Email invitations are messages sent to your contacts containing a link to your questionnaire and are fully customizable. You can schedule an email invitation or you can trigger it by using an API. A Pointerpro API allows users and 3rd-party applications to access Pointerpro resources programmatically. This API conforms to REST principles.
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An Application Programming Interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, that offers a service to other pieces of software.
This guide will teach you:
- Default vs API-triggered email invitation
- Create your contacts
- Setup an email invitation
- Add reminders
- Use an API to trigger the invitation
1. Default vs API-triggered email invitation
The default email invitation is time-based, meaning that the emails are set to be sent at a specific future time. To send these emails to your contacts, you must first create a contact list in Pointerpro. Once the email is sent, it cannot be reused; you must create a new email invitation for subsequent use.
The API-triggered emails allow you to send identical email invitations repeatedly through an API call. In this scenario, there's no requirement to set a specific date for scheduling your emails or reminders. Instead, you can activate an API trigger by choosing an event, and your email invitation will automatically be sent to your contacts. Note that first, you would need to create the contacts in Pointerpro.
2. Create your contacts
The first step is to create your contacts in Pointerpro. You can do it manually, upload them from a CSV, or create them via an API.
3. Setup an email invitation
To create your invite, click on the avatar icon at the right-hand top corner of the screen, and then click Email invitations at the drop-down menu.
Click the button Create Email to get started.
Now a box will pop up listing all of your questionnaires. Click on the questionnaire for which you would like to create the invite.
Then click Add Email.
A new pop-up window opens, where you should select the API trigger option. If you would like to schedule the email, you can find additional information here.
After clicking on the API trigger option, the following screen opens.
To build your message, you need to add all the information required.
- Title: you can use the name of your questionnaire or choose any title you want. This will also be the title of the template. If you are creating a few templates, make sure that your titles are clear so you will be able to differentiate between them later.
- Sender name: you can use your own name or the company name.
- Sender address: type the address you want to use to send the messages.
- Subject: Make it catchy! It should be compelling enough to make people want to click and open the questionnaire.
- Body: This is the text of your message. You can make it more exciting by formatting your text (read about the rich text editor icons and learn how to change the color, alignment, add emojis, and more) and personalize it with invite variables. These variables are essential if you want to track which contacts have responded.
When you are sending email invitations via API, the system uses by default the admin's account. However, Team members don't have access to the admin's contacts, and therefore the contact won’t be attached to the response.
In order for the Team members to be able to see the contacts in the responses, they have to be added to the same user group.
Make sure you add the variable that includes your survey link, so you can invite your respondents to complete the survey. Click here to read how to do that.
4. Add reminders
It's so much easier to set up your reminder now compared to trying to remember in the midst of data collection to reach out to those who haven't participated yet. At the bottom of the page, click Add Reminder.
Most options are the same as for the initial setup. You'll see an extra option, to choose from the drop-down menu what should trigger the reminder.
You can add as many reminders as you wish. Just click Add a reminder and repeat the same steps. Now don't forget to save all your hard work.
Once your work is saved, the button "Copy unique identifier" will appear. You will need this button later on to trigger the email invitation.
5. Use an API to trigger the invitation
To trigger the email invitation by using an API call, the IT department of your company would have to set up the necessary API integration and configuration. They can find additional information here:
https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/184445/UV5dfFca#84ef5f8d-ee8a-49d6-b598-74fb22988c50
To use APIs, it is necessary to possess the Client secret and Client ID. Please contact support@pointerpro.com and they will provide you with these credentials.
Alternatively, you can set this up with Make.
5.1 Create an HTTP module for the Authentication
5.2 Create an HTTP module to trigger the email invitation
5.1 Create an HTTP module for the Authentication
After logging into Make, click on "Create a new scenario." Create your first module by clicking the "+" button.
Next, search for the HTTP module and select it from the list.
A new list will appear; choose "Make a request" from the options.
Configure the module settings following the images provided below.
For security reasons, every organization has a unique client ID and secret. Please contact support@pointerpro.com and ask for the Client secret and Client ID.
5.2 Create an HTTP module to trigger the email invitation
Click on the "+" button to add another module to your scenario.
Select "HTTP" from the new window that appears.
In the opened list, choose "Make a request."
In the URL field, paste the API for the email invitation, which you can find here:
https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/184445/UV5dfFca#0627175f-7bcc-488d-8b08-a1aaa7b0ff4b.
Notice the {respondentEmail} variable.
Now, return to your email invitation, and click on the "Copy unique identifier" button to copy the unique identifier.
Go back to Make and replace the {respondentEmail} variable with the value you just copied. Create headers exactly like shown in the image below.
In the value field of the second header link the access_token from the previous step.
The final step is to configure the body. In the "Request content" field, paste the following text and replace the UID_X with the unique IDs of the contacts you want to send this email invitation to.
{
"respondents": [
"UID_1",
"UID_2",
"UID_3",
"UID_4"
]
}You can find the unique ID of your contacts in the Contacts tab.
If you have many contacts, you can download them in Excel to copy all the unique IDs more quickly.
This is how your Request content should look like.
After finishing the configuration, you should test if your scenario is working and your contacts receive an email invitation.
While you're testing your setup, it's a good idea to create a contact using your own details and use this Unique ID in Make. Once you've confirmed everything is working smoothly, you can then add the Unique IDs of your other contacts.
What's next?
- Email templates: This feature allows you to send emails to your respondents based on their selected answers or a quiz/survey score. This is a great way to keep your respondents engaged. Email templates are so useful because each email can be customized according to each respondent's answers or score using editor variables.
- PDF Scheduler: The reports sent out by the scheduler are aggregate reports with all data totaled, as opposed to personalized reports with just one set of information. You can use a PDF scheduler if you want to send a PDF report to specified contacts on a regular basis, send team members a weekly report, etc.
- Email notifications: When you want to receive a notification every time the survey is completed, you can turn on Email notifications. Enter your email address and the email addresses of colleagues who need to receive the emails as well.