Moving from Paper Yahrzeit Letters to Yahrzeit Emails

When a shul moves its office operations to ShulCloud, important functions become easier and more efficient. Case in point: the production of yahrzeit letters. Timely yahrzeit data is (almost) magically pulled from the cloud and letters (almost) magically come out of the printer. But what if you could save paper, ink, envelopes, labels, postage and time, plus make it simple for those observing yahrzeits soon to donate to the shul in memory of their loved ones? You can, by sending yahrzeit emails from ShulCloud instead. This article will help you make the transition.

Prepare Your Lifecycle Mailing Lists

Just as a letter recipient must be subscribed to receive Lifecycle paper mailings and must have a valid postal address, so must an email recipient be subscribed to receive Lifecycle emails and have a valid email address. Therefore, in addition to setting up your yahrzeit email template (the main objective here), there is likely some member data maintenance for you to do as well.

Create Your Email Yahrzeit Template

Because traditional yahrzeit paper letters are printed on or with simulated letterhead, most shuls will want to use the Mail Builder feature of ShulCloud to make a great looking HTML yahrzeit email. So, transitioning from Word letter to Mail Builder emails is covered here.

Access Your Existing Word Letter Template

If you have a yahrzeit letter Word template set up already, you can borrow its content to hit the ground running. Here is how you can download it:

1. Go to Admin Menu >> My Lists
2. Choose Word Templates from the Administer dropdown
3. Select the desired yahrzeit Word template from the list
4. Click the link under the template's Name to download the Word template file
5. Open it and print a copy for reference later in this process

Start Up Mail Builder

At this time, the way to manage Mail Builder templates is to fire up and move through the Mail feature:

1. Go to Admin Menu >> Mail
2. Choose Create New Mail (top right, above the list of past mailings)
3. In Step 1, select Email as the mode, Lifecycles as the mailing list, and Yahrzeit as the Lifecycle Type; next choose a date range that you know will contain recipients, then choose Continue
4. In Step 2, choose ADD ALL SUBSCRIBERS, then choose Continue (you need at least one recipient in order to generate a test email)
5. In Step 3, choose Mail Builder as the Type of Email, enter your email address as the Override Email field in the Testing Options section, then choose Continue (this way you can proofread the emails and not risk sending them to recipients prematurely)
6. In Step 4, fill in the fields shown (as it will be needed for testing), then choose the LAUNCH MAILBUILDER button

Note: There is a link at the bottom of the page that walks you through the general process of sending yahrzeit emails (just not with Mail Builder)

Create and Save Your Mail Builder Yahrzeit Email Template

Time now to create your actual yahrzeit email template file that you will edit to suit your shul's needs:

1. Choose a Saved Template as the foundation of your yahrzeit email template, ideally one that already has your shul’s logo in its header and address and contact info it is footer (or one of the Starting Templates if not)
2. Choose Use Template
3. Choose Template >> Save As Template from the Mail Builder menu
4. Enter a Template Name and Choose Save Template

Note: Save early and often as you make changes. Use a different name so you can easily go back to an earlier version in need be. You can delete unwanted templates in the template gallery by clicking the X that appears in the upper right corner of each Saved Template. So, save often as you make progress with your template.

Enter Text and Tokens into Your Template

Time now to turn our attention to the substance of your yahrzeit email template. Here is where the content of your Word yahrzeit letter template comes in handy.

Note: if you are not that familiar with Mail Builder, there is a link at the bottom of the page to general information about how to use it.

1. Highlight and delete any existing text from the main text block of your template (or drag and drop a new text block if necessary
2. Highlight and copy to your computer’s clipboard the main text of your Word template, if available
3. Paste the Word template text, if available, into your email template (note that formatting like bold will not transfer into Mail Builder)

A Word template uses Word merge fields while a Mail Builder template uses tokens as placeholders for data specific to the recipient. Therefore, the next phase in this process is to update your email template text with Mail Builder tokens. The token names, in most cases, are not the same as the Word merge fields. Do the best to translate from one naming system to the other (the names are all descriptive) and consult with your Rabbi as needed (a final rabbinic review is strongly recommended if you have any concerns).

Here is how to insert a Mail Builder token:

1. Click into a text block so the editor toolbar appears
   
2. Choose Tokens from the toolbar and make a selection from the dropdown, then choose OK

TIP: If you have Word merge fields in your email template text, you can highlight it before choosing a token. Doing so will replace the selected text with the token.

Tokens are arranged in the dropdown into groups such as Lifecycle Dates, Yahrzeit, and Recipient. You might find it helpful to browse that list before diving in to gain some familiarity with what is available and how things are named.

As you craft the text of your yahrzeit email template, keep these three things in mind:

• At this time, tokens for the recipient’s mailing address are not available, so that aspect of your printed letter cannot be duplicated in your email message
• Long-form dates must be constructed from their individual elements, such a day name, month name, day, and year (see example below)
• Tokens appear in a bold courier (typewriter) font with a yellow background but will share the same formatting as the surrounding text when your emails are generated (see example below)

Sample Letter Elements

While a printed letter might normally have a date at the top, followed by the recipient's address and perhaps a subject line, for an email you will normally start at the salutation. So your first step will likely be to replace (or insert if starting the text content from scratch) the Word merge field [merge.first_name] with the Mail Builder token first_name.

Tip: The token nickname will use the recipient’s nickname if available or the recipient’s first name if not.

Here is an example of what the body of your email like look like in the Mail Builder editor.

Notice how long-form dates need to be spelled out in multiple tokens. So if you want your Shabbat observance date in the form like Friday, March 20, 2020, you need to insert the four tokens shown above that follow "Shabbat evening service on." While that may look daunting, it does give you tremendous flexibility in how the dates are displayed. Just be sure to triple check your work, as you want to absolutely sure that you are providing your recipients with accurate information.

Tip: Tokens in the editor do not show formatting, like bold or italics. However, you can check your formatting by using the Preview menu item (to the right of Template). While it does not preview merged data (a cleaner form of tokens is shown), it does show you whether you have things bolded, for example, the way you want them. Here is a preview of the above example that shows that the dates are bolded:

 

Asking for Donations

In many communities, it is customary to suggest that the recipient make a donation to the shul in the memory of their loved one. If your shul accepts online payments via ShulCloud, you can make it quick and easy for the recipient to make such a donation. Just link to your Donate page or special form/page that your shul has created for donations. The link could be a text link your message or a button that you drag and drop onto your email template from the Blocks tab of Mail Builder.

Test Your Template

Here is how to test out your template:

1. Choose DONE (upper right corner of the Mail Builder screen) to exit Mail Builder and return to Step 4
2. Choose Continue twice to reach Step 6
3. In Step 6, scroll down to the bottom, enter your email in the Test Email Address box, then choose SEND TEST EMAIL

 

Tip: if you have not received an email after a few minutes, check that in Step 2 you have at least one recipient added.

Check your Inbox. If you need to make changes, return to Step 4, launch Mail Builder, make your changes, and, you guessed, Save as Template!