# Inactivity Reminders and Ideas

**URL:** https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479
**Category:** EthosCE Support
**Created:** [January 10, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479 "2019-01-10T18:38:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![ArielLevine](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.ethosce.com/ariellevine/32/114_2.png) [@ArielLevine](https://community.ethosce.com/u/ArielLevine)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/1 "2019-01-10T18:38:13Z")

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We are looking to see what site admins are doing to encourage users to complete the outline on online courses. We tried to set up inactivity reminders but in order for them to go out, the user needs to click into the next step (and our users aren’t doing so). We are looking for automated methods to remind them to view videos, complete post tests, complete evaluations and claim their credit.

Any tips or ideas would be great!

Thanks

Ariel Levine  
CME Planner  
Office of Continuing Medical Education, Sidney Kimmel Medical College  
Office of Continuing Professional Development, Thomas Jefferson University

Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University)

Center City Campus  
1020 Locust Street, JAH, Suite M-5, Philadelphia, PA 19107  
T 215-955-2477  
F 215-923-3212  
Ariel.Levine@Jefferson.edu  
[https://cme.jefferson.edu/](https://cme.jefferson.edu/)

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### Author: ![gmartinez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gmartinez](https://community.ethosce.com/u/gmartinez)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2019, 7:17pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/2 "2019-01-10T19:17:54Z")

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I’m wondering if you might be referring to this kind of functionality?

> [@Reminders for users who are enrolled in but haven't started a course](https://community.ethosce.com/t/reminders-for-users-who-are-enrolled-in-but-havent-started-a-course/213/3):
>
> Can’t you trigger a reminder on “Enrollment Start”? That’s what we do. I don’t think it requires a person to click the “Continue” button in order to get a reminder. The inactivity reminders never have worked the way we wanted. We want to remind people to start/do an activity, not complete something they have already started. I would love to be able to remind users who haven’t even started something to do a required activity!

Particularly Ezra’s response about potentially adding logic to reminders, so you can pinpoint particular users. If so, may be worth lending support to it. Our team has the same issue you do and reminders don’t quite suit our needs just yet!

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### Author: ![hazard](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.ethosce.com/hazard/32/37_2.png) [@hazard](https://community.ethosce.com/u/hazard)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/3 "2019-01-10T20:54:44Z")

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We would LOVE to have the inactivity reminders work, but they never have.

So 6 months from the course expiring, we send a reminder that encourages the user to complete their work, if they haven’t done so already. This goes out to everyone, including completed users. But no one has complained.

Patricia

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### Author: ![ArielLevine](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.ethosce.com/ariellevine/32/114_2.png) [@ArielLevine](https://community.ethosce.com/u/ArielLevine)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2019, 1:16pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/4 "2019-01-11T13:16:15Z")

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Thank you both for sharing! Gmartinez, yes, i think that is what we need! This would be awesome! The way out modules are currently set up, they are all individual of each other. Having to go into almost 20+ modules and set the same reminders can also be time consuming (especially when you realize they aren’t working). Maybe having a global option that for online courses, you can set inactivity reminders with logic would be awesome!

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### Author: ![JAM](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.ethosce.com/jam/32/595_2.png) [@JAM](https://community.ethosce.com/u/JAM)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/5 "2019-01-11T16:13:39Z")

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I agree that reminders don’t work intuitively. I would like to see reminders to go out to people who have not started/touched a particular object in the activity, and not to people who have touched a particular object. This would even be helpful for live activities - send an email to people who have not touched the evaluation or credit claim object. This way we don’t have to say “if you have already claimed credit, please disregard this email” :o)

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### Author: ![hjranels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/91b2a8/32.png) [@hjranels](https://community.ethosce.com/u/hjranels)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/6 "2019-01-11T16:35:42Z")

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This is something that we have tried and had to turn off the reminders when we could not figure the right timing to attached to the right object to remind people to complete the course before it expired We ended up with people not only  
after they had completed an activity but also after the course had expired. We continually have almost 100 online courses we are trying manage. This is on the 2019 list of things to figure out and implement. I wouldn’t mind hearing from someone at the user  
group how to set these up effectively.

**Heather Ranels, CHCP**

Sr. _e_Learning Manager

American Society for Radiation Oncology

703-839-7352

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### Author: ![gmartinez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gmartinez](https://community.ethosce.com/u/gmartinez)
#### Post date: [January 16, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/7 "2019-01-16T21:42:31Z")

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Since there is quite a bit of support for this I created a thread so everyone can vote for this functionality:

> [@Course Reminders - Global & Logic](https://community.ethosce.com/t/course-reminders-global-logic/498):
>
> Created a votable thread for [this](https://community.ethosce.com/t/reminders-for-users-who-are-enrolled-in-but-havent-started-a-course/213), and [this](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479). Recap: It would be great to trigger reminders for users who have not yet touched a course versus they just haven’t completed an object, etc. Introducing logic would be great, and to have a global option in case there are reminders that will always be used.

I’ve tagged both conversations regarding this functionality for DLC. But if you guys vote it’ll help get this on their radar sooner rather than later. The original conversation was from last year.

Tagging everyone to make sure you vote 😉: @hazard, @ArielLevine, @hjranels

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### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/ethosce/original/1X/ed630155f4491245f1015a2ae6f61a0950720976.png) [@system](https://community.ethosce.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/8 "2019-07-15T21:42:32Z")

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This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

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### Author: ![Scott.Kuchinski](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.ethosce.com/scott.kuchinski/32/215_2.png) [@Scott.Kuchinski](https://community.ethosce.com/u/Scott.Kuchinski)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2021, 2:20pm UTC](https://community.ethosce.com/t/inactivity-reminders-and-ideas/479/9 "2021-03-04T14:20:17Z")

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As of the 7.41 release, the new reminders system provides improvements that can address many of the use cases requested in this thread!

Please check out our [new reminders system documentation](https://ethosce.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ECE/pages/5308449/Reminders) as well as the [7.41 release webinar](https://community.ethosce.com/t/ethosce-7-41-released/1188) for more details.
