Let customers update marketing permissions directly in Tessitura without logging in

The default way for a user to unsubscribe from a mailing list is by clicking the link in the footer of an email they’ve received. Although this will update the user’s marketing permissions in the email provider (e.g. Wordfly), in many cases it won’t directly affect the record of their permissions in Tessitura. Many organisations configure their email provider to sync permission data on a regular schedule (e.g. once a day), which can mean a significant delay between a user updating their marketing permissions and this being reflected on their Constituent record. 

Some of the challenges with not updating a Constituent’s record directly include:

• If more than one system is used to send emails, a user may still receive marketing communications before the data has fully synced between these systems;
• If a user were to log in to TNEW they would see their marketing permissions unchanged;
• Changes made to permissions in between a user requesting to unsubscribe and this data syncing between systems may create conflicts;
• Email is only one form of communication, and it may be that a user has other permissions stored in Tessitura that cannot be amended via the email provider;
• Mapping Contact Permissions and Interests to Lists or another convention in the email provider could lead to a mismatch, particularly when new permissions are added, or when a user wants to ‘unsubscribe from all’.

The Manage Preferences action in Action Links allows users to view and update their Tessitura Contact Permissions and Interests directly, creating a more streamlined data flow. And users don’t need to log in to access this action – by providing the user’s Constituent ID and email address as parameters in the URL you can include the personalised link directly in the footer of every marketing email you send.

Incremental authorisation

Action Links uses a concept of ‘incremental authorisation’ to give individual users different levels of access based on the level of authentication used. In the case of the Manage Preferences action for Tessitura, a user can be authenticated in two ways:

• By logging in to their Tessitura account;
• By providing the user’s Constituent ID and email address as parameters in the URL.

Tessitura Constituent IDs are not readily accessible to most customers, and validating this ID against the email address on that customer’s record provides a certain level of security. Although this isn’t enough to give a user access to the sensitive information on that Constituent’s record, it is sufficient to allow them to view and update that user’s Contact Permissions and Interests. And you can use data fields in Wordfly and other email providers to include these parameters in the URL for your Action Link automatically.

Features of the actions for marketing permissions

The Manage Preferences and Subscribe actions are packed with handy features, including:

• When subscribing, you can combine related Contact Permissions and Interests and require the user to check a single checkbox to update them all;
• When subscribing, you can nest checkboxes below dependent checkboxes in the form;
• You get to decide which Contact Permissions and Interests should be updated when a user ‘unsubscribes from all’, allowing you to retain some information (e.g. a user’s interests) while complying with the PECR;
• Users don’t need to be logged in to update their preferences, you just need to provide their Constituent ID and email address via the URL;
• Action Links supports session sharing with TNEW, so a user who’s logged in on TNEW can update their preferences without needing to log in again.

To find out how you can use Action Links with Tessitura in your organisation, book a demo or get in touch.