Radius Communication Plan Automation

Overview

Cadence provides the ability to automatically schedule and send text messages based on cases that are created by communication plans in Radius. Up to 1,000 messages can be scheduled through the communication plan per day.

How Does it Work?
Configuring the Automation Process
Radius Configuration
Monitoring the Process
Troubleshooting

How Does it Work?

Configuration of the automation process is simple, and involves a few settings within Cadence, as well as adding some custom fields to the case module within Radius to control how the automation will work.

At a high level, the message automation process works as follows:

Cadence and Radius are configured to take advantage of the automation
A Radius communication plan is created, utilizing a case creation template with the Cadence-specific fields on it
Cadence searches Radius once per day at a configured time (ideally after your Radius tenant has processed its communication plans)
Radius cases with the correct custom field values are selected
Cadence will inspect the settings on the cases and schedule messages for delivery; note that there is a cap of 1,000 messages per day and the communication plan should be adjusted to account for this and to make sure no more than 1,000 are created per day
Once the message is actually sent from Cadence, it will appear in the Messages area/conversation view of the user as it normally would (cannot be used with shared inboxes)
The case in Radius that originated the message will be updated to a "Closed" status
Any sent messages/replies will be sent to the standard SMS case in Radius, per the configuration in Cadence

Configuring the Automation Process

The configuring process involves:

Creating a set of custom fields within Radius
Configuring options within Cadence

Radius Configuration

The following list describes the set of custom fields to be added to the case module within Radius. Allowed data types for each field are listed, along with notes on usage.

(Mongoose) Trigger Text Message

Checkbox data type
Cadence will only select cases where this is checked

(Mongoose) Message Content

Text data type
This is the message content that will be sent to the contact.
Merge fields can be specified within the text.
If both message content and a template code are specified, the message content will be used.
If no message text or template is provided, an error will be logged and no message sent.

(Mongoose) Template Code

Text or pick list data type - a pick list could be loaded with the template codes from Cadence (found under "Department Name" > Templates) along with descriptions
If this is specified and matches the code of a template in Cadence, it will send that template as the message content.
If both message content and a template code is specified, the message content will be used.
If a template code is specified but does not exist in Cadence, an error will be logged and no message sent.

(Mongoose) Message Type Code

Text or pick list data type - a pick list could be loaded with the message type codes from Cadence (found under "Department Name" > Data Management > Message Types) along with descriptions
If this is specified and it matches the outgoing code for a message type for the department within Cadence, that message type will be associated with the message.
If no message type code is specified, the department's default message type will be selected

(Mongoose) Send Time

Text or pick list data type - This will need to be a time or date/time value - if a date is included, only the time component will be used and is assumed to be in the local time of the institution.
If the value is empty or the time cannot be successfully parsed from the value, the default time specified in Cadence will be used.
Any date value specified will be completely ignored.

(Mongoose) Send from Case Owner

Checkbox field only
If this is checked in Radius, the text message will be sent from the Case Owner. If the Case Owner is not a Cadence user, the message will--by default--be sent from the user you select under "Send Messages From" in Cadence (see Cadence Configuration section below).
If unchecked, you are able to select who the sender will be (see Cadence Configuration section below).

(Mongoose) Team Code

Text or pick list data type - A pick list is most useful for institutions that have multiple Cadence teams using automation from the same instance of Radius; the pick list could be set up to include all of the different team codes for each Cadence team
This is a required field for using Radius Automation with Cadence
The Team Code should match the code of the Cadence team you would like the case/text message picked up and sent from
You must enable the Restrict to Team Cases toggle in Cadence as part of this setup; see details in the Cadence Configuration section below

Notes

Take note of spelling, capitalization and spacing - the field names must match exactly
All fields must be added to the Case module, even if they won't be used (like Message Type or Template Code)
At a minimum, the following fields should be added to the the Case Page Layout:
- (Mongoose) Trigger Text Message
- (Mongoose) Send Time
- (Mongoose) Message Content
- (Mongoose) Send from Case Owner

Cadence Configuration

The Cadence configuration for the automation process is located under the Radius configuration area, under the Automation section.

