Why did a student get that email, or not get it?
A student writes: “I finished Module 3 last week and never got the email.” Or the opposite: “Why did I get a reminder about something I have already done?” You should not have to guess. bernard keeps a record of every automatic email for every student: when it was due, whether it went, and if not, why not.
The prompt
“Why did [student name or email] get, or not get, the [email name] email from [course name]? Show me what happened to each step for them.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
How to ask. Name the student and the emails, for example “why didn’t Sarah get the Module 3 email?”. Bernard reads Sarah’s own record and answers with one line for each email: when it was due, whether it was sent, and the reason in a plain sentence. Ask about the whole set instead, and you see how many students are at each email and what happened to them.
The reasons you will see. An email is sent unless one of these is true at the moment it is due:
- A skip rule matched. For example, “they have the tag “assignment in””. Bernard names the rule. Skip rules are checked when the email is about to go, not when it was planned. See Stop a course email going to a student it no longer fits.
- They reached the goal. Once a student reaches the goal of the set (often, finishing the course), their remaining emails from it stop.
- They finished the course. The emails that look after a new student stop when they finish the course.
- They were on hold. A student with the “on hold” tag waits. If the hold ends more than 2 days after an email was due, that email is skipped rather than sent late. See Pause the automatic emails for one student.
- Their place ended. A refund, or an enrolment that was withdrawn or ran out, stops their course emails.
- They cannot be emailed. They unsubscribed, an email to them bounced, or bernard has no permission on record to email them.
- The emails were paused or switched off before that one was due.
When nothing happened at all. If an email has not started for a student, there is nothing to show for it yet. That usually means they have not reached that moment, or they reached it before you switched the emails on: nothing is sent for what a student did before. See Email my students when they reach each point in my course.
Timing. “Straight away” means within about an hour. A student also gets at most 1 automatic email a day, so a second one due the same day goes the next day. If bernard ever misses a moment a student reached, a check every night picks it up, so the email still goes, usually the next day.
Looking changes nothing. To change what happens next, ask Bernard to change the skip rule, the goal or the words, and approve the new plan.
Questions people ask
- Can I see how many students are at each step?
- Yes. Ask for the whole set and Bernard shows, for each email, how many are waiting, how many are on hold, how many were sent, and how many were skipped or stopped, with the reason.
- Why did a student not get an email they should have?
- Ask about that student. Bernard reads their own record and gives the reason for each email: a skip rule matched, they reached the goal, they were on hold, they finished the course, their place ended, or they asked not to get emails. If an email has not started for them, Bernard says that too.
- What does “on hold” do?
- While a student has the “on hold” tag, their automatic emails wait. When the tag comes off, an email that is more than 2 days late is skipped rather than sent late.
- An email went a day late. Why?
- A student gets at most 1 automatic email a day, so a second one due the same day waits for the next. “Straight away” also means within about an hour, not the same minute.
- Does asking change anything?
- No. Looking only reads. Changing a skip rule, a goal or the words is a separate step you approve.