Procare Solutions Internal Ideas Portal
Currently, the opt-out link is automatically included in email communications and the field cannot be hidden in the connect portal.
We understand the legal need for an opt-out option with regard to marketing email ("commercial email"), but we are not using the system to market to our existing families. We use it to communicate important program information. Parents don't always understand what the opt-out option means and they select it not realizing this will prevent them from receiving important communications from us.
We would like some sort of update to this feature that distinguishes between marketing (commercial) and program (transactional) emails. Depending on system configurations, this could be done in a variety of ways. It could be done on the Admin side by creating an email "type" that allows users to specify if the email is marketing or programmatic and, if the later, the opt-out list is ignored. Or, it could be done on the family side by creating multiple email preference options. This would allow parents to specify what types of email they do/don't want to receive. Or, some other option you come up with as long as we can make sure families receive important program information.
| Center Name | Dimensions Educational Research Foundation |
There is a legal requirement to allow users to opt out of emails. We would suggest if there are program specific details that need to be shared and you are worried many parents have opted out of receiving emails that you also post the information as an announcement as well.
Announcements will display on the parent portal, at the time of check in on the InSite Select app and within the InSite Connect parent app.
Communication is important so if information is relayed in multiple locations the parent can chose to consume the information the way they would like to.
If a parent has opted out on accident and needs to opt in, admins/directors can assist by going to the parent's profile on the admin site and selecting No under the opt out field.
You can see the parents that have opted out of emails on the Reports > Misc > Student/Child Directory page-
Then select the first excel report-
I understand and am familiar with the legal requirements (CAN-SPAM in US and CASL in Canada), but that only applies to marketing/commercial emails. It does not apply to communications to existing customers about their products/services (transactional/relationship emails) which is what we use the communication feature for. The process you described is what we currently do, but it is cumbersome and impractical to do on a frequent enough basis to make sure that parents don't miss important communications. We're not requesting that the feature be removed all-together, only that we have the ability to control which emails include an opt-out based on their content/purpose.