Email Reminders Overview

Note: this feature applies only to Gmail customers

Admin Configuration

For users to access reminders in the Groove for Gmail Toolbar, an Admin must Enable Email Bonus Features for their Salesforce Profile.  This setting lives directly within the Groove Setting in Salesforce, and can be accessed by Salesforce admin through these steps.  

How To Set Reminders

You can set reminders from the Compose Window and on an Email Thread. Read how to do each below.

Setting Reminders from the Compose Window

You can use the compose window to set reminders for an email that will start a new email thread and when replying to an existing email thread. 

1. Click the thumb tack in the Groove for Gmail Toolbar. 

2. This brings up a modal that will default to setting the Reminder to trigger for "Tomorrow Morning", without any custom notes, regardless of whether there's a reply in the thread after the Reminder is set, and without creating a Salesforce Task.  

You can close out the Reminder modal without losing progress in the following ways:

1. Click on the Reminder icon again;

2. Click somewhere else in the Gmail draft outside of the Reminder modal; and,

3. Click another icon in the Groove for Gmail Toolbar, which will open the modal for that Groove feature.

Note: Click "Save" to save your reminder progress. That won't set the reminder, though. Only clicking "Set Reminder" will set it. 

3. Click the date dropdown menu to set a time. Select "Custom Time" to choose your own date and time. The time options are in 15-minute increments. You can't write your own custom time (e.g. 11:21 am, 02:37 pm, 07:44 pm). All times selected are in your timezone. You can search in the Custom Time Selector for a specific time by entering the first two digits (i.e. the "hour").

Preset times are configured to send like this:

• Tomorrow Morning: The following day at 8:00 am in the user's timezone 

• In 2 Work Days: Two business days (Monday – Friday) at the time the user made the selection (i.e. 48 working hours)

  • If you set a reminder for 2 Work Days on a Friday, the following Monday is "Work Day 1" and Tuesday is "Work Day 2", so the reminder will show up for you on Tuesday.

• In 3 Work Days: Three business days (Monday – Friday) at the time the user made the selection (i.e. 72 working hours)

  • If you set a reminder for 3 Work Days on a Friday, the following Monday is "Work Day 1" Tuesday is "Work Day 2", and Wednesday is "Work Day 3" so the reminder will show up for you on Wednesday.

• Next Monday Morning: The upcoming Monday at 8:00 am in the user's timezone

• In 1 Week: One week (7 days) from the date the Reminder was set at the time the user made the selection 

• In 2 Weeks: Two weeks (14 days) from the date the Reminder was set at the time the user made the selection

• In 1 Month: The same numerical date of the following month. For example, a reminder "1 month" from September 28 would trigger on October 28. If the following month does not have the exact numerical date, Groove chooses the closest one to that date (e.g. July 31st > August 30th). 

4. Add a note by writing in the notes field. The note is sent in the body of the reminder email at the time the reminder delivers.  This is a good place to write ideas for actions you want to take for your reminder. Any text entered into the Notes field will auto-save.  To clear the notes field of any text that they do not want to send in their reminder email, manually remove it.  

5. To trigger a reminder if nobody responds, select that checkbox: 

This comes in handy if you only want the email if nobody replies.

Please Note: When the "Only if Nobody Responds" option is selected, Groove looks for any in-thread reply to determine whether the Reminder email should be skipped.  Any replies in-thread from the user, the recipient, or any cc-ed/bcc-ed recipients (external or otherwise) would be expected to skip the Reminder. 

For email threads: When a Reminder with the "Only if nobody replies" is created for an email thread, Groove will only send the Reminder if there are no in-thread replies subsequent to when the Reminder is set.  Any replies in the same thread from any recipient — including the Groove user, the "to" recipient of the email, and/or anyone who is cc-ed or bcc-ed — would result in the Reminder being skipped. 

6. To create a Salesforce Task, click that checkbox: 

This will surface your reminder in Salesforce. 

This creates an open task in Salesforce that will be related to the email address of the email's recipient. The Task that is generated for the Reminder will only be created after the Reminder has triggered (i.e. it will not be created at the time the Reminder is actually set).  The Task for the Reminder should be an entirely separate Salesforce Task from the Task that is created for the email itself (assuming the email itself is logged or synced to Salesforce).  

7. Click "Create Reminder" to finish your reminder. That sets it in motion and Groove is counting down according to your selected time. 

8. To view your set reminders or edit them, click back into the thumb tack icon from step 1. Your thumb tack icon is blue when you have reminders set. 

You will also see your reminders from your inbox, like this:

Set a Reminder from an Email Thread

Note: This is for gmail users only.

1. Click the thumb tack at the top of an email thread:

This opens up the modal just like the steps in the section above. The steps are the same once the modal is open, so follow along with the section above. 

