Email Settings

Email Options

At the top of the Email Settings page, Administrators and Managers have the option to turn on or off the automated email that the system generates to Faculty Advisors upon initial student submission.

Upon unchecking the box under Email Options, Vireo will no longer automatically send an email to a student’s Faculty Advisor each time a student makes an initial submission of his/her thesis or dissertation.

Email Templates

Managers and Administrators can create e-mail templates for use in communicating with student submitters and faculty chairs/advisors. Some institutions have also used the template tool as a way to log actions taken (or needing to be taken) with the ETD through the Add Comment feature.

The Email Templates tool is found in the Vireo Admin Interface under Settings => Email Settings.

VIEWING AND MANAGING EMAIL TEMPLATES

Email Templates are found under Email Settings. A number of pre-populated “SYSTEM” email templates are included with any Vireo installation. These are emails sent automatically by Vireo when certain actions are taken in the system.

The “Verify Email Address” and “New User Registration” system emails may not be visible in Vireo installations that use single-sign-on authentication (such as Shibboleth).

Two automated emails are triggered when a student completes his/her initial submission: the “Initial Submission” email and the “Advisor Review Request” email.

Email templates marked with the word “SYSTEM” cannot be deleted or renamed. The templates can be edited, however.

To view or edit the content of an email template, click on the template title and the list will expand to show the full text of the template. Below you will see the full text of the “Initial Submission” email template.

You can edit the subject line or message text of a SYSTEM template. Elements of the template that are in all caps and surrounded by {} brackets are template variables. These variables will be replaced by the appropriate values from the student’s record when the email is generated and sent by the system.

CREATING A NEW EMAIL TEMPLATE

To create a new template, click ADD NEW. This will open the form shown below.

Enter the title of the email (which is not shown to students), as well as the subject and body of the email. Use the Template Variables to embed custom fields within the email, which will be replaced by the appropriate values from the student’s record when the email is generated and sent by the system.

Click ADD EMAIL TEMPLATE to create the new template.

You can also re-order the list of Email Templates by dragging and dropping the template names.

TEMPLATE VARIABLES

If you wish, you can use the Template Variables to embed custom fields within the e-mail (such as the student’s name of the ETD title). The Template Variables are listed below and on the Email Settings page within Vireo.

To include Template variables, add the variable name between two curly brackets. The variable name will be replaced with the associated value.

For instance, in John Doe’s ETD record, the template text

Dear {FIRST_NAME} {LAST_NAME},

would become

Dear John Doe,

when the email is actually sent.

USING EMAIL TEMPLATES TO ADD COMMENTS TO THE ACTION LOG

Some institutions use the email template feature to create standardized comments that can be added to the Action Log and which appear in the List tab as the “Last Event” taken with an ETD. Such templates are not used to send actual emails, but might say simply “Approval Form Needed” or “Corrections returned by student.” These standardized comments could be used in conjunction with the Custom Action checklist to monitor and track actions that must be taken outside the Vireo system (such as the signing and returning of forms).

An Example:

Let’s say one step in your thesis office’s workflow is the requirement that students pay a fee before the thesis is moves forward in the review process. This task has been added to the Custom Action checklist. An email template with the following elements has also been created:

Subject and Title: Needs fee
Body: Ready for review – needs fee

When an ETD reaches the part of your workflow where you’re waiting on the fee before sending the thesis for review, you can go to the record, click ADD COMMENT in the Action Log and select the email template NEEDS FEE. Be sure that the “email the student” and “CC student’s advisor” checkboxes are unchecked.

Click SAVE, and the comment “Ready for review – needs fee” will become the most recent action/comment appearing in the Action Log.

This comment (“Ready for review – needs fee”) will also appear in the List tab in the Last Event column. Administrative users can thus sort by these standardized comment to find theses requiring a certain action.