How do I create a mailing with Oracle B2C Service Outreach?

Environment:

Oracle RightNow Outreach Cloud Service

Resolution:

Once you have enabled and initially configured Oracle B2C Service Outreach for use on your site, you can begin creating your mailing. For more information on enabling Oracle B2C Service Outreach and configuring it for use, refer to Answer ID 1866: Getting Started with Oracle RightNow Outreach. 

To access Oracle B2C Service manuals and documentation online, refer to the Documentation for Oracle B2C Service Products.

You can create two types of mailings:

• Broadcast -- this type of mailing is sent to an audience you specify at a time that you choose.
   
• Transactional -- this type of mailing is triggered by an event. The email is sent when a specific action that you define occurs, such as an event in a marketing campaign or when a rule is matched.

To create a new mailing, from the navigation bar, select New > Mailing. You can also click the Mailings navigation button and open the Mailings Explorer and click New from the explorer toolbar.

The new mailing defaults to be a broadcast mailing. To change the mailing to be a transactional mailing, from the Summary tab, click the Change link next to the Mailing Method and click Transactional in the pop-up window.

• Mailing tabs: When you create a new mailing, the tabs in the mailing record allow you to configure and review different aspects of your mailing.  Note: When creating a mailing from existing content, documents you have created will not be listed in the Choose Document window unless the Approve for Email box is checked on the Summary tab of the document.
   
• Summary: Allows staff to view the high-level features associated with the mailing, including who the mailing is assigned, what type it is, and notes, tasks, and attachments associated with the mailing.
   
• Audience: Allows you to define who can receive your mailing. For transactional mailings, the audience is defined by the trigger event.  However, you can define an audience to exclude from receiving the transactional mailing.
   
  In addition, you also define the frequency and recency of communication to your contacts as well as whether to honor the global opt-in and external suppression lists.
   
• Message: This is where you define the subject line of the email to be sent along with the content, including snippets (blocks of reusable content), links, or merge fields. 
  
  NOTE: When choosing existing content, you have the option to 'Copy' or 'Share' selected content.  
  
  Copy - To make modifications to the mailing without affecting the source document.  
  
  Share - To have edits reflected in all instances where the document is referenced.
  
   
•  Proofing:  Allows you to send proof messages to select recipients for review and approval.  You can only send proof messages if the Message tab has a subject defined and has content added for the message. 
• • Notes: 
  • • When a Proof is sent, although you can step through an entire campaign as if it was live, any fields to be updated for example, custom opt-in fields, or form fields, will not get updated.  Such updates happen only when running a live mailing/campaign. 
    • The data for Surveys/Mailings filled out in proof mode will be available for 7 days, after which will be purged from the question_sessions table by the agedatabase utility. The 7 days setting is not configurable.
      
       
• Delivery: Once the mailing has been proofed, you can launch the mailing. For broadcast mailings, you can schedule when to send it and how many to send within a time frame.
   
  For transactional mailings, you must launch the mailing before it can be used in a campaign or rule. 
  
  After a mailing has been launched, you can use the Suspend button to temporarily halt the mailing or you can use the Cancel Mailing button to permanently disable the mailing from being sent.  Once a mailing has been launched, it cannot be modified or re-sent.  A copy of the mailing would need to be created in such a case.
   
• Results: For mailings that have been launched, use the Results tab to view statistics associated specifically to that mailing such as delivery statistics, tracked link, and click-through activity.

The overall process for creating and sending a mailing is listed below:

1. Initial Planning: Determine the purpose of the email to be sent out and identify basic content and audience to whom it will be sent.
    
2. Create Document: In the Document Console, create your document, including necessary file attachments and tracked links. 
    
3. Create the Audience: In the Audience Console, create the audience to whom your email will be sent. For more information on creating audience segments and lists in Oracle B2C Service Outreach, refer to Answer ID 1954: Creating a contact list or a segment for a mailing or survey.
    
4. Mail the Document: Using the Outbound Email (Mailing) Console, define the specific details regarding the email to be sent out, including formatting and dates.