An open invitation to share their insights. Clear instructions for joining an interview. Sincere gratitude for their time. Macros in Aha! Discovery help you communicate with study participants at scale.
Start with customized macro templates that match your company voice and the details of your particular study, or create your own macros for your unique communication needs. Macros are often your participants' first and last impressions of you and your organization, so use them well.
Click any of the following links to skip ahead:
Customize macro details
Your macro should match your company's brand and voice. From a study, navigate to the Macros page, then toggle to Layout to customize them.
These details will appear on every email associated with your study.
Under Email details:
Sender: This will show in the email as the sender's name. Common choices include your company's name, the study title, or the name of one of your researchers.
Signature: Choose the signature that appears at the bottom of each email. This field has access to the full Aha! text editor, so you can include important links or embed images. The signature will appear on the line after the email body, so you may want to include a valediction like "Best," "Thank you," or "Sincerely."
Footer: Add an (optional) custom footer to the bottom of every email. This could include links to your company or product website, contact information, or anything you want at the close of every touchpoint.
Under Email styling:
You can also access these same settings at Scheduling -> Branding.
Logo: Upload your company or product logo to add credibility to the emails. This logo will appear in the upper-left corner of the email and should have a 1.6:1 ratio.
Accent color: This color will appear in the email's header. It will also apply to any hyperlinked text.
Customize macro templates
Aha! Discovery includes macros for the key moments when you need to contact your study participants. To review or customize them, toggle to Automated.
Each macro has a customizable subject and body. Yellow pills indicate dynamic text that will be replaced with the actual information when the email sends. Red text indicates details you should add manually.
This is a list of the dynamic options. You can insert them yourself with the bracket [ ] keys:
[Study_name] will be replaced with your study's Title. You can review it by navigating to Scheduling -> Branding -> Details.
[Participant_name] will be replaced with the full (first and last) name of the participant receiving your macro.
[Study_public_description] will be replaced with the public-facing description of your study (not your internal study Summary). You can review the public-facing description by navigating to Scheduling -> Branding -> Details.
[Sender_name] will be replaced with the Sender name you used under the macro's Layout settings.
You do not need to end your macro with [Sender_name] if your name is also in the Signature you configured.
[Schedule_link] will be replaced with a link to your scheduling page.
[Interview_date] will be replaced with the date you selected for the interview. To review it, open the interview and scroll down to the When field.
[Interview_time] will be replaced with the start time you selected for the interview. To review it, open the interview and scroll down to the When field.
Click the green toggle in the upper-right to disable or enable any individual macro entirely.
The available macros are:
Invitation: Invites a participant to an interview associated with your study. This macro sends when you select a participant and click Invite.
Joined: Confirmation message for participants who accept your invitation. This macro sends after a participant uses the scheduling page to book an interview.
Reminder (1 day): 24-hour reminder for participants, including a link to a scheduling page with the meeting details. This macro sends automatically if a participant selected a time using the scheduling page.
Reschedule: Confirmation message for participants whose interviews have been rescheduled, if you have chosen to Notify participants about the change. To reschedule an interview, open it, hover over the When field, and click Reschedule.
You can customize any of these macros to match your company voice and include details about your study or the interview itself. The macros support inline CSS, but not external CSS.
After you customize a macro, test it on yourself. Click More options -> Send test email to try it out.
Note that some variables are action-dependent. For example, [Interview_date] will only populate when the automated email to invite someone to a specific interview is sent. A test email will display [Interview_date].
Create manual macros
Macro templates can cover the most common communication use cases. Your study might need additional macros to cover more situations, such as proposing a new time, prompting a response, or offering an incentive to join your study. Toggle to Manual to create new macros that anyone in your study can use.
You will use these macros to respond to participants in Messages.
Click Copy from study to copy the manual macros from a previous study.
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Click Add macro to create a new macro.
Give the macro an internal Name. This name will appear in the dropdown on your messaging inbox, so it should be specific enough that everyone in your study can recognize it.
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Add the macro's Text. This is the body of the email that will be sent to your participants.
Note: The macro's subject will add "Re:" to whichever subject line the participant replied to.
Manage messages
Hopefully, your invitations generate a lot of interest! As you hold more interviews and your participants respond to your emails, you need places to manage those interactions. There are two places to do this in Aha! Discovery:
To manage messages for a specific study, open that study and click on Inbox under the Manage section.
To manage messages for multiple studies in your workspace (or multiple studies in multiple workspaces), click on the Messages navigation tab.
Aside from the scope of messages they cover, both pages function in much the same way.
If a participant responds to one of your messages, their reply will display on here.
Pending messages are from participants you have not replied to.
Sent messages are ones you sent that participants have not replied to.
All messages combines the previous two categories.
Click on a participant's name to open their profile in a drawer view. From here, you can see key metrics about their history, the most recent interview they attended, and a full history of their relationship with your Aha! account. Use this information to inform your response.
Click on a message's title to open it. From here, you can see the entire conversation history. Go to the bottom of the page to type a custom response or apply one of the manual macros you created. You can also create a new manual macro here.
There are several ways to send your message, much like you would respond to sales or support tickets:
Send and keep open
Close after sending
Save as draft without sending
If you click the Send button without selecting one of these options, the default is to Send and keep open. You can always send a new response to reopen the message.
All messages will use the Sender you selected when you customized macro details.