14

Communication plan based on specific date

Jeremiah Miller

September 07, 2010 17:57

Completed

Follow

We need the ability to create communication plans based on a specified target date. Here's an example:

We have a recruitment event that starts on November 1. We need to be able to specify communication items based on that date. For example, "Call the person 10 days before the event", or "Send a letter 3 weeks before the event". So, it's basically like the current communication plans, except you are counting backwards from a target date, instead of counting forward from the date the plan is assigned.

Or, another way to approach it would be to keep communication plans based on the assign-to date, but allow us to specify some items that happen on a specific date. Then we could have a plan that combines both elements, since some items need to be based on assign-to date, and others need to be based on calendar date. It could look something like this:

• Day 1: Send a welcome e-mail
• Day 5: Send a welcome letter with details about the event
• September 30: Send a reminder e-mail
• October 25: Call the student

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

10 comments

• 
  Brendan O'Donnell April 09, 2019 18:44 Official comment

  Hey, we added a Start Date in the Apply Communication Plan dialog when you add a plan on the person's Profile > Activity Feed. Here's what that dialog looks like now:

  

• 0
  
  Brendan O'Donnell September 07, 2010 18:11

  Jeremiah,

  You can manually edit any event/to-do/due date on a Comm Plan. For instance, if there's a Letter under Scheduled Communications on the Profile, if you click "Letter", it gives you options to edit the letter itself and the send date.

  We've talked about letting users edit the "start date" of a Communications plan (say, you get a steady trickle of inquiries for the month of October; you decide to put them all on a plan that "starts" October 1st, for instance). If we do that, it might handle your request...

  At any rate, we're discussing things along these lines.

• 0
  
  Jeremiah Miller September 07, 2010 18:24

  I think the "Start date" option for a Communication plan would solve the issue for us.

  The only disadvantage is if we had some things that needed to take place based on the assign-to date, and other things that needed to trigger on a calendar date, we'd basically have to set up two plans and assign them both to the person -- one plan to take care of the immediate items, and one plan that started at a specific date. It would be convenient to include both types of scheduling in one plan, but if that doesn't happen, it's not impossible to work around.

• 0
  
  Brad Florence September 28, 2012 15:44

  Has there been any more progress on this situation of setting specific days for activities to happen? 

• 2
  
  Christal Fehr October 04, 2012 14:03

  I love the idea of being able to put in specific dates rather than number of days to an event. In our situation, I'm not sure the start date option would do the trick, though. I use the Communication plans a lot for registration reminders. As a student gets accepted, I assign a plan that I want to start right away, but certain events of that plan (mostly to-dos for myself related to registration), I would love to be able to assign a specific day to, so I get all the reminders for each student on one day.

• 0
  
  Tim Spitzke December 20, 2012 00:48

  Brendan,

  I really like your solution and comment, "letting users edit the "start date" of a Communications plan (say, you get a steady trickle of inquiries for the month of October; you decide to put them all on a plan that "starts" October 1st, for instance)."  That almost describes our situation to a "t". So yeah I'm all for the start date solution.

• 1
  
  Connor O'Farrell April 09, 2019 18:00

  I'd like to revive this request- it would be EXTREMELY helpful to be able to set the start or end date for a communication plan. For example, we'd like to have a communication plan to remind faculty over the summer about preparing their course pages, but as faculty are hired on different dates throughout the summer, the current setup of communication plans leaves them getting deadline reminders at different dates (sometimes after the deadline has already passed). If we could set the start date for the launch of the plan, or set static dates for when different communications within the plan are sent out, that would solve this challenge!

• 2
  
  Dee McOwen March 17, 2021 16:31

  My situation is very much like Christal's listed above. Please seriously consider allow us to choose a specific date for action items in a Communication plan.

• 0
  
  Becky Impellizzeri August 05, 2021 15:39

  I second the request from Dee and Christal to allow us to choose specific dates, but the ability to edit the start date of the plan is a decent solution for the time being.  

   

• 1
  
  Jenn Lundy June 24, 2022 13:48

   Specific dates rather than number of days to an event would be very helpful in creating an annual cycle of communications. Please consider making this an option! Thanks!