Send Mass Notification sends one email, one text message, or both to every customer contact that matches the filters you choose. Use it for outage and maintenance notices, billing reminders, or announcements to a group of customers.
Build 26.10.05 adds two things: you can now send to Archived customers, and there is a new Device Sub Children filter. Read the warning under Device Sub Children before using it.
Accounts > Communication > Send Mass Notification
Both permissions are under Customer → Information:
| Permission | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
| Send Mass Email | To open the page and send notifications. Needs Edit access. |
| Archived Customer Information | Adds Archived to the Status filter, so you can send to archived customers. |
Text messages also need the Twilio integration turned on. See Twilio and Twilio Send Mass SMS.
Under Send To, pick a category, pick an item, and click Add. Repeat for each item you want. Your choices are listed under Recipients, grouped by category.
Powercode joins items in the same category with OR, and different categories with AND. For example, a status of Active, a status of Delinquent and a service of Fast Internet reaches customers who are Active or Delinquent, and have Fast Internet.
| Category | Who it matches |
|---|---|
| Status | Customers with that status. Archived only appears if you have Archived Customer Information. |
| Service | Customers who have that service. |
| Customer Group | Customers in that customer group. |
| Network Site | Customers whose equipment's parent device is at that network site. Only Active and Delinquent customers are included, unless Archived is one of your Status choices. |
| Network Site Group | The same as Network Site, for every site in the group. |
| IP Address Range | Customers with equipment in that IP address range. |
| Children of Equipment | Customers whose equipment sits directly under the chosen device, as its parent or secondary parent. Devices are grouped by network site. |
| Customer Tags | Customers with that tag. |
| Balance | All Customers with a Balance. |
| Amount Due | All Customers with an Amount Due. |
| Amount Past Due | All Customers with an Amount Past Due. |
| BMU | Customers with equipment on that BMU. |
| Device Status | Customers with equipment that is currently Good, Warning, Bad or Down. Equipment with paging suppressed or no status check is skipped, and so is equipment on a BMU that is not Good. |
| Device Sub Children | New in 26.10.05. See Device Sub Children below. |
New in 26.10.05. If you have the Archived Customer Information permission, Archived appears in the Status category. Add it to include archived customers, for example to tell former customers about a new service. Combine it with other filters, such as a customer tag or an uploaded customer ID list, to reach only the archived customers you want.
When Archived is one of your Status choices, the Network Site rule that limits recipients to Active and Delinquent customers no longer applies. Your Status choices decide who is included.
New in 26.10.05. This category lists every device that has other equipment under it, shown as (#ID) - Name. It matches customers whose equipment has the chosen device as its parent or secondary parent. It looks one level down only: customers further down the equipment tree are not included.
Device Sub Children is not applied when you send (build 26.10.05). The contact count, the Export list and the Send Notification to N Contacts button all respect it, but the notification that is actually sent ignores it. It goes to everyone who matches your other filters, or to every customer if Device Sub Children is your only filter. Use Children of Equipment instead.
Upload a CSV of customer IDs and Powercode will add them to the mass communication contact list. The category filters will apply to that list as well. Any positive integers in the file will be considered a customer ID and will be included in the email list if the customer ID exists. All text will be ignored.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Email Attachment | Attaches a file to every email. |
| Schedule | Tick it and choose a date and time in Sends At to send the notification later instead of right away. |
| Calendar Event | Tick it and fill in Event Name, Starts At and Ends At to attach a calendar invitation (.ics file) to the email. All three are needed. |
| Send List-Unsubscribe headers | Adds List-Unsubscribe headers to each email. |
| Attach Latest Invoice | Attaches each customer's latest invoice to their email. |
If the Site Ticket belongs to a scheduled site maintenance, a calendar invitation for the maintenance window is attached to the email automatically.
| Symptom | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| You must select at least one category item to send to. | Nothing is chosen under Send To and no customer ID list is uploaded. |
| Archived is not in the Status list | You do not have the Archived Customer Information permission. |
| SMS and Both are missing from Notification Type | The Twilio integration is turned off. |
| The Upload Customer IDs CSV field is missing | Notification Type is set to SMS. Choose Email or Both. |
| A customer you expected is not counted | None of their contacts can receive this type of notification (see Who receives it), they are archived and Archived is not one of your Status choices, or they are not Active or Delinquent and you used a Network Site filter. |
| More customers got the notification than the button showed | Device Sub Children was one of your filters. See the warning under Device Sub Children. |