In this article, we’ll explain what the Course Encouragement Automation is, how to customize it if you want, and how to set it for use in a portal. 

The Course Encourage Automation template is a system wide template that you can easily publish for use in your portal with no customization needed. Once published for a portal, this automation will be triggered by any portal member who begins a session of any course, leaves the session, and then does not progress any more in the session for 7 days. 

To publish the course abandonment automation, enter the admin website:

• Go to the Settings section
• Enter the Portal Management module
• Choose the portal you want to set up the automation for
• Click on “Automations” from the CONTENT section of the menu on the left side

Here, you can view the table that lists all automations in the portal. From here, click the CREATE button above the table’s top-right corner. Now you are viewing the automation template.

1. Click on the tile title "Course Progression Encouragement".
2. Click on the Start From Template button.

Reviewing and Customizing the Automation

You are now in the Automation editor where you can review the settings for the automation and the content. The template is set up with the following configurations:

• It is triggered by a member starting a session of any course.
• Encouragement email is sent if the member has not completed the most recent session within a week.
• Trigger is stopped and no email is sent if the member finishes the session within 7 days.

The automation contains one email with the following text:

Subject line: Keep progressing in your course!

It's been about a week since you've started the most recent session in your course and we just wanted to make sure you didn't forget. 

The course is most effective when it's taken consistently without too much time passing between visits, so when you can, put a little time aside and continue!

If these settings are to your satisfaction, then you don't need to do anything other than save and publish:

Once published, the automation is active in the portal and it will send the email communication to any member who begins a session of ANY course but fails to complete the session within 7 days. 

If you want to make any adjustments to the automation—like changing the message content or adding more messages to the automation in case members don't respond to the first one—continue reading this article...

Customizing the Automation

To edit basic automation settings like the title, the keywords, or the description, you can click on the gear icon in the upper left corner to open the editor on the right.

1. Click on the gear icon;
2. Click on the top field called Admin Facing Description.

In the admin facing description options, you can edit the title, the description, keywords, and the image associated with the automation (these fields are particularly important if you are creating a portal template).

Setting the Automations Components

The template is set to include one email that is sent 7 days after a member begins a session and does not complete it. If you want, you can edit the message, change the timing of the message, or add another message that is sent after the first one. Since our goal here is to urge someone to continue with a course session they’ve already started, we’ll send them an email communication to remind them to continue with the session they’ve started but not yet completed.

In this example below, we're adding another message 10 days after a session is started but not completed. With this newly added message, a member will receive the first message one week after beginning a session and then, if they still have not completed it, they'll receive another message three days later:

1. Click on "Add Day" beneath the first component.
2. Click inside the tile that appears.
3. Choose the timing for this component (we're setting it at 10 days in this example).

Now we will set the email component by dragging the “Send an Email” component from the left into the builder field:

To create the content of the message, click in the tile and put your message into the editor on the right:

Now we’ve created an automation that:

1. Is triggered when a member begins a session.
2. Stops when someone completes the session.
3. Sends an email reminder after 7 days of starting, but not completing, a session.
4. Sends another email reminder 3 days after the first if the session has still not been completed.

Keep in mind that you can set more communications after the initial one, if you want. For instance, if you want to send a second reminder email, you can add one for 15 days that would be sent one week after the first one (but if the first reminder works, and the member resumes the course and completes the session, the second email will not be sent).

Before going, click on Save Draft and Publish in the upper-right corner and the Automation will be in use for the portal.