When people have signed up to your Audience, you can email them a survey or a Collection from its Share tab. Hives sends the emails, so you never handle anyone’s address.
Who can do this: Admins, and Managers who manage that survey or Collection.
Send it
- Open the survey or Collection and go to the Share tab.
- Click Send to audience, at the top of the tab.
- Under Send to, choose Everyone, or an Audience group. The number of people is shown for each.
- Read the email. It is filled in for you. To change the subject or the text, click Edit email.
- Click Send a test to me to get the real email in your own inbox first. The test is marked “Test” in the subject.
- Click Send to 312 people (your own number shows). A last question, “Send to 312 people?”, asks you to confirm. Click Send 312 emails.
You see the message “Sent to 312 people”. The emails then go out in the background. The row for the send says “Sending…” until they have all gone.
Before you send
The dialog warns you when:
- You have sent this to the same people before. For example, “Everyone got this on 10 Nov. Send it again?”
- People have had a lot of email from you. It shows how many of the people got an email from your hive this week. Nothing is blocked, but you may want to wait.
- There is no one to send to yet. People count once they confirm their email.
Emails can’t be taken back, so check the audience and the text before you send.
When Send to audience is turned off
The button explains why:
| You see | Because |
|---|---|
| “Ask an Admin or Manager to send it.” | You are a member who manages it. Only Admins and Managers send. |
| “It’s closed, so it can’t be sent.” | The survey is closed. |
| “It takes no ideas now, so it can’t be sent.” | The Collection isn’t taking contributions. |
| “No one has signed up to the Audience yet.” | The Audience is empty. |
| “This hive allows no sharing outside it, so it can’t be sent.” | An Admin has turned off External sharing. |
Sending turns on the share link
The email contains the survey’s or Collection’s share link, so it has to be on. If it is off, Hives asks “Turn on the share link?” and turns it on when you agree. Anyone with that link can then open the survey or Collection, so think about that before you agree. See Sharing a survey and Sharing a collection with a link.
What people get
Each person gets the email with your subject and text, a button that opens the survey or Collection, and a footer saying “You got this because you signed up to” followed by the sign-up form’s name. There is also a link to leave. The button, the footer and the link are written by Hives in the person’s own language. The subject and text are as you wrote them.
Everyone in one email gets the same link, so:
- Surveys: answers stay anonymous.
- Collections: each idea keeps the email it came through, so you can filter by it.
When someone opens the survey or Collection after it has closed, they see “This survey is closed” and are told you will email them when there is something new.
The default subject
Hives suggests a subject in the language your app is showing, in English, Swedish, German or French. You can always write your own.
See what was sent: Sent
Admin > Audience > Sent lists every email with the survey or Collection, who got it, when, who sent it, and how many took part. A row says “Sending…” until it has gone out. If some emails can’t be delivered, the row says how many couldn’t be sent.
On a survey or Collection, the Share tab also lists what has been sent from it, and who got it.
Read the answers from one email
Survey results. Under Results, use Answers from to look at all answers, or only the answers from one email. An email’s answers can be shown once it has 5 answers (“Shows at 5”). Below 5 they still count in the survey’s total, but can’t be picked on their own, so no one can be picked out. This is also how you compare groups: send to each Audience group separately and compare the emails.
Collections. In Manage, the Filter has From an email, so you can see only the ideas that came from one send.
Send the results or an update
After a send, you can write back to the same people.
- Surveys with public results: click Send results. The email’s button opens the survey’s public results.
- Collections: click Send an update, such as what has happened with the ideas and what comes next. The button opens the Collection.
Both go to exactly the people who got the first email. The buttons are on the item’s Share tab, on the row of the send they follow up. You can send a test to yourself first, and you confirm before it goes. The send’s row in Sent then says “Results sent” or “Update sent” with the date.
Common questions
Can I schedule an email for later? Not in this version. Emails go out when you send them.
Can I see who answered? No. Survey answers are anonymous. You see how many people took part, not who they were.
Can I send the same survey to a different Audience group later? Yes. Each send is separate, and the dialog warns you if the same people have had it already.
Can I stop a send? No. Emails can’t be taken back, which is why you confirm first.