the #1 things we hear from parents is how much they love that their kids are learning about science at church. 

Sincerely,

Samantha 

Hello Samantha,

Thank you for your detailed feedback! We do acknowledge there are several helpful applications for supporting emailing from the MyAnswers platform, but it’s a complex feature to get right.

Your feedback will be helpful as we explore our options and hope to improve this area within the next 12 months, but we unfortunately can’t guarantee anything at this time.

Blessings,

Arthur