Communications Manager

Migrating content from one term to the next

Migrate bulletins, surveys, emails, and texts from a previous coach into your current coach to save yourself some set-up time. 

• First choose the term from which you want to migrate. 

• Then choose which individual item(s) to bring forward.

Adding a bulletin 

• Title: Enter a title for your bulletin. The limit is 40 characters. The title must be unique within this coach.

• Subtitle: Enter a subtitle for your bulletin. The limit is 40 characters.

• Description (optional): Enter a description of your bulletin that will appear on the bulletin board and when the bulletin is featured on the coach homepage.

• Image (optional): Choose a thumbnail to go with your bulletin. The default image is a postage stamp with the ECoach whistle logo.

• MTS document: Choose which MTS document to associate with your ECoach bulletin.

• Source:  Choose the source associated with your course.

• Logic: 

  • • If you want to tailor who sees this bulletin, add logic in this box, such as 123 in MessageViewed or GradeConfidence>5 or BegOfTerm=="Complete."  You can use the same kind of logic you'd use in MTS. 

    • If you want your bulletin to go to everyone, leave the logic box blank. 

• Set as Featured Bulletin: Checking this box will assign this bulletin to a priority space on the coach homepage.

• Connect to MTS Characteristic:  ECoach lets you tailor on whether a student has viewed a bulletin. Choose the MTS characteristic (e.g., "MessageViewed") that you'll assign this bulletin if you want to use it as a tailoring characteristic in other MTS documents. 

  • Note: You'll need to create and publish this characteristic in MTS before you can assign it in ECoach. 

  • Note: Make sure the characteristic has a type of "number no decimal" and "multiple response." 

Adding an email 

• Subject: Type in your email's subject line. The limit is 60 characters.

• Email illustration: Choose a topic from the dropdown menu to preview it's related illustration. The illustration you choose will appear at the top of your email.

• Before text and After text: If you type text in either of these boxes, it'll appear either before or after the text contained in your MTS document. Example: "Correction: We had a mistake in our earlier message..."

• MTS Document: Choose the MTS document that holds this email's content.

• Source: Choose the source associated with your course.

• Logic: 

  • • If you want to tailor who gets this email, add logic in this box, such as 123 in MessageViewed or GradeConfidence>5 or BegOfTerm=="Complete."  You can use the same kind of logic you'd use in MTS. 

    • If you want your email to go to everyone, leave the logic box blank. 

• Connect to MTS characteristic: ECoach lets you tailor on whether a student has opened an email. Choose the MTS characteristic (e.g., "EmailViewed") that you'll assign this email if you want to use it as a tailoring characteristic in other MTS documents. 

  • Note: You'll need to create and publish this characteristic in MTS before you can assign it in ECoach. 

  • Note: Make sure the characteristic has a type of "number no decimal" and "multiple response." 

Adding a survey 

Note: Use a survey when you want to deliver a single, self-contained survey to your coach. Use a survey collection when you want to string together institution-level and/or course-level surveys.

• Title and Pitch: Set a title and pitch for your survey. Students may see the title, so use a cryptic title if you want to maintain blinded study arms. These appear at the top of the coach homepage to signal to the student that the survey is available.

• Delivery mode: Select either "survey" or "poll." The main difference between these two is how they are accessed by students. 

  • When a standard survey is published, it will show up near the top of the coach homepage under Action Items; students will click the "begin" button to take the survey.  

  • Once a poll is published, it will pop up automatically in a popup window for each student the next time they visit the coach homepage.

• MTS Document: Choose the MTS survey ECoach should deliver.

• Source: Choose the source associated with your course.

• Logic:

  • • If you want to tailor who sees this survey, add logic in this box, such as 123 in MessageViewed or GradeConfidence>5 or BegOfTerm=="Complete."  You can use the same kind of logic you'd use in MTS. 

    • If you want your survey to go to everyone, leave the logic box blank. 

• Set as an Access Survey: Choose this option if you want people to complete this survey before having access to anything else in ECoach. (Recommended for a beginning of term survey that asks a lot of your tailoring questions.)

• Connect to MTS characteristic: ECoach lets you tailor on whether a student has completed a survey and when a student completed a survey.

  • • Survey completed: Choose the MTS characteristic (e.g., "SurveyCompleteStatus") that you'll use for tailoring on whether or not a student has completed this survey.

    • Survey completion date: Choose the MTS characteristic (e.g., "SurveyCompleteDate") that you'll use for tailoring on the date when a student completed this survey.

      • Note: You'll need to create and publish these characteristics in MTS before you can assign them in ECoach. 

      • Note: Make sure the characteristics have a type of "number no decimal" and "multiple response." 

  • Set destination after survey: Choose where in ECoach you want students to land when they finish your survey.

Adding a survey collection 

Note: Use a survey collection when you want to string multiple surveys together. 

• Survey collection title and Pitch: See image below. Students will see the title, so use a cryptic title if you want to maintain blinded study arms.  These appear at the top of the coach homepage to signal to the student that the survey is available.

• Default source: If this collection includes any institution-level surveys, choose the source associated with your institution. If this collection will only include coach-level surveys, choose the source associated with your course.  

• Add surveys to this survey collection:

  • • Add new institution survey: These are institution-level surveys, delivered once to all students receiving the survey. 

    • Add new coach survey: These are course-level surveys, only delivered to students in a specific coach.

    • You can use logic to further specify who should see these surveys. See above for more information about logic, access surveys, and connecting to MTS characteristics. 

Adding a text message

You can write the content of your text message in one of two ways:

• • MTS document: Choose the MTS document that holds this text message's content. All formatting will be removed from the document. If you're delivering a website link, use the full URL, not a hyperlink.

  • Standard text:  Type what you want to text people in this box. If you choose an MTS document and write something in this field, the text in this field is what ECoach will deliver (and it'll ignore the MTS document).

• Logic: 

  • • If you want to specify who gets this text message, add logic in this box, such as 123 in MessageViewed or GradeConfidence>5 or BegOfTerm=="Complete."  You can use the same kind of logic you'd use in MTS. 

    • If you want your text to go to everyone in the coach, leave the logic box blank. 

Testing your tailored communications in ECoach

• Click on Review communications.

• Choose the MTS document you want to review. 

  • Note: MTS will update every 10 minutes (on :00), or you can sync the content yourself from the Communications Manager using Sync Now.

• Under Tailoring characteristics, change any values to see your tailored content change on the page.  

Tailoring on whether content has been read / completed

If you've set up a Source and Characteristic when you added your content in ECoach (see Adding a bulletin/email/survey above), you can tailor on whether someone has read it (or completed a survey), for example in to-do list items or other bulletins, emails, or surveys.

• Find the ID of the item you want to tailor on. You can find it in the Communications Manager. See the image below for an example.

• Add the logic in ECoach or MTS.

  • • In ECoach, you'll find logic fields in to-do list items, as well as when you add surveys, emails, or bulletins.

    • You can apply logic to any row in MTS.

    • In the logic field (in either location) type something like 612 in MessageViewed, where 612 is your content ID and MessageViewed is the name you gave your characteristic in the MTS dictionary.