Automated emails are the ability for Client Engager to create and send emails based on email templates at a time and frequency outlined by the user in the settings.

There is a recorded video walking you through this process and a step-by-step PDF guide

Automations in Engager.app are a powerful tool designed to help you manage routine tasks efficiently, allowing you to focus more on strategic activities within your accounting or bookkeeping practice. This guide will walk you through the basics of setting up and using automations, including practical examples and best practices to ensure you get the most out of this feature.

What Are Automations?

Automations are predefined tasks that Engager.app can execute on your behalf, reducing the need for manual intervention. These can range from sending routine emails to updating clients on their project status. By leveraging automations, you can ensure consistent communication, meet deadlines, and free up time for other important tasks.

Getting Started with Automations

How many hours a week do you think you spend manually sending emails to clients? Make this a thing of the past with our Global Auto Reminders

Head over to your Settings - Services - select relevant Service -  Global Auto Reminders - Set Up

When you select ‘New’ you will be available to start programming your automations. 

Top Tip - Whilst you’re getting used to us, we’d recommend putting the automated emails into a queue for you to review when ready, before being sent out to your clients. So when you’re onboarding and importing your client list, this is a great control so that you’re clients aren’t met with a barrage of unnecessary emails

So enabled ‘put in queue for review’

Now follow the flow, selecting your relevant template and who do you want the email to go to - the primary contact or all contacts?

When you select ‘Choose Template’ you’ll see your newly created template from earlier and you can even preview the template selected with the preview icon. 

In this example, we’re looking at Annual Accounts and your Year End process, so I want my template to go 9 months before the statutory YE filing deadline, so I’ll enter 9 months for the next statutory deadline. 

Now this email template could be something like ‘great news, your accounting year has just finished, we’re looking forward to preparing your accounts and getting these filed ahead of your deadline - before we can do this, we need bank statements / WIP’ you get the picture. This could be a one off email 

That’s a great start, but we know what clients are like - they need constant reminding and badgering, so let’s set up a ‘chaser’

Now this email could be ‘we sent you a request for bank statements / WIP etc’ please uploaded your bank statements into your portal.

Now we want this to go monthly until we actually receive the records required. Select ‘repeat sending the email’ then enter your parameters, in this example, every month. 

Automations are scary

This is great, but how do we control this? How can we make sure that we’re not spamming our clients with unnecessary emails when they’ve perhaps sent us the required documents?

This is where your ‘Conditions’ come into play - it’s important to note that these ‘Conditions’ are linked to your Service Status / Phases

So if your job cards aren’t up to date, you must do a little house keeping beforehand, once you’ve got your clients imported. 

So in our example, the system is going to remind our clients, every month that they need to send us the required documents, until the job card status is is no longer ‘request records’ ‘awaiting records’ ‘Part records received’

This ‘job’ will stop once the status is.

This is quick way of getting your statutory deadline management system up and running, but you can get creative with it. You can have layer upon layer of automations running on EACH service that you have enabled in the system

Here’s an example of how people often set up their Year End reminders - different templates sent out at different times, based on different conditions. 

Remember to play with this as much as you like until you’re comfortable. 

Common Questions 

Why aren’t my emails being sent to my client?

First thing to check will be to head to your Automations across your top bar

Remember, we’re giving you control over the automations so more than likely, the emails are sitting there as ‘queued’ - waiting for you to approve them. This is a common occurrence while you get used to the system. 

When you select ‘queued’ you’ll be taken to the emails awaiting approval. From here you can ‘preview’ ‘edit’ ‘approve’ etc. Great for catching any last minute amends required. 

If you don’t want to see a specific automation to be queued, here’s how you turn it off so the job will run without interference

Back into Settings - Relevant Service - Global Auto Reminder - Set Up - Edit

Find the relevant Automation - Edit

Change the setting from Yes to No. You have complete control over all automations and behaviours, so spend some time getting used to the functionality

Why has the email failed?

9 times out of 10, it’s a simple case of an incorrect email being entered - it could be that there’s a comma at the end, or a stray character that needs to be removed form the client record - head to the Client - General Info - Email anb check

Then once correct, you can hit the green icon to try and send again:

Syncing your email with Engager

The most effective Engager users are in their platform on a daily basis - they’re checking deadlines, they’re setting up reminders automations, progressing jobs and tasks but they’re also using Engager as their method of communication. 

Emails in and out, all through Engager so we encourage ALL users to sync their Microsoft 365 account or Gmail to Engager. Your emails will start filtering through and it’s a 2-way connection, so anything set via Engager will appear in native email provider. 

Once it has all been synced you can even see an audit trail of all email / text comms sent out via Engager. To see this, locate your client in question, then on the Left Hand Side - CRM - Communication

So let’s get this set up - head to Settings - Left Hand Side - Integrations - MSoft365 / Gmail

You can link a personal inbox that only you will see and a shared inbox every user sees. To link click authorise and follow the Microsoft login process, do this a second time for the shared box. 

Note: you may find it best to link your personal bo4 then log out of Engager, open a private browser, login into Client Engager, then authorise the shared bo4 because Microsoft can remember you and cause some issues

Select which mailbox you wish to authorise, then select ‘Authorise’ to then start the process

Common Questions

If I sync my personal mailbox, will other staff members see my emails?

Absolutely NOT - these remain private

My Automated Reminders aren’t being sent? Can I have automations from a personal mailbox

Automations and Template emails will only ever be sent from a Shared Mailbox, not a personal mailbox