By default, it is not enabled:

Once the automation is enabled, Cadence will verify if the necessary fields listed above exist within Radius. If any of those fields cannot be found, a warning message will be displayed:

A set of configuration options will be available once the automation is enabled and these settings must be configured before you can use the automation feature.

Case Search Time

Provides a time of day, in the campus' time zone, when Radius will be searched for matching cases. To avoid confusion, and messages being sent at unexpected times, this value should be after the time that Radius processes Communication Plans in your tenant.

If the time that a message is actually scheduled to send is before the case search time specified here, the message will be scheduled for the following day.

Default Message Send Time

Provides a time of day, in the campus' time zone, when any messages will be sent out where there is no time specified on the case in Radius.

If the send time is set prior to the case search time, the messages will be scheduled to send the following day.

If the send time scheduled is after or equal to the search time, the message will be scheduled to send that same day.

Status to Process

The case status values to look for when selecting cases to send messages for. To be picked up for automation, the case needs to have its status set to this value, and have the "(Mongoose) Trigger Text Message" checked.

Status After Processing

After the message has been sent, the case created by the comm plan that originated the message will be updated to this status. This will prevent that same case from being picked up on a subsequent day.

Restrict to Team Cases

This toggle must be enabled in order to ensure your team receives the right cases from Radius. If left turned off, the wrong teams in Cadence may pull the wrong cases from Radius.

Message Sending Options (Default Message Sender and Send from Assigned User)

All messages will be sent from a specific user account within Cadence. A user must be selected to finish configuring the automation. We recommend this account is a general purpose account (e.g., "Office of Admissions") and not a specific individual such as an admissions counselor who is having one-on-one conversations with contacts. This is so automated communications are centralized in one account and don't show up without warning in the middle of a conversation that a contact is having with a specific person.

If the (Mongoose) Send from Case Owner field is Radius is checked, that will override the user selected here. However, if the Case Owner is not set up as a valid user in Cadence, the messages will be sent from this user instead.

Send from Assigned User - If the contact is assigned a user in Cadence, the message will be sent from that Cadence user. If the contact is not assigned to a Cadence user, the message will send from the default sender selected.

Monitoring the Automation

Cadence provides a set of logs and details around each automation run to make it easy to determine what happened, who received each message, and what errors may have occurred. This is available in the Radius configuration area, under Logs > Automation.

Total: What Cadence gets back from Radius
Scheduled: How many Cadence could schedule after validation
Errors: Any Cadence couldn't schedule
Sent: How many of the scheduled have been sent

Total = Errors + Scheduled

When all sending is done, Scheduled should = Sent

Each daily run of the automation process will be listed, with one of two statuses:

Complete: Indicates that every case that will picked up by Cadence was processed successfully. This does not mean that messages were sent yet, or delivered successfully, as they are scheduled for delivery at different times. All successfully processed cases are available under the "Success" column if there are questions about what cases/contacts were impacted in a given automation run.
Complete with errors: Indicates that at least one of the cases that was selected could not be processed successfully. These errors are listed in the table, and the error count can be clicked on to download a list of the errors, with the original data and any details.

Troubleshooting/FAQ

How do I know what cases were picked up for automation by Cadence?

The monitoring section has counts for the total number of cases selected, as well as which were successfully processed, and which had errors. Note, that successfully processed means that the case was selected, all the data was validated, and a message was scheduled - but not necessarily sent to the contact yet.

I was expecting a case to be picked up for automation, but it wasn't?

The first thing to check would be the error logs described above - see if the case is in either the success or errors list. If it's in neither, verify the case exists in Radius. It will need to have the correct status value as configured in Cadence, and the "(Mongoose) Trigger Text Message" field checked.

A case was picked up for automation, but the message didn't send - why not?

It's important to keep in mind that messages aren't sent immediately as cases are processed from Radius. Cadence will retrieve the cases at the time specified in Cadence each day. The message related to the case will be scheduled to send at either the time designated on the actual case, or the time configured in Cadence.