Advancing Nucleus’s Email Communication through Automation
Advancing Nucleus’s Email Communication through Automation
One of the biggest challenges for any product manager is balancing flexibility and efficiency—something I’ve been working on with Nucleus’s new email automation features. Nucleus is a comprehensive awards entry and judging platform, and its email functionality has always been central to its workflows. Automated communications are triggered at key points, such as invoice creation or entry submission. Over time, I’ve worked to enhance this functionality to support BAFTA’s evolving needs as well as those of our clients, with the following features now available.
– Fully Customisable Email Templates: Adaptable to suit varied workflows and communication requirements.
– Criteria-Based Communication: Easily target specific user groups, such as all unsubmitted entries, and reach them directly.
– Bespoke User Grouping: Create custom user groups for tailored communications, addressing specific needs.
– Dynamic Email Triggers: Send emails to addresses provided within entry forms, with options to CC and BCC as necessary.
These comprehensive capabilities have enabled Nucleus to meet diverse client requirements and maintain robust communication options. However, as workflows evolved, some clients requested an even more dynamic approach—triggering emails directly based on data submitted within the forms, which wasn’t possible with the original system.
This need became particularly clear when we repurposed Nucleus to manage support tickets for BAFTA Media Technology (BMT). With limited budgets and a smaller client base, I proposed using Nucleus to allow users to submit support requests via custom forms. Although primarily designed for awards management, Nucleus was easily adapted with minor feature updates to serve as BMT’s support tool for several years before transitioning to Jira Service Management as the company expanded. However, one key feature missing was the ability to send immediate email notifications to the right stakeholders based on specific responses in the support form.
To bridge this gap, I leveraged Nucleus’s Category functionality, which enables admins to create rules based on form answers and automatically categorise entries. Once categorised, I set up recurring rules that would trigger emails for each new entry submitted within a 30-minute window. While this successfully alerted support staff to issues for a number of years, there were some limitations—a slight delay in critical communications and occasional disruptions when the scheduled task (cron job) failed and required manual restarting. Additionally, the recurrence was constrained to a single scan every 24 hours, which was a further limitation in critical scenarios.
The need for improvement became even more apparent when implementing a workflow for the operations team, which required emails to be sent to different users based on form responses. While achievable with recurring rules, the delay in sending notifications was far from ideal. Moreover, I was concerned that the continuous running of multiple rules might affect system reliability. After mapping out the workflow requirements, I consulted our lead developer, who confirmed that the existing recurrence system was not designed for frequent, high-volume use. I suggested triggering email communications based on status transitions—similar to how Jira Automations operate—which the lead developer agreed would be a suitable approach.
During our discussions, the lead developer outlined a process for implementing this in Nucleus, and the resulting solution allowed for form responses to directly trigger email notifications. I then reviewed the proposed technical solution against the operations workflow, ensuring that all transitions were included, options were relevant, and conflicts were avoided.
With the technical solution in place and acceptance criteria, use cases, and user stories clearly defined, we assigned development to an experienced Nucleus developer. Both the lead developer and I shared a vision: modernising Nucleus’s automated communications while laying the foundation for expanding trigger-based functionalities, such as the progression functions used to automate moving and copying entries between projects for multi-stage entry workflows. The goal was to create a user interface that could be updated to support additional automation rules, and this has been a core outcome of the work.
Development proceeded smoothly, and the feature tested successfully against the workflow requirements, with only minor bugs resolved quickly. The result is a transformative enhancement to how Nucleus handles automated communications, offering flexibility for setting up workflows and triggering emails based on diverse criteria. This feature empowers admins to refine their workflows, laying a robust foundation for future automation capabilities.
This project has reinforced my commitment to creating tailored, efficient solutions that scale effectively and enhance the user experience. As a Product Manager, I always aim to deliver value through smart automation and responsive design. If you’re exploring ways to optimise your workflows or want to modernise your product’s capabilities, I’m open to discussing how we can work together to drive your objectives forward.
