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Messages FAQ

Q1: I sent my Message. Why haven't I received it yet?

When you send a Message, it goes into a queue under a Ready to Send status. A routine runs every one to five minutes to check if there are any new Messages to send and, if so, sends them out and changes the message status to Sent. The recipient's carrier may have a small delay to deliver the email. In the end, it could take a few minutes for your intended recipient to receive your email. If it takes longer than that, notify your SPoC.

Q2: Can I change the font and size of the text in a Message?

The New Message Tool automatically uses a 10-12pt font and a Sans Serif font. Right now, the only way to override this is to edit the Message's HTML. To edit the HTML, click the HTML Source button and edit the direct HTML. See HTML Fields.

Q3: I just sent a Message to the wrong person. What is the best way to stop a Message once it is in the queue?

If you catch this before your server sends it (that is, the Message has a status of Ready to Send), you can stop it. Go to Communications > Messages, select the incorrect Messages, and then select the Assign tool to update the selected records to have a status of Draft. If the Message already has a status of Sent, you can't retract it.

Q4: How can I resend a previously sent Message?

Copy the Message record (the Message, not the Recipient, and do not copy any Sub-Page data) and change the Status to Draft. From the Home page, click the My Messages tab, select the Draft view, and open the Message. Search for and select the Recipients (or use the pick list), and then click Send.

Q5: What is SendGrid?

SendGrid is a transactional email service that you can use to send your system's email Messages. We recommend you use SendGrid. See SendGrid for more details.

Q6: I use Mandrill, but Messages are not reaching recipients. Why?

Mandrill logs delivered and rejected emails. Log in to Mandrill, and click Outbound to view your email log. Then, click Dashboard. There, you can see if you used all of your free sends and, most importantly, if there are "backlogged" emails. If so, your emails are not reaching your recipients.

Q7: When I paste from Word into the New Message Tool, the email sometimes looks different than in Word. Why is that?

When you paste from Word, the New Message Tool strips out any Microsoft Outlook (MSO) formatting. This prevents odd or blank messages if your recipient email provider does not support MSO formatting. Instead of building your emails in the New Message Tool, try the Template Editor Tool.

Q8: We created an email in MailChimp and then tried copying and pasting the HTML code into a MinistryPlatform Message, but errors display when we try to send. What is happening?

The HTML you paste into the MinistryPlatform Message contains several "tokens" that it can't resolve. Essentially, wherever MinistryPlatform sees brackets ([ ]) it looks for something to replace, like [Nickname]. The HTML includes these brackets that don't make sense to the system. A prompt displays to review these tokens. We recommend you remove them, but you can click Send Anyway.

Q9: Why would an email stay in the Draft status?

If the email sends from a step in a Process, the User assigned to the From field on the Message must have at least read rights to any merged fields in the email. If the User does not have read rights, MinistryPlatform can't send the Message and it remains in Draft status.

Q10: Can you automatically include an email signature in the New Message Tool?

There is not an automatic signature feature in the New Message Tool. However, here are a couple ideas from other churches on how to include signatures (though not automatically, at least a little easier for users):

  • Save the signature as an image online, and then use the Insert Image button in the New Message Tool to add your personal signature URL so it displays at the bottom of your emails.
  • ​Create a generic signature Snippet. To do so, go to Communications > Communication Snippets, and create a new Snippet with a general signature so you can select the Snippet and type in your name or title.
Q11: What is the difference between the Messages page and the All Recipients page?

The Message page is the single Message you created and sent to one or more recipients. The Message page contains the body of the Message and details about how you sent the Message.

Note: Any Snippets in the Message body display as tokens, or placeholders, because they include recipient unique merge fields. The All Recipients page displays information related to each individual Message sent (one record per recipient). This page does not include rendered tokens for a specific individual for security.
Q12: Are automatic emails sent from the Portal logged on the Messages and All Recipients pages?

Emails automatically sent by the Portal (for example, making a Pledge, registering for an Event, and so on) always send to the recipient. However, the Messages and All Recipient pages only record Messages (and recipients) of logged in Users when they completed the action. Users who didn't log in when they completed the action do not have a record of the email sent in MinistryPlatform.

Q13: What does it mean that a Message has been "archived?"

MinistryPlatform archives Messages over six months old based on the Action Status Time, or date and time. To see your Archived Messages, go to the Home page, click the My Messages tab, and select the Archived view.

Q14: What email sender do you recommend?

It is important to use an email provider that can handle bulk emails. We highly recommend you use SendGrid.

Q15: Can I include videos in my Messages?

Yes. For best results, insert a placeholder thumbnail image with a play button superimposed in the email and link it to the video site. Many email clients do not support playing embedded videos, so this method ensures a smoother viewing process for recipients.

Q16: Can I send a Message to Participants of multiple Groups at once?

Yes, you can do this with the New Message Tool. For more information, see Message Recipients.

Q17: How do I modify a scheduled Message?
  1. ​Go to Communications > Messages, and open your scheduled Message.
  2. Change the status to Draft.
  3. Go to your Home page, click the My Messages tab, and open your Draft.
  4. Select your Recipients.
  5. Make any necessary changes to the content.
  6. When you're ready, click Send.

If you modify only the Message body on a Message marked Ready to Send, this doesn't update the Recipient Messages that you already rendered. You must modify the status and then you can use the Tool to make any necessary changes.

Q18: How do I add additional Recipients to a selection of Group Participants?

You may need to add additional individuals to a selection of Recipients. For example, you need to send an email to Participants in a Group, but you also want to add a few additional Participants who are not in the Group. While you can create a basic selection of Recipients in Select Message Recipients, you can't add additional records outside of the Page > Sub-Page selection. Instead, create your selection first and then launch the New Message Tool:

  1. Open the Group.
  2. On the Participants tab, select the Participants and transfer them to the Contacts or Participants page.
  3. Open the Contact or Participants page.
  4. Select the records for the additional Recipients.
  5. Use the Transfer Selection Tool to add that selection to the selection you created.
  6. Launch the New Message Tool.
  7. In the Select Message Recipients window, go to the Contacts or Participants page and select the selection.
Q19: My message sent, but some recipient emails are truncated. They are missing part of the email body. What went wrong?

This can happen from malformed markup in the HTML of the body (for example, you don't nest tags or close them properly). HTML rendering agents are all different and handle malformed HTML differently. Even if a Message looks correct in a browser, the email provider may not handle the malformed items the same way.

One way to correct the HTML is to paste the text into a plain text editor to remove any HTML markup, then recreate the HTML markup in the Message. Follow these steps for any text you need to recreate (this does not work well for headers, footers, or images):

  1. Cut the text from the email.
  2. Paste it into a plain text editor (not a word processor).
  3. Copy the text from the text editor.
  4. Paste it back into the Message.
  5. Add any formatting using the MinistryPlatform HTML editor.
Q20: How can I see the Message content a Recipient will receive? The Message body only shows the merge field tokens.

Yes, this is for storage and security purposes. When you look at the Message record, you see the Template or verbiage in the Body field. In the Sub-Page, you see who received the Message and when it sent. Due to security reasons regarding personal information, you can no longer see the subject and body in MinistryPlatform, but it contains the merged data instead of the tokens.