Supporter + Leader Communication Improvements

We'll be releasing some changes soon to the way that event hosts and their attendees communicate with one another. 

Currently if an attendee replies to an email they've received about their event, that reply is set to the organization's contact email address, not the event host. This means that it's up to the organization's admins to track those emails and respond or forward the message as appropriate. 

With our upcoming feature, we're removing that block. Once released, attendees who receive emails about their event – whether it's the thank you for RSVPing email, a blast email from the host, a notification that the event details have changed, or a reminder email – will be able to reply to the host directly. 

Privacy

We've implemented this feature with privacy in mind. The event host's email address will be hidden from attendees by using a generic, organization-wide email address plus a randomized token. Once the reply is submitted, it will then be routed to the appropriate host(s) who will be able to reply to the attendee directly.

We've also updated all event email templates to include a new and translatable disclaimer that ensures attendees understand that they can reply to the email to contact the host and that their email address will become visible to the host if they reply. (This is the same behavior that's already used for contact messages sent to the hosts, petition creators, and group leaders.)

Organizations that have disabled the contact messages feature or that have not enabled the Mailgun integration in Settings will not see a change in reply behavior. Replies to event emails will still be routed to the organization's contact email address, not the host.

Admin Views and Notifications

Copies of the emailed replies will be visible to admins in the admin view of the event. From there, admins can also process any messages that we've prevented from being sent to the host. (More on that below.)

As part of this work, we've also created a new “replies” notification method that will be available for admins. Admins who are interested in knowing about email replies to the host can subscribe.

Message Requirements

We've also implemented a few additional protections for this feature to prevent misuse: 

1. All email replies must come from an email address that is on the event's attendee list and/or was a recipient of the event's blast email.
2. Any replies that are flagged for profanity or spam will not be forwarded to the host. Admins can choose to forward them to the event host if appropriate.
3. Users will be limited to five replies per week per event. Additional attempts to reply will be blocked.
4. If the event host has disabled messages from the public in their event's settings, replies will not be sent to them.

Attendees whose replies are rejected will receive an email informing them that the email has not been forwarded to the event host. They will have the option of messaging the organization's contact email address instead if needed. 

Admins who have enabled the new “replies” notification method will receive notifications about rejected replies that can be manually approved.

Coming Soon: Petitions

While this initial round of updates affects events only, we'll be rolling out a similar feature for petitions in the coming weeks. The petitions side of this feature will function in the same way, and it will replace the current optional setting to use the petition creator's email address as a reply to address for petition blast emails.

We’re happy that this will help facilitate easier communications between your leaders and their supporters. If you have any questions, please let us know.