Product Update: July 7, 2023

This release includes a new drag-and-drop email builder to enhance communication with participants via email, whether it's marketing a new study, providing an appointment reminder, or sending a birthday message. It also includes some major survey upgrades that focus on collecting data and getting it to the right part of the participant’s profile card, including Google-verified addresses.

New Features & Functionality

Create Beautiful, Marketed Emails with our New Email Builder Tool

We are thrilled to share that we’ve updated our Email Builder! We know that creating an email can be daunting, but email marketing is a key element for communicating with participants. 

Our new email builder has drag-and-drop functionality that allows you to create consistent study branding across all your marketing and communication channels. You can create emails into blocks, add a button with a call-to-action, and even use AI to spruce up what you’re saying. 

Email sent from the Email Builder allows participants to directly interact with the email. With the click of a button or hyperlink, they can fill out a survey, send you an email, or even call you directly from the email page itself. Emails are responsive and you can customize the experience for desktops and mobile devices.

What happened to my old emails?

Your existing emails will appear in the old email template builder in a “legacy template” format. These templates are still active and you can still edit them with the old toolbar you used in the past (red). 

Legacy templates will not automatically change into the new email builder template (green). You can read more about how to switch your email from a legacy template into a new email builder template here.

Copy and Duplicate Email Templates

Our new Email Builder, and Text Templates, allow you to create copies of your email and text templates within a study. You may want to have a few versions of your template for testing or need to reuse the same template for multiple events. Now, you can use one of the new Copy Template buttons (red) to make an exact replica of your beautiful email template! This should help you create and modify templates more quickly and reach out to more participants.

You can learn more about copying email and text templates, including how to get these templates into other studies.

Automated Error Detection in your Survey for Better Information Collection

Surveys are instrumental in allowing you to collect data for the participant’s profile card. When you change your study settings, it can affect how your survey works and pulls data into the participant’s profile card. 

Our new feature now provides you with error messaging to let you know when you’ve made a change that affects your survey! This messaging will help you make sure that when a user or participant completes your survey, their data is going to the correct place in the profile card. Check out this article to get a better understanding of the different types of potential error messages and how to understand and fix them.

What will happen to my existing surveys?

Your existing surveys will stay in Ripple as they are. If there is a variable or variable option that is causing an error, you will see new text under the survey name telling you that there were errors found and what they are. Make sure to go into your survey and fix those errors.

Collect Google-Verified Addresses in Surveys for Enhanced Data Accuracy

You can now collect a Google-verified address in surveys! We’ve created a new type of question that allows users or participants to start typing in an address and allows them to choose the correct one. The address will also include information to assist with geolocation of the address. This feature makes it easier for participants to enter and select accurate addresses so that you can mail them letters or supplies or conduct home visits, and more!

Update Participant Profile Card Data Using Surveys

In the past, external surveys needed to include the participant’s first name, last name, and global ID or birthday to match back to the original participant. Surveys also were required to have a first and last name. 

With this release, global ID is the only required field to update and match a survey submission to an existing participant. We recommend using email templates to pre-fill this value.  If a participant mistypes the global ID, then the survey submission will fail. You can read this article to learn how to send a personalized link to a participant to pre-fill the global ID for them!

Fixes:

• You can now view Last Contact Outcome and Next Appointment Name data on the Display of your Potential Participants and Enrolled Participants pages when using the Combined Status View.
• If a participant has an apostrophe in their first or last name, the apostrophe will appear in the text message and Text log.
• We’ve expanded the capabilities of the Search bar within the Potential and Enrolled Participants pages to search through more participants.
• Ripple is now supported on older versions of the Safari browser.
• You can use the “Test Survey” tab in surveys to preview the values of existing and new Expressions.
• When you import a study’s settings to create a new study, it will create a new study and add you directly to the study. It will also indicate any survey errors when you go to the Survey Creator page. Read this article to learn more about exporting and importing study settings.

Ripple v.1.113

Fixes Released 08/12/2023

• Ripple has implemented fixes to the Contact Methods card, Import Tool, and Screening surveys to prevent users from adding incorrectly formatted email addresses, e.g., two emails in the email section or an email address missing a @ or ., to help with automated messaging management.
• Before the fix, incorrectly formatted contact information, e.g., two emails in the email section, halted automated email and text messages. Now, the system skips the wrong entries and sends them to the rest of the participants.
• You can now search for a Contact Phone number on the Potential Participants page when you are using Combined Status View. 
• When using the Search bar within Potential and Enrolled Participants pages, you can search for phone numbers that have the (XXX) XXX-XXXX format
• When you are creating an email template on a smaller screen, you can now zoom out on your screen or scroll along the Email Template for better visibility and access
• Before the fix, when you created a template using Merge Tags, the system would tell you the template saved, but it would not appear in the template list. Now, the system will create the new template that you can view and edit.

Ripple v.1.114