IT Service Desk

It is now possible to set up repeatable email templates in Cx. This guidance will give you an overview of the Cx Configuration and step-by-step guidance in how to create an email template in Cx.

The ability to email via Cx has a number of benefits:

The introduction of the existing email functionality in Cx will standardise the email wording, approved by comms, as per LiveWest tone of voice, offering a consistent service to our customers.

Other benefits include:

•    Non-Cashable Efficiencies gained in not copying and pasting, or mistyping, an email from Cx to outlook, or accidently copying other parties into an email. The Cx email template has dedicated recipient rules to ensure the email is sent to the correct parties. Such as only those responsible for a tenancy and not the wider household members.

•    Non-Cashable Efficiencies gained in not typing out the email content. Cx Data can be pulled into the email template the same way as it is currently pulled into the letter templates, by using data from existing fields, or text/datetime/integer/decimal/drop-down parameters, increasing the data accuracy of emails.

•    Integration with the records centre, as per the Communication Definition template. Thereby increased compliance with SARs and elimination of manual uploads of email communications to the records centre or gaps in our data where the manual upload is missed.

•    EDM Communication record visible to everyone on the Communications tab of Cx. Improved working across our different business functions.

Limitations:

•    We are unable to track if the customer has opened the email or if the email has soft bounced, such as having a temporary delivery issue where a customer’s mailbox is full.

•    The Calibri font is not available in the Cx email templates and Civica have said this will not be added. The Comms team have confirmed we can use Arial font instead.

•    There are times when it is in LiveWest interests to post letter communications to customers as well as emails, such as communications on processes which may be escalated to enforcement/compliance, where letters are more favourably received by third parties in legal action proceedings. For this reason, Enforcement requires letters to have been sent to our customers, prior to their involvement, and will look for evidence of letters generated, before accepting a case. However, emailing as well as sending a letter, if email is our customer’s preferred method of contact, allows us to honour that request and we hope that information will be delivered in a timelier manner.

There are a number of pre-requisite steps that must be followed into order to complete the change request.

Pre-requisite steps:

Process:

In order to qualify for a Cx Email change request teams must be reviewing contact details, contact preferences, vulnerabilities and alerts before they are emailing customers as part of their process.

First of all arrange a MS teams meeting to run through their process to check they qualify. Check the process library for a process map you can update. If there isn't one create one for the team.

Check how the business plan to communicate with customers who do not want to be communicated with by email.

Always consider the volume of emails being sent and the internal resources in the team to support this.

Depending on the requirements you need to create a letter and email template on the same Cx Communication Definition. Please review the guidance on letters.

Repeatable Template:

The email being sent to customers must be a repeatable template. You can reduce the need to manually type information by adding Cx fields or parameters.

Cx Email Accounts

There are two email accounts which can be used in Cx to send the emails. One for teams who do not want to handle replies and one for teams that do.

We should always encourage users to handle replies as this is a more positive user experience.

(There are some processes which by exception we have purposely created a level of friction in the user experience, such as the health and safety repairs no access process where we want to limit the opportunity for jobs to be continually rebooked and a health and safety concern becoming a problem. For this process we are not handling email replies.)

Content:

The email wording must be signed off by our Communications team before going live.

The email must include a group mailbox to handle replies and a telephone hunt group number.

The email must be in Arial font as there is no Calibri option.

Integrations:

The email template must be configured for the LiveWest record centre.

The email template must be fully tested to both internal and external email address so you experience what the customer will receive.

Cx Email Technical Configuration:

Cx uses an SMTP Server and an SMTP Server account to send emails. There is already an account which is used to email some repairs/maintenance jobs to contractors. We decided to create a separate account for Customer emails to maintain clear communication channels, keeping business interactions organised and distinct from personal communications.

In consultation with comms and Max Bell, Cyber Security Engineer, we agreed the best approach would be to have two email accounts set up for this process. One which makes it clear to the customer they can reply ([email protected]) and one which makes it clears to the customer they should not reply ([email protected]) and the call to action is to phone-in or make changes to a repair appointment on the portal, to meet business requirements. Max Bell has made sure that any email sent from the new accounts will have a disclaimer message, for any external/non-LiveWest email recipients.

To set this up we created two new Email accounts in the Communication Configuration Menu:

'LiveWest exchange server' and 'LiveWest exchange server no reply'

In the Communications Queues menu we set up two email queues which point at the different accounts mentioned above. 'Customer Email - Immediate' and 'Customer Email Replies Accepted - Immediate.'

