Campaign Plans – Mainstay

Overview

A Campaign is a particular instance of sending a Script to one or more contacts (using an Import or Audience). Multiple Campaigns can be combined into a Campaign Plan, making it essentially a sequence of related Campaigns.

Managing Plans

Click + Create Plan in the top-right corner, or + Add New Plan from the sidebar, to launch the Campaign Plan modal.

Add a Name and Description for this Plan, then click Create Plan.

In the Campaign Plans table, the ... overflow menu provides additional actions:

Edit Plan: Change its Name or Description.
Duplicate: This creates a copy of the plan, plus a copy of each of its Campaigns (as Draft Campaigns).
Delete: This deletes the Campaign Plan itself, but does not delete any of its associated Campaigns - they just lose their association with the Plan.

Note that these same actions are available from the ... overflow menu within the Campaign Plan page (in the top-right corner).

Managing Campaigns

Click on a Campaign Plan to view its list of Campaigns. (You can also click View in All Campaigns to jump to the main Campaigns list, filtered by this Plan.)

This table includes the following sortable columns:

Name: the Name of the Campaign, its status (Draft, Scheduled, or Sent), and its Description.
- Click on the Name to open this Campaign in the full Scheduler (for a Draft or Scheduled Campaign) or in Campaign Insights (for a Sent Campaign).
Script: the Script that learners will receive.
Recipients: the Audience or Import(s) that define who will receive this Campaign.
Send Date: the Date and Time this Campaign will be sent.
- If this is a Data-triggered Campaign or a Recurring Campaign, this will be indicated here.
Status: whether the Campaign is a Draft, is Scheduled to send, or has already Sent. (See below for Advanced Statuses.)
Comments: indicates whether there are any open or resolved commets. (See below.)
...: additional actions:
- Edit: switch to Editing mode for this Campaign. (See below.)
- Delete: cancel this Draft or Scheduled Campaign.
- Change Plan: move this Campaign to another (or no) Plan.

Mark as optional / required: by default, all Campaigns are assumed to be "required", so a Campaign marked as "optional" will appear with a label:

Scheduling Campaigns

Click + Add Campaign to create a new Draft or Scheduled Campaign. This provides a faster, simpler experience than the full Campaign Scheduler page, although some options are not available.

The following items are editable from this page:

Name: Enter a Name for the Campaign.
Description: Enter a Description for the Campaign.
Script: Select the Script that learners will receive.
Recipients: Select the Audience or Import(s) to determine who will receive this Campaign.
Trigger: Select whether this is a one-time Scheduled Campaign, a Recurring Campaign that sends on a schedule, or a Data-triggered Campaign that sends when the learner enters the Audience.
Day and Time: Select the Day and Time at which this Campaign will be sent. (Skip this for Data-triggered.) (For Recurring, also select a Repeats schedule.)
Click Schedule Campaign to add this to the Calendar. This requires all items to be completed.
Alternately, click Save Draft to save your current settings and return at a later point.

Comments

The "Comments" column indicates whether there are any open or resolved threads related to this particular Campaign.

Click this button to open the Comments drawer:

For a detailed explanation of Comments, including rich text formatting, @-mentioning other users, and resolving threads, see Script Comments.

Note that @-mentioning a user in a Campaign Comment will send a notification email:

Suggestions

Hover over the Script, Recipients, or Send Date to see a Suggest button:

Each of these surfaces a small modal where you can select a different option, with an optional Comment.

These Suggestions appear under the currently selected item, and also appear in the Comments drawer. Users with sufficient permissions can approve or dismiss these suggestions; approving will update the actual Campaign draft.

Note that you cannot add suggestions once a Campaign is Scheduled (or Sent!).

Filtering

For Campaign Plans with many Campaigns, it may be helpful to filter the list.

Click the filter icon to see a set of options, including the Status, Type, Required/Optional label, Audience, and Time range (for the scheduled / sent date).

Bulk Actions

Use the checkbox tool to select one or more Campaigns in the list.

The following bulk actions are available:

Schedule: for draft Campaigns that have all the required information, clicking this will change their status to Scheduled.
Change audience: use this to switch the Recipients to a specific Audience for the selected Campaigns
Mark as optional: change the selected Campaigns to have the "optional" label
Remove from plan: remove these Campaigns from the Plan. This will not delete or cancel the Campaigns, just remove their association with this particular Campaign Plan.
Delete: this will delete the Campaigns entirely, including cancelling any that are currently scheduled. Campaigns that already sent will not be affected.

Advanced Statuses & Approvers

This feature can be enabled in General Settings > Miscellaneous.

For institutions with large teams managing Campaigns, and institutions where Mainstay staff are managing the Campaign Plans, the Status column can be configured to include additional options:

These are all statuses for draft Campaigns; scheduled and sent Campaigns are not affected. This is also reflected in the filter options:

This feature also allows Campaign Plan owners to add more users as "Approvers". Even if these Approver users lack the permissions to create and schedule Campaigns, they can still change the status (as well as add suggestions and comments).

The list of Approvers is visible at the top of the Campaign Plan.