Choose between an alert and a newsletter according to your needs
All editions of a newsletter are saved and can be consulted on the different Cikisi platforms (WMT, Readers Portal) according to the users' rights.
Each newsletter can also have an "online" public edition, which can be consulted by any Internet user without authentication.
Even if Cikisi recommends the use of the default format (HTML) for rendering and compatibility reasons, it is also possible to print an edition in PDF format and to send it in this format (file attached to the email).
As far as the different alert notifications are concerned, they can only be consulted by an email service, which limits their visibility and use over time.
The alerts can be put in the colors of your organization (logo/header, introduction message, colors of the sections and fonts, footer) but the template is defined.
As far as newsletters are concerned, you can freely create your own template by inserting article sections as well as images, blank spaces and text zones.
It is not possible to edit a notification of an alert before it is sent in order to modify its content whereas it is possible for the edition of a newsletter.
The edition can be modified both at the level of its model with the addition of a temporary section (example: "Satisfaction survey", "Happy Holidays") and at the level of the articles themselves.
Thus, it is possible to modify the display order of the articles, to delete articles or to modify their content (title, description, image).
Unlike an alert, a newsletter edition cannot be sent without human intervention.
The edition is sent to recipients after its creator or one of its contributors has requested the immediate sending (Send Now) or scheduled its sending (Schedule).
If you don't have anyone in your organization to manage your newsletter, it is better to work with alerts linked to Collections.
In conclusion, editing a newsletter is generally a more personalized and higher quality product than an alert notification.
However, it requires a bit more time to produce and that's why editions are usually weekly or monthly while alerts can have higher notification frequencies.
In general, large organizations work with both alerts and newsletters.
Step 1 - Create a new newsletter
In the left menu, select Newsletters to access the table of newsletters already created.
Create a new newsletter using the blue + button named "New Newsletter".
In the creation form, you must first name the newsletter correctly - the name of the newsletter will be used in the subject of the emails sent to the recipients (example: Competitive Intelligence).
You can also define the alias that will be used to send the different editions of the newsletter.
The email address will remain that of the Cikisi mailing service but, thanks to the use of the alias, the sender can appear as part of your organization (example of alias: Marketing Michelin).
If you do not define an alias for the newsletter, the name of your customer account will be used by default (example: Michelin).
If desired, you can restrict access to the editions of this newsletter to certain groups of users. You can also define which users will contribute to the editions.
In addition to the newsletter creator, these users will also be able to access and modify unpublished editions (whose "published" button is not checked).
This is a useful option to ensure the continuity of the service in case the creator is absent.
Then, it is important to define the recipients (subscribers) of the newsletter.
Finally, if you have a readers' portal linked to your customer account, you can define the rules of interaction with it (visibility, illustrative image, collaboration).
If you have several newsletters to create with similar configurations, you can use the "duplicate this newsletter" function available in the newsletters table.
Step 2 - Create your editing template
Create your editing template with the help of the creation template allowing first of all to add horizontal blocks to the template (ADD ROW).
Each block can be split vertically into two parts (of different widths) if necessary.
Within each vertical part of a block, you can drag a type of content (header, articles, image, text, spacing, footer).
It is recommended to use only one content type per vertical part of a block to maximize flexibility and avoid rendering problems.
Don't forget to define a background color for your block to avoid parts of your template without a colored background.
This should be the same background color as the content inserted in the block.
If all the "articles" content types in an edition are related to the same time period, which is often the case, we recommend that you use the "Use Global" option.
This way you won't have to fill in all the "from...to..." fields in all the sections of each edition.
When inserting images, remember to limit the size of the image as much as possible in order to make the display of your edition fluid and fast in your recipients' mailboxes.
We advise you to name this edition "Empty Template" before saving it.
Step 3 - Produce an edition
Each time you want to produce a new edition, you just have to start by duplicating the empty edition you are using as a template.
Once you have duplicated the empty edition, you must name it correctly, preferably using a number or a reference to a period (N°20, Week 12: 2022, January 2022).
The name of the edition will succeed the name of the newsletter within the subject of the email generated by Cikisi.
Example: Competitive Intelligence - January 2022
Then, it is necessary to modify the dates relative to your new edition (from... to...) and to select "Update items" in order to populate the edition with articles.
Modifying articlesÂ
Articles appearing in the "articles" content type can be modified.
However, it is often better to improve the article itself using the "Improve item" function. Indeed, these improvements will then be visible everywhere, within Cikisi WMT, the readers' portal, other alerts or newsletters.
To open an article from the edition preview, click on its title while holding down the SHIFT key.
If you only want to make changes within the current edition, you can do so by selecting "Edit" from the list on the left.
The title, description, image and publication date can then be replaced.
