Creating and Sending Evaluation Email Announcements in Eval25

You can use Eval25 configuration tools to create and send email announcements to students, instructors, and academic administrators. These announcements can be sent on demand, on specific term and session dates, or when specific evaluation events take place.

Create new announcements from scratch or by copying existing announcements. Once created, existing announcements can be edited up until they are sent. Add/remove text, adjust the formatting, add images or links, or even insert data fields to customize your announcements for recipients.

Creating a New Announcement

1. Choose Announcements from the Configuration menu.
2. Select the term you want to create an announcement for from the dropdown list and click Edit.
3. If the term has sessions, select the session you want to create an announcement for from the Session dropdown list. This list doesn’t appear for terms without sessions.
   • Note: If you don’t select a session, the announcement you create will apply to all sessions for the selected term.
4. Click New Announcement.
5. Fill out the announcement fields:
   • Term - Reflects the term chosen in step 3
   • To - Who the announcement will be sent to
   • When - The date the announcement will be sent
     • For more information on what each dropdown option means, please see the Announcement Send Settings in the next section.
   • Date (only available if When is set to Custom) - Custom sending date
   • Time (only available if When is set to Custom) - Custom sending time
   • From - The email address that the announcement will be sent from. 
     • The system saves this email address to the “From” selection list when the announcement is sent for the first time.
   • Subject - The subject line of the email announcement
     
6. Edit the body of the email.  
   • Data Fields - Use any of the data fields listed to the right in the body and/or subject line. Place your text cursor and click the appropriate data field to place it at your text cursor position. 
     • Avoid the use of list data fields, such as list.incomplete.evals, in the subject line.
     • For more information on what each data field option means, please see the Data Field Options at the bottom of the page
   • Source: Edit the HTML directly by clicking Source at the top left of the editing window. Click Source again to switch back to rich text format.
   • Copy Existing: Copy the body of an existing announcement of the same type as the one you are creating by selecting it from the Copy Existing dropdown list. This overwrites any text you previously entered.
7. Click Preview to preview your announcement. 
   • Click Send to... to send the preview announcement to yourself. 
   • When you’re done previewing, close the window.
8. When you have finished creating your announcement, click Save. The announcement will be sent at the specified date/time.
   Note: You can view and/or edit announcements until they’ve been sent by clicking Edit next to the announcement on the Announcement page. After the announcement is sent it can no longer be edited.
   You can delete an announcement by opening it for edit and clicking Delete, then OK to confirm.

Announcement Send Settings

Students - All

• Acknowledgement - The announcement will be sent once per day to students who have submitted one or more evaluations on that day.
• Evaluation Start - The announcement will be sent when the evaluation term or session begins.
• Evaluation End - The announcement will be sent when the evaluation term or session ends.
• Reports - The announcement will be sent to students when reports are available for review.
• Custom - The announcement will be sent at the date and time specified.
• Now - The announcement will be sent immediately upon save.
• Relative - The announcement can be sent at a relative time. For example, in the Start option, you could enter "5 days before an Evaluation End at midnight” for an announcement send date and time. Please note that if the relative date has passed, the system will not treat the date as valid and will not send the email. More information about configuring this option can be found here.

Students - Incomplete (students who haven’t completed all their evaluations)

• Custom - The announcement will be sent at the date and time specified.
• Now - The announcement will be sent immediately upon save.

Instructors - All

• Evaluation Start - The announcement will be sent when the evaluation term or session begins.
• Evaluation End - The announcement will be sent when the evaluation term or session ends.
• Reports - The announcement will be sent to instructors when reports are available for review.
• Custom - The announcement will be sent at the date and time specified.
• Now - The announcement will be sent immediately upon save.
• Relative - The announcement can be sent at a relative time. For example, in the Start option, you could enter "5 days before an Evaluation End at midnight” for an announcement send date and time. Please note that if the relative date has passed, the system will not treat the date as valid and will not send the email. More information about configuring this option can be found here.

Instructors - Questions Reminder (instructors who have created questions for the courses they teach)

• Custom - The announcement will be sent at the date and time specified.
• Now - The announcement will be sent immediately upon save.
• Administrators Custom - The announcement will be sent at the date and time specified.
• Now - The announcement will be sent immediately upon save. 

Administrators

• Custom - The announcement will be sent at the date and time specified.
• Now - The announcement will be sent immediately upon save.

Data Field Options