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Get Started Lesson 4: Set up scheduled calendar email

Time to complete: approximately 30 minutes

Tip You can print a printer-friendly version of this lesson by choosing Print from your browser's File menu. If you prefer to work with the lesson on-screen, it's probably easiest to have two browser windows open, one for the lesson content and the other for Trumba Connect.

You can't expect your customers to keep returning to your website to learn about new events. You have to bring new events to them.

In Trumba® Connect, you can set up scheduled email in connection with any calendar. With scheduled email set up, a message containing upcoming events is sent automatically, according to a schedule you specify, to people on an email distribution list.

Example of a customized calendar email message sent from the Trumba University demonstration calendar.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to:

Tip You can also set up and send customized announcement, reminder, and invitation email messages in relation to specific events.

Create a group (distribution list) in your Address Book

In Trumba Connect, your Address Book is where you store email addresses for your customers and other contacts. You can open your Address Book at any time by clicking Address Book at the top of any page in the Trumba Connect editing environment.

Think of your Address Book as a comprehensive group, the group that contains all of the email addresses that you've added manually or imported into Trumba Connect.

You can collect subsets of this comprehensive group into smaller groups, or distribution lists, for specific purposes. For example, you might offer seminars on two different products that appeal to overlapping lists of customers. You can create a separate group for each product.

  1. Go to the Trumba Connect home page. Click Sign in to sign in to your Trumba account.
  2. At the top right side of the window, click Address Book.

    When your Address Book is empty, it looks something like this.

  3. In the box under Enter email addresses, type the email addresses of five colleagues in your office.

    Press Enter after you type each address.

  4. Click Add to Address Book.

    The email addresses appear in the Address Book section on the right.

  5. Back on the left under Groups, click New Group.
  6. Move your cursor over Group 1 and select it. Type a new name, such as Test.

    On the right, it will say that the Test Group is empty.

  7. Click the Address Book group. Select three of the email addresses listed in the Address Book.
  8. At the top of Address Book section, in the first drop-down list, you should see Copy to group. In the second drop-down list, you should see Test (or whatever name you gave your group). Click Go. Click OK to confirm you want to copy the addresses.
  9. Under Groups, click Test.

    The three email addresses you just added to the group are listed on the right.

  10. Click Return to [calendar name] at the top or bottom of the Address Book to return to your calendar.

Set up a calendar email

Now that you've created a group (distribution list) of customers who share a common interest, you can set up a scheduled calendar email specifically for that group.

Note To follow these instructions and test your scheduled email, it's best to have at least three calendars in your account: one top-level calendar and two subcalendars. The top-level calendar should be empty (contain no events). The subcalendars should each have at least one event on them that occurs two weeks or more in the future. For instructions on how to create and add events to calendars, see lesson 1 in this series.

  1. In the calendar list, click the down arrow to the right of the top-level calendar. Click Go to calendar to confirm that the top-level calendar is displayed.

    Tip In the list, bold text indicates the displayed calendar.

  2. Click Email above the calendar.

  3. Click Set Up Scheduled Email.
  4. In the Create distribution list step of the Email Options wizard, under Who Should We Send The Mail To, select Test (or the name of the group you created above). Click Add to Distribution List.

    The Test group appears under Email Distribution List on the right.

  5. Click Step 2 Schedule and format mail at the top of the Email Options page.
  6. Under When Should We Send The Email, you choose what day and how often you want the email message to be automatically sent. Select Weekly on Sunday for this example.

  7. Also, select Send the first email as soon as I finish so you can immediately see an example of the message you're sending.
  8. Under What Message Should We Send With the First Email, type a message that informs the recipients about the purpose of your scheduled email messages.
  9. Under How Much Calendar Data Should We Send Each Time, you choose the events that you want the email message to contain. Select All future events for this example.
  10. Under What Other Calendars' Events Should We Mix-In, you indicate which events you want the email message to contain. Select each of your subcalendars that has at least one future event on it.

    The mix-in list will look something like this but the calendar names may differ. In this example, we're mixing in events from two subcalendars called Product B - Level 1 and Product B - Level 2.

  11. Click Next.
  12. Look at the preview to make sure the message contains the events you want. Click Finish to set up the scheduled email and immediately send the first message.

    The email message you and people on your distribution list receive will look something like this. Recipients can click to add events to their personal calendars and take other actions.

Tips

  • As the creator of the calendar email, you automatically receive each message that is sent.
  • Remember, you added a few of your colleagues' email addresses to the group you created. You might want to let them know they'll be receiving a test calendar email message.
  • To avoid sending your colleagues test calendar email messages every week, it's probably a good idea to cancel the scheduled email and delete the distribution list.
    1. Display the top-level calendar. Click Email above the calendar.
    2. Click Edit Distribution List.
    3. Under Email Distribution List, select Test (or whatever name you gave the group you created), and then click Remove Selected. Click Return to yourcalendarname.
    4. Click Email again, and then click Delete Schedule. Click Return to yourcalendarname.

Customize email appearance

You can customize the calendar and event email messages that you send to your customers so they reflect your organization's brand. Using standard HTML code, you can include logos, text, and other personalized formatting as a banner in your messages. You can also control font styles, sizes, and colors and the privacy statement that appears at the bottom of the messages.

The following calendar email message from a Trumba Connect demonstration website gives you a sense of the kind of customization that's possible.

  1. In the calendar list, click the down arrow to the right of the top-level calendar. Click Go to calendar to confirm that the top-level calendar is displayed.

    Tip In the list, bold text indicates the displayed calendar.

  2. Click Publish above the calendar.
  3. If your calendar is already published, you'll go directly to the Publishing Control Panel page, which is where you want to be.

    If you haven't published your top-level calendar, when you click the Publish button, you'll see the Publish Settings page. Click Publish at the bottom of the page.

  4. On the Publishing Control Panel page, click the Email tab.
  5. In the Calendar Email section, click Add a Calendar Email. Select Calendar Email, and then click OK.
  6. In the Calendar Email section, at the bottom of the Calendar Email box, click Edit Settings.
  7. On the Edit Settings page, you can use standard HTML code to customize your calendar email messages' banner and privacy sections. To demonstrate how customization works, copy the following code and paste it into the Edit Banner box:
    <img src="http://images.trumba.com/tu_crest.png" alt="Crest logo" width="141" height="95" align="top"/>
  8. Click Preview to see a preview of a calendar email message with a logo at the top.
  9. Close the Preview window. Delete the HTML code if you want to remove the logo from your calendar email messages, and then click OK.
  10. In the Calendar Email section, at the bottom of the Calendar Email box, click Edit Styles. Click Preview.
  11. In the Edit Styles window, change Title size to 14pt. Change the hexadecimal value for Title text color to #ff00ff. Change the hexadecimal value for Top rule color and Bottom rule color to #ff0000. Click Preview to see the results.
  12. You wouldn't want to keep these dramatic changes but they give you an idea of what's possible. Close the Preview window. Click Reset to Default to erase your changes, and then click OK.

Tips

  • To customize the colors of the calendar events that appear in calendar email messages, on the Publishing Control Panel page, click the Publish Settings tab, and then click Edit Calendar Colors.
  • You can customize announcement, reminder, invitation, and event submission email messages in a similar way. On the Publishing Control Panel page click the Email tab. In the Event Email section, click Add an Event Email to add and customize the various types of event email.
Privacy | Terms | Public Calendars