Collect additional data through Group mailing

Event organizers may want to collect additional data about the accepted sessions and speakers. While this can certainly be done by contacting every speaker or session owner individually, Sessionize offers a versatile Group mailing page designed to help you request data from multiple eligible session owners and/or speakers at once.

The options are ultimately limitless, but here are some common scenarios when you might find collecting data through the Group mailing page particularly useful:

• Ask speakers and session owners to fill out the missing information from the submission and additional fields
• Ask speakers for their flight numbers and other travel details
• Ask speakers to upload their presentation

Create a new group mailing

To create a group mailing, visit the Group mailing page and click New mailing. Note that you can create as many group mailings as you want, with each serving a separate purpose and coming with its own dedicated report.

Set up your group mailing for collecting additional data

To collect additional data from your accepted session speakers, owners, or both, select the To collect additional data about sessions and/or speakers option from the Goal dropdown menu. Then choose if you want to collect data about sessions, speakers, or both, by selecting the appropriate option in the Collect data about dropdown menu.

Your choice will determine who's going to receive your message: session speakers, session owners, or both. The list of recipients is always visible on the right side of the page, where you can manually select or deselect them, and filter by session status and category, as well as speaker category. If you decide to use both the session and speaker category filters, keep in mind that only the results that match both criteria will be displayed. 

When filtering the recipients by status, there are several limitations to consider:

• You can't send a group message to speakers whose session has been declined
• After the event, you can only send group messages to speakers whose sessions have been accepted. Sending group messages to speakers with other session statuses (Declined, Nominated, Accept Queue, Decline Queue) isn't possible

Selecting the data you want to collect comes down to picking the desired fields from the Add a field menu and clicking Add. You can choose any number of existing session and speaker fields, as defined on the Edit event page, and you can even create new ones without leaving the Group mailing page.

After selecting the fields you want to gather data for, write the message. Make sure to include the {BUTTON_TO_FORM} variable, as it will become the Open Form button in the actual message, as pictured above. Speakers will use this button to access the form and fill out the data you requested.

Finish sending the group message by clicking the Send emails button at the bottom of the page.

This is what speakers will see after they click the Open Form button in your email. All they need to do is fill out and submit the data you requested.

Create a group mailing for selected sessions or speakers

In addition to creating a group mailing on the Group mailing page using filters, you can also do so by directly selecting the speakers you wish to contact or the sessions associated with them.

New group mailing by selecting sessions

Visit the Sessions page and check the boxes next to the sessions whose speakers you want to include in the group mailing. As a reminder, declined sessions cannot be included, and if your event has ended, only accepted sessions can be added. After you've made your selection, click the blue Send emails box.

You'll see a list of sessions included in the group mailing, along with warnings for any sessions that can't be included, if applicable. To start the group mailing, click the green Create new group mailing button. Any ineligible sessions will be automatically excluded. From there, the mailing creation process follows the same steps as described above - the only difference is that the recipients have already been selected.

New group mailing by selecting speakers

Visit the Speakers page, and check the boxes next to the speakers you want to include in your group mailing. Then click the blue Send emails box. The rest of the procedure is exactly the same as described above. 

Add speakers or sessions to an existing group mailing

To add speakers to an existing group mailing - either directly or through their sessions - go to your event's Speakers or Sessions page, select the desired speakers or sessions, and click the blue Send emails button.

Choose the group mailing you want to add the selected sessions/speakers to from the dropdown menu and confirm by using the green Add to the existing group mailing button.

Check reports

Every group mailing message includes a report that can be accessed through the appropriate button on the Group mailing page or when viewing a particular group mailing message.

These reports keep you up to date with the most important aspects of your group messages, including:

• Who opened the data collection form (and when)
• Who submitted the data you requested (and when)
• Who has yet to fill out the forms, and how many of them

Real-life example: Use group mailing to collect presentations

Group mailing has an endless number of possibilities and potential uses. We'll give you an example of how you can utilize it to collect the presentations from your speakers and easily distribute them to the technical staff at your event.

1. Create a new group mailing message
2. Set the Goal to To collect additional data about sessions and/or speakers
3. Select the Sessions (messages will be sent to session owners that can manage a session) from the Collect data about menu
4. Under Data to be collected, select *Create new session field, name it “Session presentation” (or similarly), and select File upload from the field type dropdown menu. If such field already exists, simply select it from the list
5. Write your message, remembering to include the {BUTTON_TO_FORM} variable
6. Check and select/deselect message recipients, assuming you don't want to send the message to all eligible (accepted) speakers and/or session owners
7. Click Send emails

This is the form your speakers will see after they click on the Open Form button in the email they'll receive from you. They simply have to select or drop a presentation file to upload and click Submit.

Mass-download all presentations

But wait, there's more! As a special treat for our users, we have the option to mass-download all presentations collected through the additional file upload field you created when setting up the aforementioned group message. Instead of downloading them one by one, visit the Export page, look for the field you created, and click the appropriate download button. We'll neatly pack the presentations in a ZIP file that you can hand over to your technical staff.