Cx Email Communication Definitions:

1. Open the Cx Test environment.

2. Type 'Comm' in the top right-hand-side Quick menu and click on 'Communication definitions' within the Configuration menu items.

3. When the communication definitions screen loads, you will find list of existing communications on the left-hand-side menu.

4. To save time, you can clone an existing email, to retain the relevant settings for that area of the business.

5. To search for a email to clone, search for the business area to filter results in the left-hand-side menu. Newer communications are prefixed with business area name, e.g. PS for Property Services, AM for Asset Management etc.

6. Click on the email you wish clone, in the right-hand-side menu, and the details will load on the page. [Ideally you would have an existing blank template available.]

7. Check that the Module and Entity field are showing the correct information, this is where the email will be available to users in Cx. Also the Recipient Type is relevant to the Module you have selected.

8. Click on Clone Communication.

9. Give your new communication a unique Title. Please do not special characters in the document name as this conflicts with the record centre integration. However, hyphens '-' are acceptable. All new communications are to be prefixed with business area name, e.g. PS for Property Services, AM for Asset Management etc.

10. If there is a Type menu to select from, leave as 'All' selected, unless the requester has specified.

11. If the requester wants the letter to appear in the Ad-Hoc menu in Cx, ensure that the Ad Hoc Allowed setting has been ticked.

12. Ensure the EDM setting is ticked, if the entity already exists in SharePoint, to ensure details are shared with SharePoint.

13. Update the Effective From Date to todays date.

14. Click on Save. Its good practice to save the cloned settings at this point to prevent downstream errors.

15. To add in any required Parameters, click on New Parameter. If a Parameter is not required move onto step 23.

16. Add the Parameter name with no spaces. Choose a name which describes the question/prompt well to the team who will be generating the emails E.G. The Heating Installation team wants to add the heating installation options to their email so we added a Parameter titled 'HeatingInstallationOptions.'

17. Add the Parameter description.

18. Parameter order will default to 0. If you have multiple Parameters to add you may wish to order them, by assigning an order number to them, in the same order they are required in the letter. If you have one Parameter leave as it is.

19. Select the appropriate Data Type, in most cases this would be Text.

20. If you wish to make the Parameter non-mandatory, to allow the generators of the letters to save draft letters without this information, make sure the mandatory box is not ticked. 

21. Tick the include as an additional tag tick box to allow you to add this new parameter to your email template.

22. Click Save and check that you can see the new parameter you have just created.

23. To check the email settings, navigate to Templates and highlight the Template. Settings will appear on the right-hand-side of the page.

24. Check that the Default Queue field has ''Customer Email - Immediate' or 'Customer Email Replies Accepted - Immediate.' depending on what the business needs are. This puts the email in the correct queue to be sent to SharePoint.

25. If email is your only template check the Default Template field is ticked. However if you are adding an email template to an existing letter communication definition, the letter should be the default template.

Check Queue Override Allowed field is ticked.

26.If you are adding an email template to an existing letter communication definition, there is an option to add the letter as an email attachment in the 'Email attachment' field.

27. Ensure HTML format is ticked.

28. If the business is accepting email replies add '[email protected]' in the 'Sender email address' and in the 'Reply to email address' add the group mailbox. If the business is not accepting email replied add '[email protected]' in the 'Sender email address' and in the 'Reply to email address' add the '[email protected]' email address.

29. Select 'Email' in the letterhead template.

30. Ensure the email template is highlighted and click on the 'Edit Template Content' button. Your content must be approved by our communications team.

31. Enter your email template content ensuring you use the arial font in Normal mode and size 12.

32. Add any parameters by typing '@(P.' followed by the parameter name and ')' E.G @(P.HeatingInstallationOptions)

33. Once you have finished adding the template content in Cx Test its best practice to test this and send the email to your account as the spacing it displays in the template editor is not quite as it is once emailed, especially if you are using a table in your email. Keep testing until you are happy with the spacing, parameters are working, and wording.

34. Best practice would be to demo the email to the business users who will be unfamiliar in how to generate an email in Cx, and ask them to test the new email. The business may need support guidance.

35. Once the business are happy and have agreed a go live date, you can add the template to Cx Live with a future date. To copy the email content between systems, once you have set up the comm definition in Live, in Test edit the template content, click on Source, CTRL+A to select all, CTRL+C to copy, change the live template to source mode and then CTRLl+V to paste the content into the Live template. Then turn source mode off in both Live and Test.