A few notes specific to email threads:

You can close out the Reminder modal in any of the following ways:

1. Click anywhere else in the Gmail window

2. Click on the "Create Reminder" button again

For email threads: When a Reminder with the "Only if nobody replies" is created for an email thread, Groove will only send the Reminder if there are no in-thread replies subsequent to when the Reminder is set.  Any replies in the same thread from any recipient — including the Groove user, the "to" recipient of the email, and/or anyone who is cc-ed or bcc-ed — would result in the Reminder being skipped.  

Reviewing Set Reminders

You can view set reminders from: 

1. From any email thread where you created a reminder

At the top of an email thread for which a Reminder has been created, users will see a "Reminder Set" button.  Hovering over this "Reminder Set" button will surface a small pop-up message that shows the date and time at which the Reminder has been configured to trigger.  Click the thumb tack to see a summary of your reminder. Click "Cancel" at the bottom right to cancel it. 

Note: You can't edit reminders from this pop up. 

Click the down arrow next to the thumb tack to go into Groove and see/edit all your reminders on this Groove page:

2.  Access reminders from the Omnibar in Gmail: 

Email Reminders Page

Both 1 (email thread) and 2 (Omnibar) above take you to the Email Reminders page in Groove: 

The Email Reminders page serves as a running log of all previous and upcoming Reminders that a user has configured. In the top-right corner of the page is a "Search" field where you can refine the list of reminders. You can also sort the various columns in the Reminders table by ascending/descending by clicking on the header of each column.

The Reminders page houses a lot of useful information on users' Reminders in table format. The table can be interacted with and read (from left to right) like this:

1. Open Email Icon: When this window icon is clicked, a new tab will open in the user's Chrome window to the email for which this Reminder was created. 

2. Related To: The name and email address of the recipient of the email for which this Reminder was created. 

3. Subject: The subject line of the last email in the thread at the time when this Reminder was created.  

4. Created At: The date and time at which this Reminder was created. 

5. Trigger At: The date and time at which this Reminder was configured to trigger.  

6. Time Zone: The time zone of the Trigger At time.

7. Only If Nobody Replies: Nominal, "yes" or "no" value indicating whether the "Only if nobody replies" option was enabled for this Reminder at the time the Reminder was created. 

8. Notes: The value of the Reminder's "Notes" field at the time the Reminder was created.  

9. Status: Indicates the Reminder's status as of the time the user opened the Reminder page.  (If the Reminder page has been idle in the user's browser, they should refresh to see the most recent statuses of their Reminders reflected.)  The various statuses that might populate in this column include: 

   1. Sent – indicates that the Reminder has already been delivered to the user.

   2. Waiting – indicates that the Reminder is still active but the trigger time has not yet arrived.

   3. Deleted – indicates that the user manually canceled the Reminder. 

   4. Deactivated – indicates that either:

      1. The reminder was "deactivated" because a reply came in on that thread (in the scenario that the reminder was set to trigger "Only if nobody responds")

      2. There was a problem with sending the Reminder at the time of the trigger (most typically pointing to the user having deleted or archived the email or thread on which the Reminder was set).

10. Three Vertical Dots: Clicking the three vertical dots to the far right of a Reminder will surface an option for the user to cancel this Reminder.  This option will only surface if the Reminder currently has a "waiting" status.  

Getting a Reminder

Finally, here's how a reminder looks in your inbox: 

It's delivered as an email from the user to the user in the same thread as the email for which it was sent. These reminders are only visible to the Groove you. The email's recipient(s) won't see it.

FAQs

Q: Are Reminders supported for Outlook customers?

A: Currently, Reminders functionality is only available to Gmail customers.  

Q: My reminder failed to create, why?

A: Google will occasionally throw errors which prevent us from creating the reminder. These errors are out of our control, however, a refresh of the page and a re-attempt usually works.

Q: How do Reminders interact with Schedule Send?

A: The countdown for a Reminder to be delivered begins when the Reminder is created not when an email is delivered.  Therefore, if a user selects the "in 2 days" option for their Reminder but the email is Scheduled to send in 1 day, the Reminder would be expected to trigger 1 day after the email is sent.  

Q: Can you assign Reminders to other internal recipients who are included on the email thread?  

A: No. A user is only able to set Reminders for themself.  Users cannot create Reminders in the name of their teammates.  

Q: Can you set a series of Reminders for the same email?

A: No. Only one Reminder can be set per email. 

Q: How do you edit or change a Reminder for an email that's already been sent? 

A: There is not a way to edit or change a Reminder for an email that's already been sent because once an email is sent, the Reminder is created.  In order to "change" a Reminder for an email that's already been sent, users can cancel their Reminder and create a new one.  

Q: How do you cancel a Reminder from sending?

A: Users can cancel a Reminder from two locations.  First, they can open the email thread for which the Reminder was set, click the "Set Reminder" button, and then choose "Cancel" in the bottom-right corner of the Reminder modal. 

This will prompt a confirmation pop-up where users can confirm they would like to cancel this Reminder. 

Second, users can visit the Email Reminders page to cancel any Reminder that hasn't been delivered yet.  Once on the Email Reminders page, users can click the three vertical dots to the far-right of the Reminder they would like to cancel, and select the "Cancel" button.