Pulse Outreach: Recurring Campaigns

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What is Required to Support Recurring Campaigns? How Recurring Campaigns Work Key Decisions How to Configure Recurring Campaigns Recurring Campaigns Details Page Recurring Campaigns Status FAQs

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Recurring Campaigns is a Pulse Outreach solution. Pulse Outreach is only available to Harmony customers. If you are not an existing Harmony customer, please connect with your Customer Success Representative for more information.

Recurring Campaigns allow organizations to automate outreach to evolving patient populations, supporting a “set it and forget it” message delivery workflow to patient cohorts. Examples of common use cases for Recurring Campaigns include:

Sending a scheduling flow to patients who are newly due for a particular type of screening
Sending instructions to patients who received a colorectal screening kit
Sending follow-up instructions and education to patients who have been discharged from the Emergency Department in the last 24 hours.

What is Required to Support Recurring Campaigns?

Patients to be contacted (identified by patient IDs or MRNs) are queried in your EMR or your organization’s population health tool vendor, exported into a .CSV file, and dropped into a shared SFTP folder for patient outreach. At a set cadence, Artera automatically checks the file path for new patient lists and sends the Recurring Campaign to those patients. To use Recurring Campaigns, your Enterprise must have an SFTP integrated with Artera.

For information on how to configure a shared SFTP folder, please connect with your Artera Representative.

How Recurring Campaigns Work

Enterprise Users will create a Recurring Campaign in Artera. Once a name is entered for the Recurring Campaign, an External ID will auto-generate. This External ID must be used as the name of the subfolder within the SFTP site.
NOTE: It is essential that the subfolder name exactly matches the External ID as any Patient List .CSV files placed in subfolders with incorrect names will not be processed by Artera.

Once the Recurring Campaign is created in Artera, the EMR or vendor will send patient list .CSV files directly to the shared SFTP site subfolder. Artera polls the SFTP site at a pre-determined cadence. If a new .CSV file is detected, a Campaign is created and messages are sent to patients included in the patient list.

Key Decisions

Review Existing Campaigns

If your organization is currently using Campaigns, you may want to automate existing daily, weekly, or monthly Campaigns that you send. For example, you may have scheduled Campaigns for seasonal reminders, like flu vaccines.

Your Artera Project Manager will work with you to review these existing Campaigns and make recommendations on what to disable so there are no overlapping Campaigns before initiating a new Recurring Campaign to avoid duplicates.

Recurring Campaigns Workflows

Your Artera Project Manager will work with you to determine which Practice(s) and line(s) should be used to send Recurring Campaigns to patients. Messages can be sent from existing Practices or a Shell Practice and from your Enterprise’s high volume toll-free number or a Practice line.

Existing Practice

Messages can be viewed within the same Practice where other outbound messages, like Appointment Triggers, are sent to patients.

Practice Lines	Dedicated Recurring Campaign Line	High Volume Toll-Free Number
Messages are delivered via the same line used for Appointment Triggers.	Messages are delivered via a dedicated line, separate from the line used to send Appointment Triggers.	Messages are delivered via your Enterprise's high volume toll-free number and are visible on the Practice line associated with the Campaign.
The line can send up to 1,248 messages per hour.	The line can send up to 1,248 messages per hour.	Messages can be configured to send up to 2,496 messages per hour.
All messages are sent from a recognizable number.		Initial outbound messages are sent from the high volume toll-free number. Any additional manual or automated messages are sent from the associated line.
If a patient opts out of messaging, they will no longer receive messages from this line, including Appointment Triggers.	If a patient opts out of messaging, only messages from the Recurring Campaigns line will stop. They can still receive messages from lines that send Appointment Triggers.	If a patient opts out of messaging, they are opting out of the high volume toll-free number but can still receive messages from the Practice line, including Appointment Triggers.

Shell Practice

Messages can be viewed in a dedicated Campaigns Practice where other outbound messages, like Appointment Triggers, are not sent to patients.

