An email reminder can be sent to all students and advisors the day prior to their scheduled appointments. The email reminder feature first requires that the email preferences be entered on page 12 of the Preferences and the email server must accept batch email requests from the AdvisorTrac server.
Three fields in the Preferences screen control AdvisorTrac's ability to send email appointment reminders: 'Email Address of Center', 'Mail Server', and 'Email notification at__'.
'Email Address of Center' is the From address in the emails and appears in the form of an email address (i.e. center@school.edu). A fictional email address may be entered; however, if students are allowed to reply to emails, the address should be legitimate.
A valid mail server address must be entered in order to process the emails. The 'Mail Server' is in the form of a web address or an IP address (i.e. mail.campus.edu or 63.224.138.140). Consult your campus IT personnel to identify the server address that will process the AdvisorTrac emails.
'Email notification at__' requires that a time be entered in the field in order to send the email reminders. Enter the time of day that the batch email reminders will be sent on the day priot to the appointment. Entering a time enables this feature. Usually, the time that is entered is later in the day to account for any appointments created only a day in advance.
A template email needs to be typed in the Student Reminder Message. The template uses codes that will be replaced with data specific to each appointment. Some codes that may be replaced are listed below. Refer to the User Guide for a full list of codes.
| Code | Replaced With: |
| #student# | Student's name |
| #advisor# | Advisor's name |
| #date# | Date of the appointment |
| #time# | Time of the appointment |
| #location# | Location of the appointment |
Only students with an email address entered in their Student Info screen can receive an email appointment reminder.
A template email needs to be typed in the Advisor Reminder Message in order to send reminders to advisors. The template is divided into three sections: a header, detail, and footer. Codes are utilized in the Advisor Reminder Message to find data specific to each appointment.
The header section starts the email. The detail repeats for each appointment the advisor has the next day. The footer section closes the email.