How to Send a Broadcast Mailing

Broadcast mailings provide an efficient way to send physical mail to an entire association or portfolio of associations. This action item is ideal for important community communications that require a physical document, such as annual meeting notices, policy updates, or official notifications that homeowners may need for their records.

Broadcast mailings are generation-type action items, which means when created at the association level, they generate individual action items on each homeowner account with unique action item numbers. This process ensures proper tracking and allows you to monitor delivery and responses effectively.

Important: When you use broadcast mailings for the first time, make sure your Broadcast Mailing action type has been properly configured. Contact your system administrator if you need assistance with setup.

Contents

• Create a Broadcast Mailing
• Review and Send Broadcast Mailings
• Multiple Association Broadcast Mailings
• Track Broadcast Mailing Status
• View Previously Sent Broadcast Mailings

Create a Broadcast Mailing

To create a broadcast mailing action item:

1. Navigate to Association > Action Items or Action Items > All Action Items.
2. Click New Action Item.
   The Action Item screen opens.
   
   
    
3. Provide the following information:
   • Association: Make sure the correct association is selected. If not already selected, click Select to choose the association.
   • Action Type: Select Broadcast Mailing.
   • Current Step: Will begin at: 1 – Attach Document.
   • Subject: Enter a subject for the mailing. Required if your letter template uses this field.
   • Description: Enter a description, this content will appear on the physical mailing.
   • Attachments: Expand this section and click Select files to attach documents, ensuring that the attachment selected is in PDF format. All attachments will be included in the physical mailing sent to homeowners. You can also attach Documents and Reports.
4. When complete, you can:
   • Click Update and Select to immediately review and send your mailing.
   • Click Update to save the broadcast mailing for later review or for someone else to review and send.

Review and Send Broadcast Mailings

After creating your broadcast mailing, it moves to a review step where you can verify the content before sending:

1. Review the message content and any attachments in the action item.
2. When ready to send, click the Step button to move the action item to the Broadcast step.
3. The generation process will begin, creating individual mailing action items for each homeowner in the association.
4. When the generation completes, the mailings will be sent to the Print Queue for processing.

Note: The generation creates one letter per homeowner mailing address, not per property. If a homeowner owns multiple properties but has only one mailing address, they will receive only one letter.

Multiple Association Broadcast Mailings

To send the same broadcast mailing to multiple associations:

1. Navigate to Association > Association List.
2. Select the desired associations by selecting the checkboxes.
3. Click Bulk Action Item.
   The Bulk Action Item screen opens.
   
   
    
4. Provide the following information:
5. Action Type: Select Broadcast Mailing.
6. Enter the message content in the Description field and add any attachments.
7. Click Update.
8. The broadcast mailing action items will move to the Review step for each association.
9. To bulk step multiple broadcast mailings simultaneously:
   • Navigate to Action Items > All Action Items
   • Make sure All Associations is selected at the top of the screen.
   • Filter your search by Broadcast Mailing or by the subject/description you used.
   • Ensure your items per page setting covers all action items you want to bulk step.
   • Click Select All
   • Click Bulk Step.
     The Bulk Step screen opens.
     
     
      
   • Next Step: Select the Broadcast step.
   • Click Update.

Track Broadcast Mailing Status

After sending broadcast mailings, you can monitor their status by:

1. Navigate to Action Items > All Action Items.
2. Select your association or all associations.
3. Click Include Closed to view completed mailings.
4. Filter by Action Type: Broadcast Mailing to see all broadcast mailings.
5. Individual homeowner mailing action items will show on each homeowner's account, allowing you to track delivery and any responses.

View Previously Sent Broadcast Mailings

To see previously created broadcast mailing action items:

1. Navigate to Action Items > All Action Items.
   The All Action Items screen opens. 
   
   
    
2. Select your association or all associations.
3. Select Include Closed.
4. Filter the Type column to Broadcast Mailing.

This will display all broadcast mailing action items created for the selected associations, including their current status and completion information.

Note: If your broadcast mailing includes both email and physical mail options, ensure the appropriate child action items are configured with the correct notification settings for each delivery method.

FAQ

Q: My Broadcast Mailing action item did not auto step to a closing step. Why?

A: There are a few things to investigate when encountering this situation.

Validate the Step Configuration

First, confirm that the step is correctly configured. Go to Settings > Action Types/Steps, locate the action type in question, and click the caret ( ▶) to the left of the Category to view its steps. Find the step in question and click Rules. On the Edit Rules window, ensure Rule Configuration is selected on the left, then locate the Step Duration section and confirm that Auto Step is toggled on.

If the closing step is not the next numerical step in the action type, make sure it is entered in the Next Step if Yes field.

Check for Recent Rule Changes

If the step is already configured correctly, the rule may have been set up correctly after the action item was created. To check this, go to System > Activity Notes and enter the step name in the Comment/Note field to filter activity notes for that step. The Note Time column will show when each change was made — compare this timestamp against when the action item was created to determine if the rule change occurred afterward.

If so, note that rule changes only apply to action items created after the change was saved and will not apply retroactively to existing action items.