The OpenCities x govDelivery integration is currently only available for cities and councils in the US. This task is for users with the following roles: OC Site Manager and OC System Administrator.
The govDelivery integration is a free premium module; you'll need to submit a support case so we can install it. The connector is installed globally to all sites, but you must configure each required site for govDelivery subscriptions.
Connect your govDelivery account with OpenCities
Once the connector is installed, you must retrieve your Account Code from govDelivery and enter it into your govDelivery Connection Settings in your OpenCities admin. You must also enter a Username and Password. We recommend using login details for an organization account instead of a personal login to ensure the bulletins are sent from your organization and to prevent connection issues if the user leaves your organization.
- To find your govDelivery account information, log into govDelivery and to [Profile name] > Account Settings and copy the information from the Code field.
- Once you have copied your govDelivery account information, go to OpenCities. From the main menu, go to More > govDelivery > Connection Settings.
- Paste your account information into each relevant field:
- Account Code: The Code from your organization's govDelivery account settings
- Username: The username for your organization's govDelivery account
- Password: The password for your organization's govDelivery account
- Connect & Save to finish the connection; if successful, you will see a green Connected label.
- Switch the Topics and bulletins to On.
- In the Topics tab, select Sync topic list to sync your topics from govDelivery manually; topics will sync daily at 1:30 am.
When the Topics and bulletins switch is set to On, your site is using govDelivery instead of the OpenCities subscriptions module; you can switch this back to Off and still retain your subscription settings. Before sending notifications, you'll need to set up topic subscription capture and create bulletin templates.
At any point, you can disconnect by going to More > govDelivery > Connection Settings and selecting Disconnect. If you have any scheduled or draft bulletins, you will receive an error message and must delete them before disconnecting.
Turn on Topic Subscriptions
Now that the connection is in place, you can choose how topic subscriptions will be displayed on each site. If you previously used the OpenCities Subscriptions module, the govDelivery integration will retain those settings.
These instructions will use OC Venue pages as an example, but they apply to all content types that include subscriptions.
- In your OpenCities admin, go to More > Site Management > [your site] > Settings > Topic Subscriptions.
- Ensure that the Turn on for this website box is checked and choose to either Show on pages by default or Hide on pages by default from the Site-wide setting for pages dropdown menu. This setting applies to all pages unless you choose a different setting for the content type of that page.
- Select Save Settings and Save, then Close the Topic Subscriptions settings and select Venue from the list.
- Choose your setting from the Topic subscriptions dropdown menu, then Save Settings and Save. The setting you choose will apply to all OC Venue pages, but you can still choose to show or hide it for each page.
- On an OC Venue page, go to the Engagement tab and check or uncheck Show topic subscriptions on this page. Bulletins can then be sent or scheduled from the govDelivery tab.
If you have previously been using the OpenCities Subscriptions module, you'll notice that the govDelivery integration utilizes the same settings to control topic subscriptions. You can still choose how users subscribe at the site-wide, content type, and page level, and import existing subscribers from More > Subscriptions. You'll need to Search by Email and copy the email addresses into a .cvs file to upload them into govDelivery. Please note that if you choose to do this, you must manually map the existing subscribers to Topics.
Using the govDelivery tabs
There are four tabs in More > govDelivery to help you manage your connection:
| Topics | This tab shows the list of topics you synced from your govDelivery account. These are the topics you can choose from when sending bulletins. The list syncs daily at 1:30 am your local time, and you can select Sync topic list to force a manual sync. You can only add new topics in govDelivery. |
| Bulletins | This tab shows your Scheduled Bulletins. From the list, you can select the Page name to go to that page and edit the bulletin if necessary. You can also use the gear icon to Delete bulletins or check each necessary one and select Delete from the Bulk Actions menu. |
| Templates | Use this tab to create a bulletin template for each relevant content type. These templates let you customize what displays in the body content of bulletins for different content types; you can still write further content when sending or scheduling the bulletin. |
| Subscriber Capture | This tab lets you choose how users subscribe to topics. You can embed the govDelivery subscription capture widget on relevant pages or link to the Quick Subscribe page. |