PIER System Support | Distributions
June 24, 2011 12:00:00 PM PDT

Overview

Distributions in PIER refers generally to the "sending out" of Approved, Published Documents, to populations associated with the PIER Site. There may be constraints based on which Folders the Documents are Published in, and there are a variety of options for specifying the various population groups associated with the site.

General Distributions

Documents that are Published can be immediately available on the External Web Site to any visitor, and to any consumer of the "Recent Updates" RSS feed. This is a commonly overlooked mechanism for making information available, yet is very useful when the PIER Site will be visited anonymously. When individuals are directed to the External Site (via advertising, experience, search engines, or links from a corporate site, etc.), this can be a most useful method for disseminating information. This is a "pull" operation, where the visitor requests the information.

See the Folders section in the Documents (Concept Document) for more detail on what Documents are made available on the External Site.

Specific Distributions

When population groups are defined (perhaps by uploading them or allowing External Web Site visitors to join a group), then information can be "pushed" to those groups via one or more methods.

The primary limitation for any specific distribution is the accuracy of the address information recorded for each individual. Outdated or incorrect spellings for email addresses and phone numbers is the largest single problem faced by Information Officers. Careful review of update procedures and periodic testing of distributions cannot be overemphasized.

 A Distribution operation can be initiated by using the "Publish & Send" menu option (available to PIER Users on the Approval List) or the "Send" icon from a Folder View. The ensuing dialog will guide you through the "how" (what method) and the "to whom" (what populations) questions.

The available methods are Email, SMS Text, Fax, and Phone. These will be discussed in detail below.

The populations targeted for a distribution might include:

  • Contact Directories of uploaded Employee names and addresses
  • Contact Groups of individuals who have a certain City name in their address information
  • PIER Users associated with the PIER Site

There are benefits and constraints for each of the distribution methods. Typically, distributions will be made via multiple methods in order to increase the potential of delivering a message to each person.

Email Distribution

This is the most common and cost effective distribution method. There is no additional charge for sending email, and the full HTML content of the document is sent to the mailbox of every individual. In addition, links back to the message (on the External Web site) and links back to a "read receipt" page can be included in the message.

For Contacts targeted in the distribution, the Email1 and Email2 addresses may be selected. If a recipient chooses to "unsubscribe" (via the link at the bottom of every PIER Email Distribution mandated by SPAM rules), a flag will be set in the contact record indicating that request.

When distributing to Contact Directories, the "allow distributions" - NO flag will be honored and the email addresses associated with the contact will not be included.

Smart Groups, however, must specify the "opt-out" flag = "no" criteria in their definition. This construct is to ensure your capability to distribute critical information even if the contact requested to be removed from the distribution.

In order to ensure removal from all distributions, either remove or modify the address (change "charlie@brown.com" to "xcharlie@brown.com") or delete the contact record entirely.

For PIER Users on the list, the single Email address in their profile is used, and there is no option to unsubscribe this address.

If email addresses are duplicated (if both Charlie and Sally have the same address), - only one copy is sent to that address.

PIER Systems is able to deliver email messages in volumes greater than 10,000 per minute. In general, email systems are capable of receiving large quantities of email and delivering them to in-boxes with good efficiency.

There are exceptions, however, in that local email severs can (and commonly do, -) deny mass message distributions, "govern" them to perhaps 50 messages delivered per hour, or maintain other rules designed to limit "spoofing". (For example, you make a distribution in PIER "from Joe@abc.com" that will also go "to Joe@abc.com" and that looks suspicious.) For information on how to create an exception for PIER System email coming to your organization's mail system, please refer to the Email Distributions FAQ Document.

SMS Distribution

Because cell phone use is very high among certain populations (such as college students) and expectations on critical messages are high, this method is becoming more popular. There is an additional charge to the organization for every SMS message sent (typically $0.04 or more per message), and each message is limited to approximately 140 characters of plain text (which is taken from the "Text Part" of the Document Draft). If the message is longer, several text messages may be issued to deliver to each phone.

When all of the configuration is in place (Site Keyword, opted-in phone numbers, etc.), - then the SMS option is available during Distribution. Please see the Everything SMS Concept document.

In addition, cell phone service providers can block messages to their subscribers who have not specifically chosen to receive emergency messages from PIER Systems. While the system conforms to regulatory rules for SMS practices, certain providers (particularly Sprint) may make it necessary to call them specifically to enable messaging from the PIER "short code" number 84469.

PIER delivers SMS messages through a Telephony vendor and is able to deliver in volumes of 8000+ messages per minute.

SMS Messages are typically as brief as possible, and direct the receiver to the Web Site for more information. For more information, see the Message Design Concept document.

Phone Distribution

This distribution method utilizes voice synthesis of the "Text Part" of a Document Draft to create a recording that is then delivered via Telephone. Telephone systems are probably the most widely used medium in direct communications and are usually the most robust, and are often favored when other methods might be insufficient. (Not every potential person has their email up all night, but probably has their phone turned on in their home.)

There is an additional charge to the organization for telephone connection time (typically $0.24 or more per minute). There is not an "opt out" mechanism for this method, and the receiving person (or answering machine) must make a sound to signal the software to begin transmitting the recording. If the receiver hangs up on the message, a "partial delivery" is recorded.

