Create an invitation

When you create and send an invitation, the application does two things. First, it sends an email to participants' inboxes. Second, it automatically creates a hub invitation (the activity appears in the member hub).

One activity can have multiple invitations. For example, you may want to customize invitations for different member groups participating in the same activity.

Keep these considerations in mind when working with invitations:

• Each member only receives one invitation, even if the member fits two or more member filters.
• You can only send each invitation once.
• If an email address bounces, you cannot send a second invitation to that email address.

Note: Nonmembers may consider recruitment invitations to be unsolicited emails, which may negatively affect your IP address reputation and future email deliverability. If you choose to send recruitment invitations, discretion is advised. For more information, see Alida External Sample Waiver.

Parent topic: Distribution

Create the invitation

Provide an internal name for the invitation and assign it to one or more communities.

1. Open the activity.
2. Click the Distribute tab.
3. Select New > Invitation.
4. In the Name field, type an internal name for the invitation.
5. From the Assign to a Community list, select one or more Community.
   This step applies to customers with multiple communities. If you select multiple communities, an invitation will be created for each of the selected communities.
   Note: Surveys must contain a translation for the assigned Community's locale. If the translation is not present, you can create a distribution, but you cannot send it or make the activity live. For more information, see Manage locales.
6. Click Create.
   If you selected a single community, the Message tab appears. If you selected multiple communities, an invitation for each community is added to the Invitations table.

Compose the email

Write the body of the email. You can also append variables to the activity link and save the email as a template.

Note: The From email address is set at the community level. For more information about Community settings, see View or edit community settings.

If you created invitations for multiple communities, you can switch between invitations by selecting the invitation to compose from the Communication drop-down list. This allows you to compose the emails for multiple communities without leaving the Message tab.

1. In the Invitations section on the Distribute page, click on the invitation to edit.
2. In the Message tab, load an email template.
3. In the Subject field, type the email subject.
4. Edit the email body.
5. Insert variables such as the recipients' first and last names in the email.
   Tip:

   • You can type [%FirstName%] and [%LastName%] if you want to insert recipients' first or last names, respectively. If the first or last name values do not exist, [%FirstName%] and [%LastName%] will be replaced by empty spaces.
   • To insert any profile variable, type [%ProfileVariableName%], where ProfileVariableName is the exact name of the profile variable as it appears in the application. For example: [%country%]
6. Optional: Edit the activity link pipe.
   • Insert the ActivityLink pipe as a URL with text
   • Append member IDs or profile variables to the ActivityLink pipe
   • Append answer values to the ActivityLink pipe
7. Optional: In the Email Footer area, click Edit to edit the email footer.
   
   Changes to the email footer are applied to all future messages for the specific Community.
8. Optional: Click Test Email to view the invitation from the recipient's perspective.
9. Optional: Save the email body as a template.

Tip: For languages that read from right to left like Arabic and Hebrew, there are some special considerations for authoring invitations. For more information, see Right-to-left (RTL) surveys.

Related information

• Edit the default email footer

Define the invitation recipients

Use a member group to select which members will receive the invitation. You can also create a new member filter to select recipients based on different criteria.

Note:

• Recruitment invitations are only sent to members with a status of NonMember who have not received an invitation yet. For more information, see Recruitment.
• You can only invite members to forums. Inviting nonmembers to forums is not supported.

If you created invitations for multiple communities, you can switch between invitations by selecting the invitation to work with from the Communication drop-down list. This allows you to define the invitation recipients for multiple communities without leaving the Recipients tab.

1. Click the Recipients tab.
2. From the Recipients list, do one of the following:

   • Add one or more member groups to an invitation.

     The member groups you previously created serve as the basis for member filters. You can add more than one of these member filters to the invitation. If you do so, the options for uploading or manually inviting recipients are no longer available.

   • Create or edit a member filter.

   • Upload recipients.

     Use this option if you plan to distribute the activity outside of your Community.

   • Manually invite recipients.

     Use this option if you plan to distribute the activity outside of your Community.

   • Use Rule Engine.

     Select this option for event driven surveys. Distribution is triggered according to a rule set in the CX Rules Engine. For more information, see Event driven surveys.

