How to work with reminders for enduring courses - especially repeat reminders... recommend an option to select whether an email reminder should stop sending once the course is closed

EthosCE Product Suggestions
1

I recently did some testing of reminders. We are looking to send reminders for our enduring courses to help increase completion rates. Ideally we wanted to use the repeat option to cut down the number of reminders we are creating for a course.

There are some issues with how these go out…
Imagine a 1 year enduring course that starts on January 1

If I choose to have a reminder go out 1x per month for 12 months, starting February 1 (to anyone incomplete), if a person signs up on Jan 31, they will receive the reminder the next day, potentially get annoyed, and request to opt out (which apparently is a thing for these repeated reminders)

If I choose to have a reminder go out 1 month after a person enrolls (if they are incomplete) and each month after that for 12 months, then if a person enrolls two months prior to the course ending, they will receive the emails EVEN AFTER the course closes. So maybe even a worse scenario?

I would like to propose that Email reminders have a setting that would indicate whether it should still go out after a course closes.

Another option would be “repeat until…” could include “the course closes” or even “specific date”

Sometimes we send reminders for a 6-month follow up survey to the enrollees - the course is closed and the survey lives outside of it, but we’d want to set up the email within the course - so we’d still want the option to have emails go out after the course closes. But without having the option to indicate that an email should stop once a course is closed, it’s really hard to use repeat reminder emails, or even emails that go out based on the participant start date instead of the course dates because they can send after the course is closed.

Thoughts?

2

I would love to see a reminder to those that are Enrolled but NOT complete with the course every XX amount of days. And yes, have this sent between a certain time period. So, starting 30 days after the Live course is over, Send a reminder ever 45 days to go in, do evaluations/claim credit. Then, stop that 30 days before the course Expiration date and send a new note out to those that have not claimed credit to get in there and do so.

I like your proposal and could see additional settings that can be helpful.

Susan Benysh
Mayo Clinic

3

I just had a reminder go out to 200 people on a course that was closed. I have now learned that I need to turn off reminders on closed courses!!

4

I just wanted to bring this up again… I think there was a user meeting about this that I was not able to attend? I am hoping that a help doc could be created that provides different scenarios, and what the outcomes are… For example, if I create a number of reminders based on dates, and then a person enrolls 6 months in, will they receive all of the reminders to date? If so, does creating a recurring reminder keep that from happening?

One feature that would be VERY helpful would be to have each reminder have the option of closing once the course closes (for example, repeat reminder that triggers based on when a person enrolls), or stay open past the course expiration (for example, a reminder that has a link to a 6-month follow up evaluation).

Has anyone done more testing of reminders or have you been given any additional guidance?

Thanks!
JAM