The Broadcast Mailing action type enables management companies to send physical mailings to entire communities without creating individual action items. This feature works like Broadcast Emails but uses paper correspondence. This action type creates a parent action item at the Association level that generates individual child action items for each homeowner, ensuring responses are properly tracked to the correct accounts.

Contents

• How Generation Action Items Work
• Required Setup
• Generation Action Type (Parent)
  • Required Generation Action Steps
• Create a Standard Action Type (Child)
  • Required Child Action Step
• (Optional) Multiple Notification Methods
• Best Practices
• Troubleshooting

How Generation Action Items Work

Generation action items use a single action item created at the Association level to generate child action items at the homeowner level. Each child action item receives a unique reference number (XN), ensuring responses are tracked to the correct homeowner account.

When creating a Generation action type:

• Generation = Who receives the content
• Child = How they receive the content

Required Setup

To create a Broadcast Mailing action type, you must create both a Generation action type (Parent) and a Standard action type (Child).

Make sure to review the Best Practices section before you start.

Important: This article outlines the minimal required setup for this action item to function correctly. Contact Vantaca Support for additional changes and configuration needs.

Create a Generation Action Type (Parent)

To create a generation action type, configure the following basic settings:

1. Navigate to Settings > Action Types/Steps.
2. Click New Action Type.
   The Create Action Type screen opens.
   
   
    
3. Provide the following information:
   • Category: Select Generations. The Category determines what Additional Actions are available.
   • Action Type: Enter a descriptive name for this action type (e.g., Broadcast Mailing).
   • Send To: This determines what roles can create this action item, who can be added to the Send/Reply fields, and who can view it on the All Action Items screen. Recommended minimum: Admins, Closings, Managers, Customer Support, and Note.
   • Administrator Role: Not required.
   • Action Type Requirement: Select Require Association and/or Owner.
   • Block Creation: Leave deselected so the parent can generate while keeping children action types blocked.
   • Enable No Email Alerts: Select to reduce unnecessary Failed To Send - No Email notifications. Previously, these sent automatically whenever email delivery failed due to missing recipient email addresses (for example, when a role has no associated email address). These notifications are now disabled by default for all action types and you can enable them as wanted.
4. Click Create.
   The new Generation action Ttype shows in the Action Types list.

Required Generation Action Steps

After you create your Generation action type, you need to add steps to it. 

1. Click the caret ()beside the new action type to open it.
2. Click Add New Step.
   A blank line appears where you can add a step.
   
   
    
3. Use the Basic Settings for each step (in the following sections), and click Update to create each one.
4. Click Rules beside each step that includes additional items, add them in the Edit Rules screen as necessary, and click Update. 
   
   
   
    

The Generation action type requires the following steps in this order:

1. Attach the Document
2. Review (Optional)
3. Send the Document to Homeowners
4. Cancelled (Optional)
5. Complete
6. Generation Failed
7. Void

1. Attach the Document

This step handles document attachment and generation. A letter template or report is required and PDFs must be manually attached during this step. 

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Attach Document.
• Send To: Not required.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Leave blank (No).

Important: You must add a letter template or report to this step when it occurs.

Click Rules and add these additional items to this step:

• Duration to Remain at this Step: Leave blank as the action item will automatically move after the Additional Action is completed.
• Combine Attachments: Select the checkbox (Yes). This is a critical setting.
• Additional Action: Select Generate Homeowner Documents.
• Next Step if Yes: Select either the Send to Print Queue step or the optional Review step. If this step is successful, the action type will move to the step selected here.
• Next Step if No: Select Generation Failed. If this step is unsuccessful, the action type will move to the step selected here.

2. Review (optional)

Use this step if you want to have another role review the mailing before sending it to the print queue, and then the entire community. This is an optional step.

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Review.
• Send To: Select the role responsible for reviewing (must also be a default follower of the action type). For example, Manager.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Leave blank (No).

Click Rules and add these additional items to this step:

• Combine Attachments: Select the checkbox (Yes).
• Decision Required: Select Management Co Decision. This provides the reviewer with an Approve or Decline option to make it easy for them to send the item through or send back to the creator.
• Next Step if Yes: Select Send to Print Queue. This is the step that will create the child XNs.
• Next Step if No: Select your Cancelled step. This will send it back to the creator.

3. Send the Document to Homeowners

This step creates the child action item and then moves to Complete if successful. The Additional Action is very important for this step.

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Send to Print Queue.
• Send To: Not required.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Leave blank (No).

