Workbooks & GatorMail for Transactional Emails

The Workbooks plugin for GatorMail transactional emails lets you use Workbooks reports as triggers to send automated email series through GatorMail. This is a custom integration that sits alongside the standard functionality available here.

This can be especially useful for scenarios like:

• Subscription Renewal Reminders e.g. 1 month before renewal, 1 week before, on the day and then once a subscription has expired (if a customer has not renewed before the expiration date)
• Invoice Payment Reminders e.g. Payment Due, Payment Overdue, Payment X days overdue etc.
• Training Course Reminders & Follow Up Emails e.g. Thanks for booking, 1 week before reminder, the day after (thanks for attending)

After an email is sent, you can configure the automation to update a record in Workbooks allowing you to track which emails have been delivered. The triggers and updated fields can be used in combination, allowing you to create a workflow of email communication.

This guide details how to install the Plugin and walks through each step explaining the options that are available on each page.

To make setup quicker, have the following details ready before you start:

• Your Gator login email
• Your Gator password
• Your Gator Secret & Client name
• Enable the “DeDupe Audience” Setting on your GatorMail instance.

• Your GatorMail instance name (found in Your Account under Instance Name)
• A supported GatorMail email domain (found under Tools > System Defaults, in the Sender E-Mail Address (MAIL-FROM) dropdown — this may differ from your usual work domain)
• A configured email in GatorMail (this must be a GatorMail Creative, not an email template) created before you set up the process in Workbooks

• A Workbooks Report that identifies which records should receive an email. At a minimum, include:
  • Primary contact details  such as: Person Id, Person Name, Person Email Address. You may need to create a DLI custom field to capture this (see here for more details)
• Any fields you want to use as merge fields in your email (for example, Renewal Date or Renewal Price)
• The Id and Lock Version of the record you want to update after sending the email (both are available when adding columns to a report)
• A calculated column that outputs the value to write back to the record after the email is sent. For example, you could update a record with “1st Reminder Sent” after sending an email, using a report formula based on your process.

You’ll add more columns to the report as you work through this guide

To get started, install the ‘Gator Transactional Emails’ plugin in your Workbooks database. A Workbooks System Administrator will need to do this.

Go to Start > Configuration > Automation > Plugins, then select Add Plugin. Choose ‘Gator Transactional Emails’ from the Script Library and select Install to add it to your Workbooks instance.

This is a short two-step installation wizard. On the first page, click Continue. Once successfully installed, you will see a success page. You can then close the plugin and the configuration window.

Now the plugin is installed, you can configure the integration to suit your needs. If you haven’t already, close and reopen the Configuration landing page.

Then go to Start > Configuration > Other Integrations, where you’ll see a new option called Gator Transactional Emails.

Step 1.

Select an existing process from the list (this shows scheduled processes that use the GatorMail integration only), or create a new one by selecting ‘New Gator Setup’, then select Continue.

Step 2.

This page lets you configure your GatorMail automation process. All settings are required and must be completed for the integration to work. Options 13–17 are only shown if you select Yes in setting 12 (recommended).

Step 3.

This step lets you map fields from your Workbooks Report to a GatorMail creative, so data can be included in the emails sent to the primary contact.
This uses Gator Merge fields in your campaign (not contact merge fields).

There are two limitations to be aware of:

• You’re unable to have more than 10 Merge fields in an Email
• You cannot use Merge field data in Dynamic Content

Select ‘Add New’ to create a mapping, then choose the Report column you want to sync and the corresponding Merge field. Once added, you can edit or delete a mapping using the options in the ‘Actions’ column.

Step 4.

You can configure a GatorMail campaign directly from the Workbooks plugin.
Select Add New, then enter the required details:

Step 5.

This page shows the result of your GatorMail campaign setup. If the campaign is created successfully, you can select ‘Copy to Clipboard’ to copy an example formula. This includes key details such as the GatorMail campaign name and campaign ID.

The automation uses the campaign ID to send emails via GatorMail when it runs.

If any errors occur, they’ll be shown clearly at the top of the page in red. Where possible, you’ll also see links to help troubleshoot the issue. If you’re still having problems after reviewing these, please raise a Case with Workbooks Support via the Case Portal and one of our Support Analysts will investigate further for you.