PIER delivers phone messages through a Telephony vendor which allocates a series of phones that can range typically up to 50 at a time. A more costly, dedicated level of service has not been requested for this type of Distribution (which is already relatively costly).

Phone Messages are typically fairly brief, include some repetition ("repeat.. this is a message from the emergency center..."), and and direct the receiver to the Web Site for more information. For more information, see the Message Design Concept document. Fax Distribution

Like Email Distribution, this method will render the full "HTML Part" of the message into a form that can be sent via the telephone to a "fax machine". (Of course, links on an email are of no use!)

Like a Phone Distribution, there are additional per-connection-minute charges (although they are lower - typically starting at $0.12 per minute).

From Values

On Email and Phone Distributions there is a "From" value required. These values will default to their corresponding Email Address and Phone Number in the "Signature" that is associated with the Folder (or Document).

Worthy of note: When PIER sends out a distribution email "From" a person such as "Joe@acme.com" and Joe is also on the "To" list, the Email post office filters at the Acme Company may determine that this is "spoofing" and quarantine the message. If this appears to be an issue, you can find information on how to create an exception for PIER System email coming to your organization's mail system. Please refer to the Email Distributions FAQ document.

Distribution Tracking

With the variety and variability of the many distribution methods available with PIER, tracking success on Distributions approaches the status of "art form". At present, Email is much more "connected" because the recipient is usually on a computer and has an Internet Browser program available. Pages printed from a Fax machine, however, do not have any "wiring" back to the system, so they are more difficult to track.

There are several events that PIER will attempt to track.

Sent - the message has left the PIER system. It may be in the dial-out system, at a phone system waiting for delivery to a texting phone, or in an email post-office waiting for delivery to an inbox.

Delivered - there is some confirmation that the message has been picked up - the phone was answered or the recipient has "viewed" the email. (A special imbedded "beacon" can be included on email messages so that the system can track when it is read.)  This is also registered if a recipient clicks through to a "receipt" web page.

Responded - this would be recorded when a person enters information on the "receipt" web page.

Often there are more than one event captured with each recipient.

Request Receipt, Edit Receipt Request

By default, "Request Receipt" is checked for Email, Fax, and Phone Distributions. There is no provision for this receipt with SMS distributions.

In the case of Email, a special (blank) image object is linked into the message. When that object is viewed by the receiving email program, a "Delivered" response is tallied.

In the case of Phone and Fax, a "Delivered" is tallied when the phone system signals a delivery. 

"Edit Receipt Request" can be checked for Email (and Fax, - although that is moot).

Four items are configurable:

The text of the link that shows at the bottom of the screen

Whether or not the user will be prompted to type a response, and if "yes":

The label on the response form

The message after a response is submitted

The default values for these items can be set through Settings>>Documents>>Distribution Receipts.

Test Distribution

This is an operation to send a distribution to a specified Email, Fax, Phone, or SMS number (according to which methods were selected for a distribution) so that the final formatted message can be reviewed. In the case of email or Fax, this may be desireable to see how the final message appears (including response links and unsubscribe message). In the case of an SMS message - how many messages the system requires to send through a message.

The "best" reason for testing the distribution is raised by the Phone method, because the text-to-voice rendering can be the most problematic.

Distribution Reporting

Immediately following a Test or a normal Distribution, you are directed to a "Distribution Report". A listing of all Distribution Reports is available under the "Reports" tab, and a "View Distributions" icon is available next to each Document in a Folder Listing.

Each report has several dimensions, and is a snapshot of the current state of the particular Distribution. (For instance, if a  a number of phone messages are involved in a recent Distribution, you may need to press the "Refresh" link several times.) The report is broken into 3 tabs: Overview, Recipients, and Exceptions.

The Overview tab has a number of "linked" items on it, including a link back to the Document and link(s) to the "To" groups identified for the distribution. It maintains a "general status" value - that indicates whether PIER is still processing or is finished with the Distribution. In addition, that screen answers (1) are my recipients actually getting one or more messages, and (2) how are my methods working.

Because recipients can share addresses or have multiple addresses (even 2 emails and 3 phone numbers), the mathematics on answering these two primary questions will not usually "add up".

The Recipients tab will display a list of all recipients and the status, method and address for each delivery to each person. Hovering over each status will show a box with a number of tracking events (described above). Further, Response values can be viewed or added here.

The Exceptions tab will display those recipients which have errors, and hovering over the error status text will produce a box with detailed information.

It is often very useful to review Distribution reports. They not only answer questions such as "is the phone calling complete" or "did we send a message to Charlie over in the response team", but they also indicate where address data may not be correct (such as an email address that bounced back).

Custom Distribution

Email and RSS feeds (sometimes customized) are usually sufficient to integrate PIER with other software systems. Twitter and Facebook are examples of commonly known systems that can consume regular RSS feeds. 

One of our sites uses a customized RSS feed to send information to an "Alertus" bulletin board system, configured through a window under "Settings>>System>>Alertus Settings. 

However, there are occasions when PIER may develop more customized inter-system communication solution. One example is actually made under the "Gateway" area where we integrate PIER Documents or Inquiries with "WebEOC" "Boards". For more information on that, please see the Gateways Document.

For a discussion of other possible integration opportunities, please contact PIER.

Additional Information