Dedicated Recurring Campaign Line	High Volume Toll-Free Number
Messages are sent via a dedicated line in the Practice.	Messages are sent via your Enterprise's high volume toll-free number and are visible on the Practice line associated with the Campaign.
The line can send up to 1,248 messages per hour.	Messages can be configured to send up to 2,496 messages per hour.
If a patient opts out of messaging, only messages from the dedicated line will stop sending to the patient.	Initial outbound messages are sent from the high volume toll-free number. Any additional or automated messages are sent from the associated line.
	If a patient opts out of messaging, they are opting out of the high volume toll-free number but can still receive messages from the dedicated line.

How to Configure Recurring Campaigns

Once your SFTP folder(s) have been configured by Artera, create a Recurring Campaign:

In the Navigation Bar, select Campaigns > Recurring Campaigns
Select Create Recurring Campaign in the upper-right corner of the screen
Enter the Recurring Campaign Details:
1. Recurring Campaign Name: This name is not patient-facing and serves as the Recurring Campaign’s title.
2. Practice: Select the Practice associated with this Recurring Campaign.
3. Line: Select the line to associate with this Recurring Campaign. The line chosen in this step is where inbound patient responses to the campaign will be routed to.
4. Category: Select a Recurring Campaign category that best matches the Recurring Campaign’s purpose. Click here for a detailed description of each category.
The Audience section is auto-completed by Artera. It indicates the “Audience Source” for the Recurring Campaign (where the Recurring Campaign will pull your patient lists from) and includes the Recurring Campaign’s External ID.
Create your Campaign Message for each of the desired delivery options (text, call, email). To increase deliverability, we recommend building messages for text and call. You can choose to craft a message or use a Quick Response.
Optional:
1. Include a Satisfaction Form with your Recurring Campaign by selecting the Form from the Attach Form drop-down menu. Click here to learn about creating an Artera Form.
2. Include an attachment with your Recurring Campaign by dragging and dropping a file into the “Attach File” box or selecting Choose File. Click here to learn about attachment requirements.
Next, determine when the Recurring Campaign should be sent. NOTE: Recurring Campaigns will begin sending automatically when an audience file (patient list) is added to your SFTP folder, so long as the Recurring Campaign is on and the Recurring Campaign’s scheduling criteria is met.
1. Send only between the hours of: Depending on the volume and cadence of messages you are looking to send, a Campaign may send over several days. Use these delivery time slots to indicate which hours of the day to send the Campaign message. For Campaigns where you want patients to engage with you (e.g. text or call to schedule a visit), ensure the volume of responses is manageable for your team. For example, if you have a staggered start and your full staff is only on shift from 10:00 AM-3:00 PM, consider setting delivery times based on staff availability.
  NOTE: Campaigns respect TCPA Hours, and therefore, can only be set to send between 8:00 AM - 9:00 PM in the Practice's timezone. If the Recurring Campaign's daily start and end times fall outside TCPA mandated hours, the following error message will appear:
2. Send on business days only: Use this checkbox to indicate whether this Recurring Campaign should only be sent on Business Days. Business Days are determined by the Practice’s Practice and Line hours. Any day that the Practice/Line is open for any duration of time counts as a Business Day in Artera.
  NOTE: If a Recurring Campaign’s message asks that the patient engage back with staff, we recommend enabling this setting. This ensures that someone will be available to respond to the patient quickly.
3. Messages to send per hour: Set how many messages should be sent to patients per hour. This rate can be set using increments of 12 messages per hour, with a maximum rate of 2,496 messages per hour. Click and drag the slider to change the speed of message delivery; you will notice the text below the slider will update with the chosen rate.
  NOTE: For Recurring Campaigns where you anticipate a large number of inbound patient responses, consider reducing the Send Rate. This ensures there is enough staff to engage with the inbound patient messages.
Once all the required information has been entered, select Create Recurring Campaign in the upper-right corner of the screen:

Recurring Campaigns Details Page

Once the Recurring Campaign is created, review the details of the Recurring Campaign.This provides users with the opportunity to modify a Recurring Campaign prior to turning it on.

