Get told when a student reaches a point in my course
Not every step in your automatic emails has to be an email to the student. Some moments are for you: a student finished the last module and you want to ring them, or a student passed the final quiz and you need to post a certificate. Other moments change your records: a student who finished Module 1 should now carry the tag “stage 2”.
The prompt
“In the course emails for [course name], tell me by email when a student [finishes Module 3 / passes the final quiz], with the note “[what to do next]”.”
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A step can do one of three things instead of emailing the student.
Tell me. Bernard sends a short email to you. You choose who gets it: one member of your team, or everyone active on your account. It arrives in the same kind of email a contact form sends you. It says who reached the step, which step, your own note (“ring her this week”), and what bernard knows: the course, the last lesson they finished and their deadline. It never goes to the student.
Add or remove a tag. Bernard puts a tag on the person, or takes one off. A tag it adds can start another set of automatic emails: Start automatic emails when I give someone a tag.
Fill in a contact field. Bernard sets one of your own contact fields, for example “Stage” to “Finished”. The field must already exist.
These steps work in course emails (Email my students when they reach each point in my course) and in emails started by a tag. You set them up the same way: ask Bernard, read the plan, approve it.
What is good to know
- Nothing goes to the student, so these steps need no permission to email and never use up the limit of 1 automatic email a day.
- The other rules still hold. A step waits while the person is on hold. It stops when they reach the goal. Its skip rules still apply. A person on your do-not-email list gets no step at all, and that includes “tell me”.
- The “on hold” tag is yours alone. An automatic step never adds or removes it. Only the account owner pauses a person, on purpose.
- Steps cannot loop. Each step happens once for each person, and a chain of steps that start each other stops after a few steps.
- Straight away means within about an hour, the same as for an email.
To see what a step did for one person, or why it could not do it, see Why did a student get that email, or not get it?.
Questions people ask
- Who gets the “tell me” email?
- You, and everyone active on your account, or one team member you name. It never goes to the student. It arrives in the same kind of email a contact form sends you.
- What does it say?
- Who reached the step, which step it was, your own note, and what bernard knows about them: the course, the last lesson they finished and their deadline.
- Do these steps count towards the one email a day?
- No. Nothing goes to the student, so these steps need no permission to email and never use up the limit of 1 automatic email a day.
- Can a step put someone on hold?
- No. An automatic step never adds or removes the “on hold” tag. Only the account owner pauses a person, on purpose.
- Could two steps keep tagging each other forever?
- No. Each step happens once for each person, and a chain of steps that start each other stops after a few steps.
- Do I approve these steps?
- Yes. They are part of the plan Bernard shows you, in plain words, and nothing runs until you approve it and switch it on.