Send a message to your field

Quick answer. Open Communications in the left menu and press Compose Message. Pick who, pick how, write it, look at the preview and press Send Now. Afterwards the Broadcasts tab tells you, golfer by golfer, who was sent it and who was skipped.

Who can do this: an Admin. This was walked as an Admin. We did not walk it as an Organizer.

Web only. This article covers the web pages. We did not check the phone app.

Before you start

Know which event the message is for. The golfers have to be in that event's field already. See Build the field. A golfer with no email address on file cannot be emailed.

The steps

1. Open Communications. The page says "Send messages to your players — and see exactly who got them." Press Compose Message. Five steps run across the top: Audience, Channel, Message, Preview and Send.
2. Audience. The page asks "Who should receive this message?" It has five cards: All players ("Everyone in your org with an account"), Event field ("All registered players in an event"), League ("All members in a league"), Custom Filter ("Unpaid, waitlisted, unlinked, etc.") and Single player ("One specific player"). We walked Event field. It adds a Select event box with the club's events in it. We did not walk the other four beyond reading their labels. Press Next: Channel.
3. Channel. The page asks "How should we deliver it?" It has six cards: Email only, Player Inbox only, Push only, Email + Player Inbox, Push + Email and All channels. The page starts on Email + Player Inbox, "Most reliable for web users". We chose Email only. We did not send through the other five. Press Next: Message.
4. Message. The page says "Write your message". A Use a template (optional) box lets you start from one of the club's saved messages, or "start from scratch". Type a Subject line and a Message body. The page says "Available merge fields: {{PlayerName}} {{EventName}}". We did not use a template. Press Preview.
5. Preview. The page says "Review before sending". It shows To (the event), Recipients ("7 players" for our event), Via ("Email"), the subject and the message. The preview fills in a sample name. Ours showed "Chris Johnson" and the real event's name. Press Edit to go back or Set delivery options to go on.
6. Send. The page asks "When should this go out?" Press Send Now to send at once. For a later time, see Schedule a message to go out later.
7. Read the result. The page said "Sent to 7 recipients." and, under it, "Email — 5 sent · 2 skipped".

What you should see

Open the Broadcasts tab. Your message is at the top with a Sent badge, the audience, the subject and the number of recipients. Press the small list button at the end of the row. Delivery Details names every golfer and says Sent or Skipped. Ours ended "7 delivery records · 5 sent · 2 skipped · 0 failed". The two skipped golfers said "No email address on file."

The Email Log tab lists every email the club has sent, with the event or trigger, the person and the subject. It has filters for All statuses, Delivered only, Failed only and one event at a time.

If it goes wrong

• The page said 7 recipients but only 5 were sent. Two of the seven golfers had no email address on file, so they were skipped, and the delivery details say so. Reach them another way.
• The email starts with the golfer's name twice. We typed "Hi {{PlayerName}}," at the start of our message, and the email came out "Hi Rory Castellan, Hi Rory Castellan, …". The email already begins with "Hi" and the golfer's name. We have written it up as a bug. Leave the greeting off your message.
• The event's name is blank in the email. The preview filled in the event's name, but the emails we caught said "the groups for are up." The golfer's name came through. We have written it up as a bug. Type the event's name out in your message instead of using {{EventName}}.
• I want to take it back. We found no button that recalls a message after Send Now. Read the preview with care before you send.
• Nobody was sent anything. The source says the page then says "Nothing went out — every delivery was skipped" and lists why. We did not walk this one.
• I picked Push, Player Inbox or All channels. We did not send any of these, so we do not know what the page shows after. On the League plan the Push cards are greyed out. See What your plan lets you send.
• I picked a template. We did not use one. The templates box lists the club's saved messages, with "(system)" beside the ones that come with Back9Ops.

Director's tip

After you send, open Delivery Details and read the skipped names. A golfer with no email never hears from you, and the page will not chase them for you.

Related

• Schedule a message to go out later
• What your plan lets you send
• Build the field
• Open sign-ups and share the link

Still stuck?

Email support@back9ops.com and tell us the event's name, the subject of the message and what the delivery details say.