   As you make your recipient selections, the Total Eligible count updates to display the total number of eligible recipients. For more information about how this count is calculated, see The Total Eligible Recipients count.

   Tip:

   • There is no need to edit member filters to account for Community. This is taken care of when you first create the invitation and specify the intended Community.
   • If the activity is a side project, you may also want to consider excluding its data from Community statistics. For more information, see Exclude an activity from community statistics.
3. Optional: Select Add a recipient size limit, and enter the maximum number of possible recipients.
4. Optional: Select Automatically send to new eligible recipients.
   For more information about this feature, see Automatically invite new eligible recipients.
5. Optional: Select Reserve members for this activity.
   For more information about this feature, see Sample management.
6. Optional: Click Test Email to view the invitation from the recipient's perspective.

Set the activity details

Create a participant-facing name for your activity and select an activity theme.

If you created invitations for multiple communities, you can switch between invitations by selecting the invitation to work with from the Communication drop-down list. This allows you to define activity settings for multiple communities without leaving the Activity Details tab.

1. Click the Activity Details tab.
2. In the Member Facing Activity Name field, type the activity name members will see.
   The member-facing activity name is visible:

   • In the browser tab
   • In the activity widget of the Member hub
   • Wherever the Member Facing Activity Name variable ( [%MemberFacingActivityName%]) appears in the invitation and in subsequent reminders

   This field cannot be empty. If you do not provide a value, the application will use the last member-facing activity name that was provided in the same language. If this value does not exist, the application will use the internal activity name.

   You can change the member-facing activity name at any time while the invitation is open. The updated member-facing activity name is visible to any members who start the activity after the change is saved. However, members who have already started the activity under the old name will still see the old name.

3. Select the theme recipients will see when they view the activity.
   Note:

   • The selected theme is only visible to this invitation's recipients. Therefore, the same activity can have multiple invitations, each one with a different theme.
   • For power surveys, you can only apply the Active Theme set for the community.
   1. In the Activity Theme area, select a theme from the menu.

      By default, the theme is set to the active theme.

   2. Click Preview to see what the activity looks like with the selected theme.
      The preview opens in a new browser tab.
4. Optional: Click Test Email to view the invitation from the recipient's perspective.

Schedule the invitation

You have the option of sending the invitation immediately or selecting a date and time in the future.

If you created invitations for multiple communities, you can switch between invitations by selecting the invitation to work with from the Communication drop-down list. This allows you to schedule invitations for multiple communities without leaving the Schedule tab.

1. Click the Schedule tab.
2. Optional: Click Test Email to view the invitation from the recipient's perspective.
3. In the Send Date area, select when to send the invitation.
   • Now: Sends the email upon confirmation.
   • Later: Opens a calendar to select a date and time in the future.
   Note: You need to click Review and Send to send the invitation now or later.

If you have Virtual Incentives integrated with Community, and this is an eligible activity type, you can assign rewards at this point in the invitation creation workflow. For more information, see:

• Virtual Incentives
• Assign rewards for activity completion

Review and send the invitation

Review the details in the confirmation summary.

1. If you created invitations for multiple communities, ensure that the correct invitation is selected in the Communication drop-down list.
   The Communication drop-down list allows you to review and send invitations for multiple communities without leaving the Distribute page.
2. Click Review and Send, or Review and Activate if this is an event driven survey invitation.
   The Confirm Communication dialog appears. If there are any errors in the communication, they will be displayed here and you will be prevented from sending.
3. Confirm the send action.

   Distribution trigger	Step
   Send now	Click Send Now.
   Schedule to be sent later	Click Scheduled Send.
   Event driven	Click Activate.

4. If you added a schedule to the invitation, look for these indications that your invitation was scheduled successfully:

   • A green notification message appears and says The communication has been scheduled to be sent at the specified date and time.

     
     Tip: If you need to unschedule the email, click Cancel Communication inside the notification message. The status of the email will change from Scheduled to Not Sent.

   • In the Invitations table, the email's status appears as Scheduled and the date and time of send appears under the Schedule column.

     

   For more information, see Scheduling.

5. Optional: Create a reminder.

Related information

• Distribute an activity to the Member Hub
• Activity widget
• View participation and message deliverability statistics
• Close the activity