GovDelivery authors

You have two routes to creating a simple bulletin:

1. From the Bulletins menu using the generic template
2. From the Topic menu, Bulletin sub menu using a topic specific template 
   (This is also the route if you want your bulletin to post to social media – speak to Comms if you need this)

Generic

1. Click Bulletins, left menu
2. Click the Create bulletin button
3. Select recipients

Topic specific

1. Click Topics, left menu
2. Find & open your topic
3. Click Bulletins, right menu
4. Click Create bulletin button
5. Topic recipients, automatically selected
6. Select any additional recipients

Common steps following 'create'

1. Apply criteria if needed (speak to comms about how if you need help)
2. Check subject - the default is "[[ACCOUNT_NAME]] [[TOPIC_NAME]] Update" which you may want to change
3. Our standard layout packs all the newsletter into the main body so you seldom need to check header or footer (leave this to the specialist account administrators)
4. Edit the bulletin body using the standard toolbar, almost as if it were a normal email
   Keep it simple & short
   Preview with <> as you go
5. You can 'attach' files to bulletins - this will add [[ALL_ATTACHMENTS]] to the bottom of the bulletin body - you may wish to refer to the downloads in the body so move this 'macro' to the appropriate location
6. If necessaary you can switch the standard footer for a custom version (if you have one)
7. *Visibility – Important* topics may be classified as listed, unlisted or classified and GovDelivery will produce a web version of the bulletin when sending; if your bulletin contains sensitive information, check the 'visibility' and if necessary set to 'private' to stop this
8. *Critical* - irespective of the public, private setting, GovDelivery as a system is considered 'public' and should not be used for anything classified as anything more sensitive
9. If your subscribers have signed up for SMS texts you will be able to create a text message for them (it will include a link to the public page if your visibility is public)
10. If your bulletin is set up to post to social media you can edit the post content, but you probably shouldn't
11. Before you send
    1. Preview the entire bulletin
       
    2. Send a test – preferrably to several clients: Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo.com, iCloud.com (me.com)
       
12. In send options:
    • Set a send time if necessary (regular bulletins work better if they arrive at a set time: jobs at 9am, news at 4pm)
    • Choose whether to receive a report (default = yes)
13. Finally
    or

More details in the GovDelivery help system

Start by clicking Bulletins on left menu

1. Click Create Advanced Bulletin
2. Find the appropriate template in the list
3. Hover over and click Use this template
4. Give the bulletin a subject and optionally a preheader (executive summary shown in some mail apps)
5. Click the Content tab on the lower right hand side (it defaults to 'Themes')
6. Build your template by dragging element blocks from the right hand side into the drop zones in the main content area as needed - these drop in with placeholders for text & images as appropriate
   • Heading for main section headings
   • Text only for image free content
   • Image only for text free content
   • Image + text - an image with text next to it
   • Section divider - a horizontal line
7. In elements with images, to add in images hover over an image placeholder and click Choose/upload from the bottom left corner of the blank image
   • You might be able to find the image you need in the image library
   • If you want to upload an image upload image, click choose file, select an image from your computer, click the upload image button
8. With the text + image element
   • you will find that using the 'wrap' option produces a better layout
     
   • consider whether the image is 'important'
     
     
     • if 'important' then left align is appropriate - in the eyeline
     • if not 'important' switch to right alignment - keeps text in the eyeline
   • You can link the image using the 'chain' button
     
9. Preview you bulletin as you build
   
10. When you have your bulletin how you want it click send test – by default to your email address but you can add others (test in Gmail or for review by a colleague)
    
    • Please note: Sometimes when you log in to the GCC network, you will have the misfortune to be on a dodgy GCC mail server that does not show bulletin images – images will work fine when you press preview within Govdelivery and when the bulletin actually gets sent – except for people on the dodgy server
11. When you have tested and fixed any issues, click Save and next
12. On the Audience tab click the arrow next to To, click the + next to the relevant category and select your topic – the number of recipients will be shown in the top left corner
13. *Important* topics may be classified as listed, unlisted or classified and GovDelivery will produce a web version of the bulletin when sending; if your bulletin contains sensitive information, check the 'visibility' and if necessary set to 'private' to stop this
14. *Critical* - irespective of the public, private setting, GovDelivery as a system is considered 'public' and should not be used for anything classified as anything more sensitive
15. There are criteria you can use to narrow the recipients down – speak to Comms if you need help with these
16. Click Save and next
17. Under the Review and Send tab you will be told if there are any errors - fix if necessary
18. Either send now or schedule a time to send the bulletin later

​More details in the GovDelivery help system