The following information is available on the Recurring Campaign Details page:

Recurring Campaign Name and Status: In the top-left corner of the page is the name of the Campaign along with its current status, which is either “on” or “off.”
Message: This displays a preview of the message that will be delivered to patients when the campaign runs. This also indicates whether the campaign is set up to go out as a text, call, and/or email to patients, along with which languages the campaign will be translated.
Audience: This provides the details of the audience (patients) who will be sent this message.
Method: This displays whether or not the Recurring Campaign will be sent as a Secure or Unsecure message. This will also display the Form attached to the Recurring Campaign, if applicable. Otherwise, the Form Attached header will display as “None.” Any attachments included in the Recurring Campaign will display in this section as well.
Sending History: This will show the last five campaigns that were created and sent through this Recurring Campaign.
Schedule: This displays the information pertaining to the start date and time of the Recurring Campaign, which will always be the date and time that an audience file is added to the Recurring Campaign’s SFTP folder. It also includes the Recurring Campaign’s daily start and end times, Business Days only selection, and how many messages will be sent per hour.
Details: This displays the line selected to route inbound patient responses, the category associated with the Recurring Campaign, and the Practice for which the Recurring Campaign was created.

From the Recurring Campaign's detail page, you can choose to start the Recurring Campaign, if it is currently off, by selecting Start Campaign. You can also use the Actions (...) menu to edit the Recurring Campaign.

Recurring Campaigns Status

If a Recurring Campaign’s status is set to off, the Recurring Campaign will create a campaign when a new patient list .CSV file is added to the SFTP, but the campaign will be in a pending status. This status is helpful for testing or troubleshooting. Artera will not send the message to patients until an Enterprise User manually set an individual Campaign to "start." The user can go about this in two ways: by navigating to the Campaigns Overview page (from the navigation bar, select Campaigns > Campaigns), locating the Campaign, and starting it or by selecting the Campaign from the Recurring Campaign's Details page, which will route the user to the Campaign to start it.

If the Enterprise Users turns the Recurring Campaign status to "on," Campaigns created when a new patient list .CS file is added to the SFTP will automatically be queued and sent during configured sending hours. Files added to the SFTP while the Recurring Campaign was "off" will still be pending until a user manually "starts" them.

Recurring Campaigns Deliverability

When a patient opts out of a Campaign, the downstream messaging impact of the opt-out will depend on which number was used to deliver the message and from which Practice the campaign was sent from. Review the table below to learn more.

Scenario	Campaign Opt-Out Impact
Patient opts out of Practice line from Shell Practice	Patients will only be opted out of messages sent from that line in that Practice. This will not impact sending Triggers from other Practices.
Patient opts out of dedicated Campaign Practice line in Existing Practice	Patients will be opted out of messages sent from that line in the Practice. This will not impact sending Triggers from that line.
Patient opts out of Practice line in Existing Practice	Patients will be opted out of messages sent from that line in the Practice. This will include Triggers that are sent from that line.
Patient opts out of high-volume toll-free number from Shell Practice	Patients will only be opted out of messages sent from that number across the Enterprise. This will not impact sending Triggers.
Patient opts out of high-volume toll-free number from Existing Practice	Patients will only be opted out of messages sent from that number across the Enterprise. This will not impact sending Triggers.

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Click here to learn more about how Recurring Campaigns will be delivered to a patient based on the Campaign Message Setup (i.e. does the Campaign include messages for text, call, or email) and the patient’s contact details.

FAQs

Which User Types can create Recurring Campaigns?

Only Enterprise Users can create Recurring Campaigns.

Is there reporting available on Recurring Campaigns?

The Campaigns Effectiveness Dashboard, available to Artera Analytics Plus customers, includes your Recurring Campaigns data.

Is there a Recurring Campaigns File Extract template?

Similar to Campaigns, you will need to provide a .CSV file with the list of patient MRNs in a single column with no headers or additional text. This file will need to be sent to the SFTP site subfolder that corresponds with the Recurring Campaign’s External ID. See an example of a sample file below:

outreach ongoing recurring campaign

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