Templates
Under the “Templates” tab, you can create email and/or SMS Templates. You can use these templates to communicate important information (login links, election codes, reminders) to your voters. You may create as many templates, both email and SMS, as needed for your election.
When you click on “Templates” in the left-hand side menu, you will see an overview of all created templates. Here, you can also search for any existing templates by using the filter option.
*Go to Create a templateand Send out campaigns: individual and massfor the how-to guides on creating and sending templates.
Create new Templates by clicking on the “+” button and choosing your desired format: SMS or Email.
You will then be able to configure and personalize your template with the following configurations:
Name: This is the internal name which will only be displayed to you and other users of the system.
Locale: This allows you to choose the template’s language. This feature will only be used for translating auto-generated buttons and texts in the template. Make sure to provide any further translations.
Subject: This field is only available for the Email templates. Here, you can write the subject of the email which will be seen by voters.
Message: This is where you write the content of your template. Here, you can also use “Injectable voter attributes” to pre-fill information unique to voters or the event.
Injectable voter attributes: See the section on Injectable voter attributes for a more detailed explanation of these.
Estimated size: This field is only available for the SMS templates. It shows the estimated number of parts into which the SMS will be divided and then sent. The actual number depends on the injectable attributes and will possibly be larger. If this amount exceeds the maximum, the rest of the message will be truncated.
*Note 1: This value will only be visible once the template is created and saved.
*Note 2: When using SMS, you will pay per message. As such, if the SMS is estimated to be 4, you will pay the equivalent of 4 messages per single SMS template which is sent out via the system. We advise you to make SMS templates as short as possible.
You can find examples of SMS (1) and email (2) templates below.
(1)
(2)
When you are done with the template, you can save the changes by clicking “Create template” in the lower left or delete the template via the “Cancel” button.
The injectable voter attributes you find in the email/SMS templates are the same attributes found in the voter data. This means that Electa will substitute the inject key for the voter's name ( %{name} ) with the corresponding voter’s name when sending out an email/SMS.
*Note that the number of usable attributes depends on the voter information you upload to Electa. For example, should you leave the “phone number” section blank under “voter data,” the attribute will appear blank when the voter receives the message.
Login link and Standalone link: These will insert the links which will bring the voter to the login page to access an election event. The login link is for Live Conference Voting elections and the Standalone Link is for Scheduled Voting elections. Be aware that if you select an election code in the “Prefill link” on the Configuration page of the election event, this will be included in the link in the email/SMS and the specified code will be prefilled on the login page.
Automatic login link and Auto Standalone Link: These links automatically bring your voter into the election event without having to login first. The login link is for Live Conference Voting elections and the Auto Standalone Link is for Scheduled Voting elections.
Election Codes 1, 2, and 3: This attribute provides your voters with the election code(s) you specified when configuring your election. If you have not configured all of the 3 election codes, any non-configured attributes will appear blank to the voter.
You should only use the number of attributes you are sure you set up or for which you have data. Additionally, if you have uploaded public keys to your voter data set instead of unencrypted election codes, you will not be able to send the voters the election codes which are based on public keys. This is because Electa does not know the values behind public keys.
Sign up link: This link directs the voter to the sign up page where they can specify whether or not they are participating in the election. This link will be available in “Templates” if the “Sign up” feature is enabled in the Configuration - read more here.
Custom link: This allows you to create a button to redirect voters to an external link. The button will use the theme color you set when initially configuring the election.
Identifier, Name, Email, Mobile number, and Weight: These show data related to your voter, including their name, email address, mobile number, and voting weight, along with the voter identifier (which will be explained in the next section).