Communicate, don’t notify
This post describes the Processica App functionality called two-way communication. By using it, you allow your audience not only to receive information from you but also to provide their feedback by replying to your message. Replying is supported by e-mail and SMS communication modalities.
You can choose the response structure and content. It can be a simple choice of Yes or No, a list of items, editable fields, or unstructured and free-form.
Recipients respond to e-mail via personalized fillable forms. Responses to SMS messages can be via personalized fillable forms or in regular SMS plain text format.
Each response is associated with the particular person who submits it: it’s 100% granular, with no generalization. Response data is presented as a SharePoint list using Web and Teams. You can also access this data from Power Analytics to build automations, Power BI for data presentations, and reporting MS Azure for integration.
Use Cases
What you can do using the two-way communications functionality:
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Send out live updates with acknowledgment (minimizing annoyance)
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Get status updates from your team members
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Urgent updates (such as event cancellations) to your audience without “spamming”
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Reminders
Let’s consider the first use case and find out how it can be realized. You can collect all the data you need directly from your e-mail letters. For example, we’ve hosted an event and now our goal is to find out if visitors liked it. We can do this in certain way. Create an e-mail and insert a feedback form. Offer a simple choice – yes or no, and add two buttons in the e-mail body. Need extra data? Well, add details – for example, an input field where a person can describe their experience. After the recipient clicks the button, the collected information will be processed and transferred to your server. All the results will be visible on your SharePoint site.
How to do it using Processica Apps
1. Define how you want the feedback to be formatted, what fields to include
You can create feedback forms of varying complexity. Workflow admin builds workflows and configures them with built-in blocks and Processica custom blocks in Azure Logic Apps UI. You can add different steps to your feedback forms. The two main steps are sending the notification and processing the user’s response.
2. Identify the communications channel
Choose an appropriate channel of communication. It can be e-mail, SMS, or a combination of both. Use the second communication channel as a backup to increase your reach – if there’s no response to the e-mail, it’s possible to send an SMS to the recipient automatically after a predetermined time has elapsed.
3. Create a personalized fillable form link
A hash with user identification is used to personalize data. It is generated and added at the end of your form link provided automatically by a specific Processica Apps function. The form, called on this link, gets a hash from it and refers to Processica Apps back-end, acquiring information about the person. You can manage this with the Processica Plugin for Bubble.
4. Provision a created link to the form
After the personalized link is created, you need to insert it into the e-mail or SMS body. Add the URL, input the text to be displayed and choose your target SharePoint site for storing the responses.
5. Distribute personalized links to your audience
Time to share! Now you can send the prepared Email or SMS to your audience. You can send it now or schedule it for a specific time. It can also be triggered by another automated workflow or even by the action of a third-party system.
6. See results instantly
If you need to, you can track the results immediately after running the workflow. The data will be collected in the SharePoint list of the targeted site.
7. Create a dedicated report or update the existing one using Power BI
The received answers are collected in a report in the SharePoint or Excel list, as well as in other systems (in the case of third-party integration). Also, a workflow runner can get answers in an e-mail letter.
Conclusion
Two-way communication is a great way to keep in touch with your audience. Processica Apps, makes it quick and easy to do, and without code. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions! Also, we would love to receive your feedback.
