Overview
Apricot Connect's Direct Messages provide organizations in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand with a powerful tool to engage with their participants through email. These Direct Messages can collect important information and documentation through embedded forms and provide resources or updates to keep participants engaged.
We're excited to announce enhancements to the Direct Message emailing experience for our CAN/ANZ customers that improve the delivery of important participant communications! In addition to an email infrastructure upgrade, more email settings are available for Connect effective April 11, 2025.
To access your Connect settings, click the Administrator tab at the top of the Apricot page. Then, expand the Connect category of the navigation bar to select the "Settings" page. Scroll down to the "Connect email address configuration" section to view the following enhancements.
What's Changing?
From Labels
Users can now configure From Labels within Connect email settings. This label is the display name that participants will see in their inbox, allowing them to easily recognize and trust messages from your organization. All emails will still come from the no-reply@socialsolutions.com email address.
To edit an existing label, click the kebab menu (or three-dot icon) to the right of the configuration and select "Edit label".
Enter the updated name, then click "Save Changes" to confirm this action.
Add Email Configurations
You can add and store up to 6 "From Label" and "Reply To Address" combinations for your organization with the "Add a configuration" button at the bottom of this section.
A verification email will be sent to the Reply To Address once you click "Add configuration" to ensure participant responses will reach a functional inbox.
Check your inbox for the verification request from Amazon Web Services (no-reply-aws@amazon.com), then click the URL in the body of the email to authorize the Reply To Address for use with Direct Messages.
A confirmation page will display to indicate the authorization was a success, and refreshing the Connect Settings page will show the newly verified configuration.
You can remove any configuration by clicking the kebab menu to the right and selecting "Delete configuration".
Set Default Configuration
You can also mark one "From Label" and "Reply To Address" combination as the default configuration by clicking the kebab menu to the right and select "Set as default".
Next, select "Direct Messages" in the Connect category of the navigation bar and follow the process to create a new Direct Message. When composing a message, the corresponding fields will automatically populate with the default configuration's email addresses.
Connect Portal Registration Email
The email sent to participants when granting them access to the Connect Portal will also use the default configuration's From Label and Reply To Address.
To see this in action, select "Participants" under the Connect category of the navigation bar and click the "Unregistered" tab. Check the box next to the participant you want to register in the Connect Portal, then click "Create Account".
A password setup link for the Connect Portal will then be sent to that participant's email address with your organization's default From Label.
Prefill Email Dropdown
When creating a new Direct Message, a dropdown menu now displays every existing From Label saved in the Connect Settings page. Selecting a different From Label than the default option will prefill the From Label and Reply To Address fields with the appropriate email addresses for that configuration.
Note: If the selected configuration does not have a Reply To Address saved, the corresponding field when creating a new Direct Message will prefill as blank.