Reminder feature

Owned by Prabhjot Tugger
Last updated: Mar 23, 2023
4 min read

  1. Reminder Feature:

This feature allows a form designer to be able to enable automated submission reminders at the form level for a given submission period. Once the submission period is set, the option to enable automated notifications will be enabled for users to choose to use it or not.

If checked on, the system will send 3 notifications:

1 at the start of the submission period
1 halfway through the submission period
1 a day prior to the submission period

Reminders would only be sent to the identified “Submitters“ who haven’t submitted the data for the given period.

A generic template will be used for the notifications. The content should always include the link to the form. Future possible enhancements (post-MVP):

Have a dedicated notification section to allow for more fine-tuning of the functionality

Priority: High (not critical but easy to add to the scope of the MVP)

Health Authorities have to notify operators manually every submission period to let them know they must submit their data on time.

Each submission period is 45 days long. They send a notification at the start, then send reminders to the people who haven’t submitted until the end of the period.

This is very time-consuming as they do not have an easy way to track submissions. They have to prepare the email with the correct recipients making sure they’re not sending it to someone who’s already submitted it.

How to use it

This feature’s development has been made in three parts, first the frontend part, next the back-end, and the last one the cronjob.

In the front end, after creating a form save it and go to this form management, after publishing a version of it, the Schedule setting checkbox is enabled, now you can check it, after doing that the section FORM SCHEDULE SETTINGS appear. it will contain a list of inputs to configure the period.

First, we have the open submission date input as the starting date of the period.

We 3 types of periods represented by 3 radios button

  1. One with no end date so we can close at any time

  2. One with a specific date to end

  3. The last type we can set up a submission period
    You have to choose one to continue.

Accord the type you choose, you can see a checkbox to active late submission when we check it we have 2 new inputs one for the term and the other for the interval.

NB: we only see this checkbox for late submission when we choose the second and the third type.

If you check the last type of period 2 new inputs appear and a checkbox for the repeat period.

With the 2 inputs, we can config the during of the period one input for the term and the other for the interval.

And the checkbox is to active repeat period, check it, 3 new fields appear to config the repeat period according to the frequency that we want and the last input is for the end date.

We have a checkbox for active customs closing messages when we check it we have a new text area for that.

The last checkbox allows enabling reminder submission, when you check it you are active now the mail reminder all submitters of this form will receive emails from the reminder on the opening day of the form, in the middle if they don’t yet, and a last one the day before the form close. NB those emails depend also on the type period by example for the first type that one without closed we send only one mail the first one.

Reminder notification is a service of chefs that allows the system to send reminder emails to the submitter of a specific form during the open submission period. Generally, it sends three emails, one on the first day of opening, the second in the middle, and the last one day before the end of the period.
We have three types of form schedules that trigger reminder emails:

  1. form without an End Date

  2. form with a Start and End Date

  3. form with a Repeat Section
    When the form has no end date, we send only one email the first, but if the date is after the current date.

When the form has a start and end date or a repeat period, we send three emails, but according to the length of the period. For example, if the date is less than three days, we send only one email the first. If it is between 4-6 days, we send two emails, the first and the last. If the period is more than six days, we send three emails, one at the start, one in the middle and the day before the end of the period.

What is a period?It is a moment when a form is open for submission, containing a start date and an end date. There are two types of periods. A simple one includes only a start and end date. The second one also has a start and end date but repeats according to an interval.

Technical Details:
Open Shift can be responsible to handle Schedule/Cron Job (In order to send Bulk Emails). The cronjob triggers every day at 8 AM O’clock

  1. Common Components - Digital Government - Province of British Columbia (Common Hosted Email Service) can be used to send bulk emails.

    1. CHES Service file : app\src\components\chesService.js

    2. Use of chesService : app\src\forms\email\emailService.js

  2. API Documentation Common Hosted Email Service API - Documentation v1 (http://gov.bc.ca )

  3. Need multiple Login accounts for testing

    1. In order to create multiple accounts, We need to enable login by BCeID (Identity provider) module. Here is rocket chat help thread BCDevXHQ for this.

    2. In order to create (Bypass Identity providers) local users need some changes into KeyCloak admin console. (More info in the document attached)

  4. Schedule Feature: Form schedule settings

 

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