Renewal Reminders and Renewal Links
In Engage, Copy Renewal Link needs the Modify Sponsorships or Act In Accounts permission, and Send Renewal Link needs Modify Sponsorships. Reminders, and the actions that email reminders and links, are set up in the Admin area, so that needs someone with administrator access.
A renewal link lets a sponsor renew their sponsorships themselves. It opens your My Account page on their sponsorships, where they choose which to renew and for how long, then pay at checkout. Engage can send one automatically as a sponsorship nears its end, which is a renewal reminder, and you can copy or send one from any sponsorship that can be renewed.
Which sponsorships can be renewed
A sponsorship can be renewed when it belongs to an account and can be extended or resumed. Only these sponsorships offer the renewal link options in Engage, and only these are listed on the My Account page. Renewal links also need your platform pages to be published with a domain.
Renewal reminders
A renewal reminder tells a sponsor once, by an email your action sends, that a fixed-term sponsorship is ending soon. How soon is the Ending Soon Notice set on the sponsorship's scheme, for example four weeks. A scheme with no notice sends no reminders. The notice is set when you add or edit a scheme.
When a sponsorship comes within its scheme's notice of its end date, Engage creates a sponsorship renewal for its sponsor and raises the Sponsorship Renewal Created signal. This happens only for a sponsorship that:
- is fixed term, with an end date that has not yet passed;
- has the status Active or Needs Attention;
- belongs to an account;
- has reminders turned on. Turn Reminders Off and Turn Reminders On, in the sponsorship's options, change this.
Each end date is reminded once. Extending a sponsorship moves its end date, so the next term gets a reminder of its own.
A sponsor with several sponsorships gets one email rather than several. Any of their other sponsorships that would be reminded within the next 14 days join the same renewal, so the email lists them all. A sponsorship that has moved to another account since the renewal was created is left out of the email.
Setting up the reminder email
- In Engage, select Admin, then Communication, then Actions, and select + Add Action.
- Give the action a Name.
- Under What kind of entity is this action related to?, choose Sponsorship Renewal.
- In Select Signals, choose Sponsorship Renewal Created.
- Choose your template under Email. Set its Template Models to Sponsorship Renewal, and include the renewal link field described below.
- Select Save.
The rest of the Actions screen is described in Actions, and creating a template in Email Templates.
Copying a renewal link
- Find the sponsorship: either search for the sponsorship, or search for the account and go to its Sponsorships section.
- Select the down arrow next to the sponsorship, then Copy Renewal Link.
- Engage copies the link and says "The renewal link has been copied to your clipboard." Paste it into your message to the sponsor.
The link opens My Account with this sponsorship ticked, beside the sponsor's other sponsorships that can be renewed. Each time you copy a renewal link you get a new one, which works for 14 days from then.
Emailing a renewal link
Send Renewal Link asks Engage to email the link to the sponsor. Engage does this through an action, so set one up first. Without an action, nothing is sent.
- Select the down arrow next to the sponsorship, then Send Renewal Link.
- Engage asks "Are you sure you want to send the sponsor a link to renew their sponsorships?" Confirm it.
- Engage says "The renewal link is being sent to the sponsor.", and your action sends the email.
The action is set up as for reminders, with these choices:
- under What kind of entity is this action related to?, choose Sponsorship;
- in Select Signals, choose Sponsorship Renewal Link Requested;
- set the template's Template Models to Sponsorship, and include the renewal link field.
The renewal link merge fields
A renewal link is a merge field, so any email template on the right model can include it, not only the ones your actions send. In the template editor it is Links, then Renew. There are two, and they differ in what the sponsor sees ticked.
| Template model | Field | Syntax | What it opens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsorship | Links › Renew | {{sponsorship.links.renew}} | My Account with this sponsorship ticked |
| Sponsorship Renewal | Links › Renew | {{sponsorshipRenewal.links.renew}} | My Account for the sponsor's whole account, with the sponsorships ending soon ticked |
Use either as the address of a link or button, for example
<a href="{{sponsorshipRenewal.links.renew}}">Renew your sponsorships</a>. A template on the
Sponsorship Renewal model can also list the sponsorships it covers, with
{{#each sponsorshipRenewal.sponsorships}}, each with its Sponsorship and Beneficiary
fields.
The link is made when the email is generated, so each email carries a link that works for 14 days from then. An email sent from a list of sponsorships connected to correspondence, as described in Sending Out Templates Automatically in Bulk via Lists, uses the Sponsorship model, so it can include the link too.
The Sponsorship field is empty when the sponsorship cannot be renewed, as described above. Both fields are empty when your platform pages are not published with a domain.