Creating Groups and Sending Messages

Creating and managing groups of individuals 

Groups are a great way to manage individuals. You may wish to group individuals by services needed, barriers, demographics, or other features unique to your Organization. Groups are unique to you, and will not be seen by any other professionals at your organization.

This article will cover how to: 

• Create groups using the Message Center
• Create groups using Ad-Hoc Reporting 
• Bulk message a group that has been created

Creating groups using the Message Center

You can also create a Group directly in the Message Center by clicking the “+ New Message Group” from the Message Center, in the bottom right-hand corner. Give the group a name and description that is helpful to you, and select General Communication under Message Group Category.

Next, to add the appropriate participants to the group, click "Add Contact" in the bottom right-hand corner. 

Type the names and select the participants that should be added to the group. You are able to add multiple participants at one type if you wish. Click "Add Contact to Group" once the appropriate participants have been selected. 

Click the name of the Group to view the contacts included in the group. From here, you edit the participants included in a group and/or to view a participant’s record. This grid is a helpful resource to quickly access email and phone numbers.

Creating Groups using Ad-Hoc Reporting

All group management will take place in your Professional Center. Locate the Ad-Hoc Reporting tab on the menu bar.

Go to the “Start with” to select all participants at your location(s) or participants you have been tracking. This is also where you will go to find previously saved reports. You can use filters to narrow any criteria further.

Once you have the appropriate filters in place and have the group of participants that you want to save to the group, click "Copy" and, in the pop-up menu, create a report name, include an optional description, and finally click "Save" 

After it is saved, report will then be listed under “My Reports” under the “Start with” field. Select the report that you just created. 

On the bottom of the screen, there are different options – send bulk message, export to address labels, export to CSV/ Excel. Select “Create Message Group” and click Go.

Once the group has been created, there will be a message and link at the top right to access the group by “clicking here.”

If you don’t click the link in the blue box, go to the Message Center by clicking the speech bubble in the top right corner of the page.

You can access the Groups on the left panel – “Message Groups.” This will show you the groups from Ad Hoc. You can rename the group by clicking the “action gear” to then “Edit Message Group” to be something more identifiable.

Bulk messaging a group that has been created

To send a Group an email message, click “Compose Message” from within the Message Center. Fill it out like an email. Then select which group(s) you want it to go out to – the selected group(s) will be checked at the right and listed at the top.

You can view recipients at the bottom of the page. The user’s name will appear as the sender.

The Message Body includes rich text formatting and options to include links or attachments.

Creating an activity in the Activity Timeline for an entire group 

To create an Activity on the Activity Timeline for a Group, the group must be listed in the “Message Groups” described above in the Message Center! 

Go to Activity Timeline. Complete the form – but select the “Group” instead of a single customer. Then select which group from the Message Group drop-down menu.

The Activity details that are captured on the Activity Timeline form completed will then be copied to each participants’ in the Group’s timeline with the same information. A message will appear when the Bulk activity is completed and available on all timelines. Click to “Refresh Activity Timeline” to see the new contacts made.