Overview
This article is an FAQ overview of our Acknowledgements Tool.
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I have transactions that have received a receipt, but the checkbox is not selected that indicates it is Acknowledged. What does this mean?
By default, all donors who give and have an email address on their profile will receive a receipt. The only time they would not receive a receipt is if you have disabled successful transaction emails from within the campaign edit screen or if they do not have an email address associated with their account.
Acknowledgements are different than receipts, in that they have to be manually created and sent out through the Acknowledgements tool. This feature gives you the ability to send an additional letter via email or traditional mail to the donor based on activities filters. Once a letter is sent from the Acknowledgements menu, the donors activities are marked as Acknowledged. You are also able to individually mark and also bulk edit activities to mark them as Acknowledged from the activities page.
If we use the acknowledgement tool to send a thank you email to a donor, and we see on a donor record that there was a soft bounce, does Kindful continue to try to send that email or is there just one attempt?
The email will only be attempted once in this scenario. If it is a soft bounce, this message would not be attempted again automatically; you must take further action to resend it. However, a bounce will not prevent Kindful from trying to send other messages to that donor again in the future.
There is a filter on the Activities page to see all bounce activities. That filter is "Mailing Status: Mailing Bounced".
How can I preview an email that will be sent?
From the Acknowledgements page, if you click on the Preview & Send Email button in the Actions column, you can see a preview of one email that will be sent. You can only see one preview, so use this to confirm your letter looks good with tags and content. You can click on the Send button if you like it, and it will send to all of the contacts that are on the email list. You can click on the Back button to revisit the Acknowledgements page, and use options to update the template if preferred.
How can I tell if the Acknowledgements Tool has finished?
Initially, when you use the Rebuild List functionality on the Acknowledgements tool, you will notice this alert along the top of the page:
While it is not an exact, defined time, there are many factors that play into this. You could be running a list that is looking further back than suggested in the tool (start of the prior month); you could have many transactions during this time frame, which may vary each time frame you are using this tool; or you may have not included any additional filters into the view, which help to narrow down the results. These factors are just a few possible reasons that the tool has varying completion times.
Most of the time, lists that fall into the appropriate criteria as outlined above will finish within about 15-20 minutes. There is no need to stay on the page while you wait, and you are free to navigate away and return. A quick check to see if it is completed is once you see a number value in the "Action Needed" column, refresh your internet browser 3-5 times. If you see no change in the number, the tool has likely finished.
Why will my Acknowledgement List not generate all activities?
You may find that some of your lists are showing the applicable transactions in the Edit List view, but when it comes time to create the mailing or send the email, not all contacts and activities are present. There are a handful of things to consider when looking for transactions and their eligibility to match your lists:
- Is the activity also matched to another list?
- If so, click on Edit List to update your Lists so that each list looks at unique activities. When this is done, click on Rebuild List on each of the edited lists for the changes to take effect.
- Was the gift entered in a way that matches the Acknowledgement List parameters?
- If not, head to the Activities page to locate and edit the transaction.
- Has the transaction been marked as acknowledged?
- If the checkbox has been selected, the transaction will not be able to match to your Acknowledgement List.
How Can I Prevent This From Happening?
The most ideal path when using this tool is to create your Acknowledgement Lists prior to entering any donations into Kindful. However, that is not always possible, and with the many integrations we offer, it is likely you will have transactions syncing into Kindful. By nature of the tool, when transactions are imported into the system (Import Tool, Integrations, etc.), they will not match to an existing list.
You should expect to use the Rebuild List feature when using the Acknowledgements List tool.
Are Acknowledgments different from transaction receipts?
Kindful has the ability to send automatic transaction receipts when a donor gives to you online; you can also send these as you are entering in transactions manually by checking the box to send an email. Acknowledgements are another way to send out communication to your donors in response to an action they took (e.g. a donation). These differ from transaction receipts in that they are generated separately from the transaction receipt process (e.g. online donation or manual gift entry). These can also be used in conjunction with automatic receipts. A donation received online that was automatically receipted can also be matched to an acknowledgement list to have another action taken on it.
Can I use this tool to email a group of contacts?
The Acknowledgements filters look for Activities to take action on. While you can add in the filter of "In Group: "Group Name" to the filtered view, you still need to add parameters that isolate particular transactions. For example:
- Amount Greater Than:
- By Campaign:
- Successful Transaction: Yes
If you wish to email a Group of Contacts, it is best advised to use an email marketing integration tool that we offer like Mailchimp.
Can If the acknowledgement letter that was generated is incorrect, and I update the contact profile, how can I regenerate the acknowledgement letter?
If you are creating physical mailings via the Acknowledgements tool, you can head to Communication > Mailings to re-download the mailing previously created. Re-downloading here will give a fresh copy of the letter you created, adhering to any and all updates.
If you emailed the letter, you need to find the transaction and manually un-acknowledge the activity. Then, either create a new Acknowledgement List for this specific transaction, or use the Acknowledgements Tool to refresh your lists so the activity becomes eligible to be emailed again.
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