About Sending Emails

There are several different emails that you can activate in order to keep your learners, administrators, and supervisors informed about the training requirements for your organization. Additionally, there are several default and optional settings that determine if, when, and to whom the emails are sent.

The following outlines the steps the system performs to determine if an email should send:

  1. Each night, the compliance system scans all learner and course data, to evaluate the following:
    • New users added to the site
    • All course assignments for all learners, including:
      • Newly assigned courses and recurring courses
      • Due dates and assigned dates for upcoming and overdue courses
      • Course test attempts
      • Course statuses, such as not started or incomplete
      • Course completions
  2. If your organization uses Email Notifications, the system then scans the Schedule of all activated emails to evaluate the start date and frequency.
  3. If the email is scheduled to send today, the system scans the following settings in the email:
    • Type of email: determines the data and learners to include, and the initial list of recipients.
    • Distribution List: for custom emails, refines the list of recipients by course information, learner attribute, or in the case of administrator emails, by specific email address.
  4. The results of the email scan are compared to the results of all course and learner data.
  5. If any matches are found, the email is sent.

All emails have an initial default list of recipients:

  • User emails are sent to learners who meet the reporting criteria, such as training that is overdue or not started. Users only see their own data and cannot see information about any other learners. Learners must have an email address in their user profile, and the Send Emails option set to Yes.
  • Administrator emails are sent to all site administrators with a security level of 10. Administrator emails include data for all learners in the organization that meet the email criteria.
  • Supervisor and Supervisor Level 2 emails are sent to the supervisors and level 2 supervisors of the learners whose data meets the email criteria, and include data only for those learners.

Note: If you want to allow supervisors and level 2 supervisors to receive training reminder emails about their users, you'll need to add an email address for those supervisors to each user's information. Since you cannot edit a user's information in Compliance, you must add the supervisor email address to a user attribute field in Percipio. Once the emails are available in Compliance, you can map the attribute to the user data on the Setup >Percipio Settings page. For more information, see Map Supervisor Emails.

While the schedule and the distribution list determine the email evaluation date and the recipients for each email, the Approximate Time of Day to Send value on the Setup page determines what time of day all emails are sent, and to some degree, what data is included in the final email.

The default setting for the Approximate Time of Day to Send is 2:00 AM EST. The optional settings are:

  • 8:00 AM EST
  • 3:00 PM EST
  • 8:00 PM EST
Notes:
  • The time zone is based on the location of the Skillsoft Datacenter. The time zone for the US Datacenter is Eastern Standard Time. The time zone for the EU Datacenter is UTC time. If the time zone in the drop down says EST and your datacenter is in the EU, the local EU time zone is used.
  • The send time reflects the time of day the emails are added to the queue and not all emails are sent at once. If you have thousands of learners with assigned training that are receiving emails, the actual send time may be delayed.

When an email sends, the data included is based on the activity from the previous day. For example, if an email is sent on April 2nd, it includes data for activity that occurred on April 1st. This is true no matter what time of day is set in the Approximate Time of Day to Send field, with one exception. See Emails based on course status below.

Example 1

The Approximate Time of Day to Send is the default time of 2:00 AM.

The Initial Training Notice email is active and the start date is March 1st.

On April 1st at 1:00 PM, you assign a new course to Ian.

On April 2nd at 2:00 AM, the Initial Training Notice is to Ian.

Example 2

The Approximate Time of Day to Send is set to 8:00 PM.

The Training Administrator Status email is active. The start date is March 1st and the frequency is every day.

On April 1st at 1:00 PM, Sofia completes the Workplace Harassment course. Although the Administrator Training Status Email is sent at 8:00 PM the night of April 1st, it does not include Sofia's completion, because that email only includes events that occurred on the previous day.

On April 2nd at 8:00 PM, the Administrator Training Status email sent to all administrators includes Sofia's completion of the Workplace Harassment course.

Emails based on course status

If the email criteria is based on the course status such as not started or incomplete, the system rescans the activity just before the email sends. If the status changes after the Approximate Time of Day to Send, but before the email is actually sent, then the email is not sent to that user.

Example 3

The Approximate Time of Day to Send is set to 3:00 PM.

The custom User Recurring email is active. The start date is March 1st and the frequency is every day.

The criteria for the email is, "Send to all users who are incomplete or not started for the Workplace Harassment course."

As of the end of day on April 1st, Celia has not started the Workplace Harassment course.

When the nightly scan runs on April 2nd, Celia's course status (from the previous day) is recorded as not started. This prompts the system to send Celia an email at 3:00 PM.

However, just before the email sends, the system rescans course and learner activity. f Celia starts or completes the Workplace Harassment course on April 2nd before 3:00 PM, she will not receive the email.