Example: send a reminder email the day before a course starts

Steps

1. 1

   Create the dataset

   Under your data source, create a Dataset called Courses Starting Tomorrow. Set Entity Set to Enrolments.

   Add two Filters so only courses starting tomorrow are fetched:

   CourseStartDate ge {aoDynamicDaysAtMidnight:1}

   CourseStartDate lt {aoDynamicDaysAtMidnight:2}

   In Select, add StudentEmail, StudentFirstName, CourseName and CourseStartDate, each with the same name in As.

2. 2

   Check the records

   Save and publish, then open the dataset's preview page in AutomatedOn to check that tomorrow's enrolments come back. Midnight here is midnight UTC.

3. 3

   Create the email template

   Create an Email Template called Course Reminder:

   • Sender: an address on your sender domain
   • Recipient: $$StudentEmail$$
   • Subject: Reminder: $$CourseName$$ starts tomorrow
   • Body Text: <p>Hi $$StudentFirstName$$,</p><p>Just a reminder that $$CourseName$$ starts on $$CourseStartDate:dddd d MMMM 'at' HH:mm$$.</p><p>See you there!</p>
4. 4

   Create the process

   Create a Process called Course Reminders:

   • Dataset: Courses Starting Tomorrow
   • Steps: one Send Email step with Email Template set to Course Reminder
   • Schedule Period Minutes: 1440, so it runs once a day
   • Schedule Expression: leave empty, so emails go as soon as the run happens

   Save and publish.

5. 5

   Test it

   Open the process page and go to the Test tab. Click Run test. Each record should show a Send Email badge. Click it to see the email with that student's details. Check the Issues column is empty. Nothing is sent.

6. 6

   Start the daily run

   On the Jobs tab, under Schedule a job, set Run at to the time you'd like the first emails to go, for example 9am tomorrow. Click Schedule. Each run then schedules the next one 1,440 minutes after it finishes.

What happens next