Announcements and bulk messages

Shortly before the event the admission changes, or every organiser should watch an explainer video before filling in their programme items. For cases like these, iveo has two ways to reach many people in your event at once: an announcement appears as a pop-up that everyone confirms with “Got it”. A bulk message arrives as a personal chat message for each person, and they can reply to you directly.

Which one fits?

• Announcement: for anything everyone must be sure to notice, such as a changed admission time or a new rule. An announcement applies for a set period, you see who has confirmed it, and there is no reply.
• Bulk message: for a personal note you want people to answer, such as a request for feedback. Everyone gets their own chat with you, plus an email if you like.

Not to be confused with the stage notice the control room sends to the moderation on show day (see Producing on show day), or with the mailings from the event inbox (see Inbox and mailings).

Who can do this

The producers of the event see the Settings → Announcements tab. For a sub-event, the producers of the main event can do this too. The “Messages” and “Templates” sections are for producers only. All other roles don’t see the tab; they only receive announcements and messages. What each role can do otherwise is on the Roles and permissions page.

The iveo team can send an announcement to your event as well. It then appears in your list marked “from iveo”: you see who has read it, but you can’t change it.

Creating an announcement

Under Settings → Announcements, start with “New announcement”. The form has four steps. On the right, the “Live preview” shows how the announcement looks to your team, switchable between the languages.

1. Text: “Title” (up to 80 characters) and “Description” (up to 600 characters), per language in the “German” and “English” tabs. Each tab shows whether that language is complete. One language is enough; if you write in a language, fill in both fields. People who use iveo in German see the German version, everyone else the English one. If a version is missing, the other one steps in.
2. Image or video (optional): either an image or a video, not both. The next section explains what applies.
3. Period: “Start” and “End”, in your own time zone, shown below the fields. From the start, everyone addressed sees the announcement.
4. Audience: “Whole event (incl. sub-events)” or individual sub-events, plus the “Roles”. If you pick no role, the announcement applies to all roles. Below, you see how many people it currently reaches.

You don’t have to write the text yourself. Jot down the key points in the “Notes” field, and “Write it up (AI)” turns them into a title and description. “Copy to English” translates your version into the other tab, and “Copy to German” goes the other way. Both replace the text in that tab, and the AI runs in the EU. If it isn’t set up, the form tells you so, and you write the text yourself.

Once saved, the announcement appears in the list with the status “Planned”, “Active” or “Expired”.

Showing an image or a video

Image: WebP, PNG or JPEG up to 5 MB. For every language with text, you need alt text that describes what the image shows.

Video: some things are easier to explain in a short video than in three paragraphs. Drag an MP4, MOV or WebM video of up to 10 minutes into the field or choose one. iveo checks it, compresses it right in your browser to at most 720p and then uploads it. You see which step it is in, and you can stop with “Cancel”. You can only save the announcement once the video has finished uploading.

• The source file can be up to 1 GB. If the video is still larger than 100 MB after compressing, shorten it.
• Compressing needs a current browser. If it doesn’t work, use a current Chrome, Edge or Safari.
• If the sound can’t be kept, iveo tells you, and the video plays without sound.
• Captions are required: add a captions file in WebVTT format (.vtt, up to 512 KB), ideally one per language, or confirm “Captions are burned into the video”.
• For every language with text, write a short description of what the video shows. It helps everyone who can’t see the video.

What your team sees

From the start, the announcement appears as a pop-up for everyone in the audience. If there are several, they come one after another. The pop-up only closes with “Got it”; Esc or a click outside won’t do. With “Got it”, the announcement is done for that person, and the read list shows them as having read it.

A video doesn’t start by itself. It plays with sound, controls and captions once someone clicks play. “Got it” stays clickable the whole time, and nobody has to watch the video to the end.

iveo keeps recalculating the audience: if someone with one of the selected roles joins the event during the period, they see the announcement too. After the end, it no longer appears to anyone.

Who has read it

For each announcement, the list shows the title, audience, period, status and how many people in the audience have read it. The markers “with image” and “with video” flag announcements with media. You can filter by status and search by title.

A click opens the announcement with the “Content” and “Read list” tabs. The read list shows everyone in the audience with their name, role, event, status and when they confirmed. You can filter by “All”, “Read” or “Unread” and search by name. The list updates live, without reloading. It only shows people from your own events, and no email addresses.

“Edit” changes an announcement. “Delete” removes it together with all read receipts; anyone who hasn’t read it yet will no longer see it.

Writing a bulk message

Above the list, you switch between “Announcements”, “Messages” and “Templates”. Under “Messages”, “New message” creates a draft straight away. All producers of the event see and edit it together, live: iveo saves every field automatically and shows who is here now and who is typing.

The draft has three cards:

1. Recipients: “Whole event (incl. sub-events)” or individual sub-events, plus the roles. No selection means all roles. Below, you see how many people the message reaches; everyone gets it only once, even if they are in several events. More than 2,000 people isn’t possible, so narrow down the events or roles.
2. Message: text of up to 2,000 characters. Under “Insert:”, you add placeholders for first name, last name, name and sender, which iveo fills in for each person. If a first name is missing, iveo uses the full name. iveo doesn’t know the right form of address, so a simple “Hello” always works. “Write it” turns notes in the text field into a friendly message; this AI runs in the EU too.
3. How recipients find out: chat is always included, because every message is its own 1:1 chat. On top of that, you choose “Bell” (an entry in the notification bell), “Email” (with the message and a link to iveo) and “Popup” (shows the message once when they next open iveo, with “Reply in chat” and “Later”). For the email, you set the “Language of the notification”; the message itself stays as you wrote it.

On the right, the “Preview” shows the message for an example person from your selection, as it appears in the chat window at the bottom right. You can browse through several examples. “Test to me” sends you a test email.

Sending and following the delivery

The send button names the number, for example “Send 12 messages”, and asks once more. “Send now” sends the message. Sent messages can’t be edited or withdrawn. You send under your own name, and replies arrive privately in your chat. How to carry on the conversation there is on the Messages and chat page.

iveo sends in batches and shows the progress. Sending runs as long as the page is open. If you leave it, sending stops; in the settings pop-up, iveo asks “Sending is still in progress” first. “Stop after this batch” stops it yourself, and “Continue sending” picks it up again later. Anything that couldn’t be delivered goes out again with “Resend failed ones”. You yourself and archived accounts are skipped. You can only send one message at a time, and iveo stops a delivery by itself if it makes no progress for three days.

You can filter the list under “Messages” by “Drafts”, “Sending” and “Sent”. The detail page of a sent message shows the figures “Chat read”, “Pop-up seen” (only with the Popup channel), “Replied” and “Email delivered” (only with the Email channel, including failed and unsubscribed). The recipient list below shows for each person whether they have read the chat, seen the pop-up and replied, and what happened to the email. You can filter by “Read”, “Unread” or “Replied” and search by name. Figures and list update live, and new entries light up briefly. Here too, you only see people from your events.

Templates

Under “Templates”, you collect texts you need more often. A template holds text and channels, never recipients. Everyone who can send bulk messages in the event sees the same templates, and changes show up for everyone right away. You create one with “New template” or save a draft with “Save as template”; the name must be unique. “Start from template” begins a new message based on a template. If you delete a template, drafts started from it stay as they are.

Data protection

iveo deletes an announcement’s read receipts 90 days after it ends. For bulk messages, iveo deletes the read status per person 90 days after sending, and the figures stay. iveo deliberately doesn’t measure whether someone opens an email, only whether it was delivered. Your own read receipts and messages are part of the self-service export described on the Data protection and hosting page.