Click Rules and add these additional items to this step:

• Duration to Remain at this Step: 0 (automatically moves to closing step).
• Additional Action: Select Send to Homeowners. This will pull the attachments from the prior step into the Child action item that is created.
• Create Action Item: Select your Child action type to create the child action item.
• Next Step if Yes: Select Complete.

4. Cancelled (Optional)

Use if implementing a Review step to handle rejected mailings. This is an optional step.

If you chose to use a Review step, and for some reason this action item should not go to the community, it is helpful to have a Cancelled step. This allows the reviewer to put a note as to why this shouldn't be sent, and return it to the action item creator so that they can fix errors and then create a new Broadcast Mailing. 

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Cancelled.
• Send To: Select a role that typically creates this action item (e.g., Manger).
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Leave blank (No).

5. Complete

Standard closing step for successful completions.

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Complete.
• Send To: Not required.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Select the checkbox (Yes).

6. Generation Failed

If the documents fail to generate for homeowners, this step allows the creator to retry.

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Generation Failed.
• Send To: Select a role that typically creates this action item.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Leave blank (No).

7. Void

Best practice step for closed but not completed items.

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Void.
• Send To: Not required.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Select the checkbox (Yes).

Create a Standard Action Type (Child)

To set up a child action item that sends the generated letter to homeowners, follow the same steps as the Generation action type procedure, but use the following settings:

• Category: Select Standard. The Category determines what Additional Actions are available.
• Action Type: Enter a descriptive name to make it easy to find these items later. (e.g., Homeowner Mail).
• Send To: Select roles that can create this action item and view it on the All Action Items screen. Recommended minimum: Homeowner, Admins, Closings, Managers, Customer Support, Note.
• Administrator Role: Not required.
• Action Type Requirement: Select Require Association and/or Owner.
• Block Creation: Select the checkbox (Yes). This is standard for child action types.

Required Child Action Step

Add this step to the child action type to process the mailing without additional attachments. Follow the instructions in the Required Action Steps procedure, but use the following settings:

Important: Do not attach a letter template to this step of the Child action type as it will cause generation errors and prevent letters from reaching the print queue. Letter templates should only be attached to the first step of the Generation action type.

Basic Settings:

• Action Step: Enter Letter Sent.
• Send To: Select Homeowner.
• Reply To: Not required.
• Closing Step: Select the checkbox (Yes).

Click Rules and add these additional items to this step:

• Mail Format: Select Mailing Address Only (generates one letter per owner, not per property).
• Notifications: Select Paper.
• Hide from Portal: Select the checkbox (Yes). This is optional, and prevents homeowners from clicking Reply.

Owner Response Steps

Include Owner Response steps in child action items when notification methods include email. These steps reopen closed action items and route responses to appropriate roles. Paper-only mailings typically do not require response steps unless sending from a monitored email address.

(Optional) Multiple Notification Methods

You can create multiple sending options by adding additional child action items with different notification settings:

1. Paper Only: Notifications set to Paper.
2. Email and Paper: Notifications set to both methods.
3. Email or Paper: Separate child action items for each method.

To implement:

1. Create additional child action items with the appropriate notification settings.
2. Add corresponding Send steps in the Generation action type.
3. Each step uses Send to Homeowners as the Additional Action.
4. Select the appropriate child action item in the Create Action Item field.

Note: For email notifications, ensure the child action item includes an email template and an Owner Response step to handle replies.

Best Practices

This section outlines the best practices for setting up a Broadcast mailing action type.

Setup Requirements

• The first step of the Generation action item must have Combine Attachments selected.
• A cover letter or report must be added to the first step (not optional).
• All attachments, letter templates, and reports must be configured on the first step.
• Child action types should always have Block Creation set to Yes.
   

Generation Behavior

• The generation automatically advances to the next step after completion.
• Leave Duration To Remain At This Step blank on the generation step.
• Generations create one letter per homeowner mailing address, not per property.
• Merged owners with multiple properties but one mailing address receive only one letter.

Merge Tags Limitations

Only the following merge tags work with Generation action items:

• Homeowner level merge tags
• Association level merge tags
• Company level merge tags

Note: Property level merge tags (Account Number, Portal Key, Additional Info, Balance) will not populate correctly.

Troubleshooting

If the number of properties differs from the number of items in the print queue, this is expected behavior. The generation creates items by owner and mailing address count, not property count.

For All Addresses mailings, create a Standard action item and use bulk homeowner action item creation instead. See the "How to Create Action Items from the Homeowner or Association List Pages" article.