Email Blasts

Overview

Email Blasts is the channel-specific Communications page for sending branded event updates by email. It also creates the matching rego-site inbox notification for each selected attendee account, so staff should treat the compose form as attendee-facing production copy.

Use Email Blasts when the message needs the event email template, a subject line, reply routing, and an inbox copy. Use SMS Blasts only when the message must go through attendee phone numbers and the event has a verified online Android sending device.

Dashboard route

/ems/manage/communications/email-blasts?id=:eventId

The parent /ems/manage/communications?id=:eventId route is only the Communications section index. It should not own the email composer. The sibling SMS surface lives at /ems/manage/communications/sms-blasts?id=:eventId.

Recipient controls

Control or element	Type	What it does	Operational impact	Check before using
Audience groups	Checkbox mode	Shows generated event recipient groups such as everyone, attendees, staff, volunteers, dealers, applicants, and waitlisted attendees.	Selects broad sets of recipient accounts for the blast. Overlapping groups are deduplicated by the API before delivery.	Confirm the group is not broader than the actual announcement scope.
Specific attendees	Checkbox mode	Shows the attendee picker for exact account targeting.	Lets staff send to named attendees without selecting a full group.	Use when a support update, correction, or follow-up should not go to a full audience.
Audience group cards	Checkbox list	Selects one or more generated groups and shows each group’s current recipient count.	Drives the audienceIds sent to preview and delivery.	Re-read the selected labels before sending, especially when Everyone is selected.
Search attendees	Search input	Filters attendee candidates by display name, username, email, source, status, or account ID.	Narrows only the picker view; it does not change saved records.	Clear the search before deciding an attendee is missing.
Filter	Status filter dropdown	Narrows the attendee picker to active, pending, or other status groups.	Helps staff avoid selecting the wrong registration/application state.	Confirm the filter is not hiding intended recipients.
Select visible	Checkbox	Selects or clears the attendee rows visible under the current search and filter.	Can add many exact attendees at once.	Check the current search and filter first so hidden rows are not accidentally skipped.
Audience summary	Generated text	Summarizes selected groups and exact-attendee counts.	Gives staff the fastest review of recipient scope before preview or send.	Stop if the summary does not match the intended audience.

Compose controls

Control or element	Type	What it does	Operational impact	Check before using
Subject	Text input	Sets the email subject and default inbox notification title.	Recipients see this first in email and notification lists.	Keep it short, event-scoped, and free of internal shorthand.
Headline	Optional text input	Sets the large heading inside the email body.	Improves readability when the subject is not enough as the body heading.	Leave blank when the subject already works as the heading.
Message	Markdown-ext textarea	Sets the email body and inbox notification body.	Supports rich formatting used elsewhere in event docs and attendee notifications.	Preview links, tables, line breaks, task lists, and diagrams before sending.
Live preview	Preview pane	Renders the branded email and matching rego inbox copy from the latest compose state.	Lets staff review what recipients will actually read.	Wait for the preview badge to show Live before final review.
Send blast	Button	Creates a durable delivery campaign and begins bounded background delivery.	Returns after the campaign is safely queued; it does not claim that every recipient has already been sent.	Confirm recipients, subject, body, and reply routing first.
Delivery campaigns	Status list	Shows queued, sending, completed, failed, deferred-budget, and cancelled campaigns with resolved/sent/failed counts.	Continues recovering delivery through the Worker scheduler when the page is closed.	Wait for a terminal state before treating the campaign as complete.
Retry failed	Campaign action	Requeues only terminally failed recipients.	Preserves the campaign and its attempt audit while avoiding duplicate sends to successful recipients.	Read the last error and correct provider configuration first.
Cancel	Campaign action	Stops recipient jobs that have not yet been sent.	Already-sent email is not recalled; remaining jobs are marked cancelled.	Use only when the remaining delivery should stop.

Preview and delivery states

Field or state	What it shows	Operator response
Loading preview	The latest compose state is still being sent to the API.	Wait before reviewing final copy.
Live	The preview reflects the latest compose state accepted by the API.	Review subject, sender, reply-to, audience summary, email body, and inbox body.
Preview error	The API could not render the current preview.	Fix the reported issue before sending.
From	Sender name used by the event email wrapper.	Confirm recipients can recognize the organizer.
Reply-to	Partner support route or default support mailbox.	Confirm replies go somewhere monitored.
Audience preview	Selected audience labels or selected-attendees fallback text.	Compare with the audience summary before sending.
Queued / Sending	The campaign is accepted and bounded batches are moving through delivery.	Keep the page open for live progress or return later; the minute scheduler continues recovery.
Deferred budget	Free-plan daily recipient budget cannot accept the campaign yet.	Leave the campaign queued; the scheduler promotes oldest campaigns when the next daily budget is available, or cancel it.
Completed	Every recipient job was sent. Matching inbox notifications are created only after successful email delivery.	Keep the final counts as support evidence.
Completed with failures / Failed	One or more recipients exhausted the automatic three-attempt retry policy.	Correct the provider problem, then use Retry failed.
Cancelled	Unsent jobs were stopped by an operator.	Remember that already-sent messages remain delivered.
Queue failure	API reports validation, delivery setup, or campaign persistence failure before acceptance.	Correct the reported issue before creating another campaign.

API records

Record or route	What it represents	Verification proof
/api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/audiences	Generated audience counts and attendee picker data for email targeting.	Selected audienceIds, selected attendeeAccountIds, and visible recipient counts match the intended scope.
/api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/attendees	Exact-attendee candidates for the picker.	The selected attendee account IDs belong to the current event.
/api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/preview	Rendered branded email and inbox preview.	The preview subject, sender, reply-to, audience labels, HTML, and text agree with the compose form.
POST /api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/blasts	Idempotent campaign creation. Requires Idempotency-Key and returns HTTP 202.	Store the returned campaign ID and initial status; safe replays return the same partner-scoped campaign.
GET /api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/campaigns	Recent event campaigns and aggregate progress.	Counts and terminal state agree with operator expectations.
GET /api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/campaigns/:campaignId	One campaign status; active reads also request another bounded processing pass.	Poll only while status is queued or sending.
GET /api/events/:id/communications/email-blasts/campaigns/:campaignId/logs	Privacy-reduced per-recipient job state and retry errors.	Logs omit recipient email addresses and retain attempt/status evidence.
POST .../:campaignId/retry / POST .../:campaignId/cancel	Failed-recipient recovery and unsent-job cancellation.	Successful recipients are not requeued; already-sent email is not recalled.
Attendee inbox notifications	Rego-site notification records created after each successful email delivery.	A failed email job must not create a misleading inbox success copy.

Flowchart context

Active Event Workflow links to Email Blasts when public event information changes or attendees need a coordinated email update. It is separate from Notification Config, which is for private staff webhook alerts, and from SMS Blasts, which is phone-number delivery.

Common mistakes

• Do not send from the Communications index. Open the explicit Email Blasts page.
• Do not use Everyone when a smaller audience group or exact-attendee selection is enough.
• Do not ignore a stale or failed preview; the preview is the safest copy review before delivery.
• Do not treat SMS readiness or Android device errors as email delivery errors.
• Do not interpret HTTP 202 as completed delivery; use campaign progress.
• Do not submit the same intended campaign with a new idempotency key merely because progress is slow.