This is an interesting option when you want to shorten the title or highlight a specific part of the content in the description.
The order in which the articles are displayed can be changed by simply dragging and dropping them into the list on the left.
Finally, you can also delete articles from the edition.
An edition is a photograph at a given moment of your collections/associated research
The creator and contributors of the newsletter always work on a frozen version of the edition.
This means that new articles will not automatically appear in this edition, allowing you to keep full control over the final look of the edition.
If you want to repopulate a section of the edition with items that have recently appeared in your collections/searches, simply click on the "Update items" button.
This will add the new items but will keep all the work you have already done.
That is to say that the modifications made on the title, the description or the image of the items will be kept.
In the same way, the articles that you have deleted will remain permanently deleted from the edition (so be careful when confirming your deletion choice).
Please note that when re-populating a section of articles, the display order could be modified because Cikisi uses the default chronological sorting option again.
If an article section is empty and you do not want it to appear in the edition, simply delete it. This will not affect future editions created from the (complete) template.
First edition? A few precautions to take a week before the mass mailing
If this is your first edition, we recommend that you test the rendering of the template before sending it to the recipients.
Indeed, depending on the email service used within your organization, compatibility problems may occur (mainly with older versions of MS Outlook that do not interpret CSS correctly).
In such a case, our team will help you create a compatible template.
Sending this test edition will also allow you to verify that the edition is not automatically classified in your "junk" by your email.
It is also advisable to forward this test edition to your IT department so that they can ensure that the email address used by Cikisi is authorized ("whitelisting").
All these checks can take several days and it is therefore recommended to schedule them one week before sending the newsletter.
Once the edition is ready to be shared, check the "Published" box.
Step 4 - Share an edition
Share by email
If this is your first edition, we recommend that before sending it to all your recipients, you test send it to your own email box using the SEND NOW option.
Then, if the result is as you expected, you can either :
proceed with the immediate sending of the edition to the recipients using the "SEND NOW" option by checking the "SEND TO SUBSCRIBERS LIST" box or by manually adding the user groups or users to whom you wish to send your edition.
proceed with the programming of a deferred sending by clicking on the "SCHEDULE" button.
Please note that an edition can be sent several times to different groups, users or emails not registered in Cikisi.
In order to know the details of the notifications executed for an edition (when, to whom, in which format), click on the "Show sent jobs" button at the bottom right of the interface.
Sharing within Cikisi WMT
An edition can be consulted by all Cikisi WMT users (Admin, Explorer, Analysts) with access rights as soon as it is in "Published" mode.
Sharing within the readers' portal
The sharing of the edition is automatic as soon as the option "Show in Readers Portal" is activated for the newsletter and the option "Published" is selected for the edition.
Make a newsletter edition public
Each newsletter can have an "online" edition and thus be public.
By public it means that anyone who has the access link (URL) will be able to consult it without having to authenticate himself. Making an edition "online" is not less confidential than sending an edition by email, email that can then be forwarded.
Indeed, to consult an online edition, the user must also receive the access link from one of the recipients. Moreover, while the emails related to the different editions can be consulted "for life", only one edition per newsletter can be consulted online.
To make an edition of a newsletter public, it is necessary to select the option "Public audience can see this newsletter" in the upper right corner of the interface.
Then you have to select the edition that is online.
The online edition is usually the last one published and is selected in the right list of editions with the "Show Online" button (grey circle).
A green Antenna icon appears next to the edition with the explanation "Currently Online" appearing when hovering over the icon.
The URL where the online edition can be accessed remains the same, regardless of the edition. Therefore, it can be added to the list of favorites of your browser.
Statistics of consultation
In the newsletter table, click on the statistics icon of the newsletter you wish to obtain the consultation metrics.
Are the consultation statistics reliable?
Yes, as long as the recipient's email service returns an acknowledgement of opening. Also, more and more email services allow you to consult an email in preview mode without having to open it. You should therefore consider that the consultation statistics presented by Cikisi are lower than the reality. Your watch has therefore a greater visibility!
I mistakenly deleted an article from an edition, how can I make it reappear?
If you have confirmed the deletion of the article, you can no longer see it in the section of the edition from which you have removed it. However, you can duplicate the edition and work on the duplicated version that will have the article. Then delete the original edition. Note, however, that you will have to repeat the editing operations performed within the initial edition, such as deleting items, changing the order of appearance of items and modifying items (hence the interest in opting for the "improve item" function when possible rather than "edit item" within the edition)
Why do I not receive newsletters ?
It is possible that you are not notified when you receive Cikisi alerts because your email address does not recognize the address newsletters@cikisi-intelligence.com. To solve this problem, you need to check your junk mail, and then check with your IT department that this address is authorized.