Campaign scheduling in SMARTFENSE is a straightforward activity that can be done from the platform's Calendar, from the Campaign List, or directly from the content in the Content Gallery section.
To carry out this activity in an organized manner, we suggest having the awareness program designed together with the client. Here, it will be defined which components and content we wish to address to the users of the organization during the project.
SMARTFENSE campaigns have different states, which determine what actions can be performed with those already scheduled:
- Not started: The campaign was created and has not yet reached its start date. Only campaigns in this state can be edited or deleted.
- In progress: When the start date/time of the campaign arrives. The platform sends emails and collects statistics based on user interactions. Once the campaign has started, it can no longer be edited or deleted.
- Completed: The expiration date/time of the campaign has been reached. The platform no longer collects statistics on user interactions within it. If an attempt to access any link related to a completed campaign is made, the platform displays a 404 error view.
- Platform error: An error occurred on the platform that prevented the campaign from executing correctly.
From the SMARTFENSE menu's Campaigns section, we can access the Calendar and the Campaign List.
Calendar
This section displays a calendar with the campaigns that have been created on the platform, ordered by month and component, and also allows scheduling new campaigns throughout the year, editing them, deleting them, or viewing their statistics.
Since campaigns can be real or for testing, you can use the filter to show only real campaigns or only test campaigns. If no filter is applied, the calendar will display all scheduled campaigns.
Campaign List
Although the SMARTFENSE calendar allows you to go through the campaigns scheduled month by month, you can use the Campaign List section to view them in list format. From there, you can apply different filters according to your needs.
Campaign Scheduling
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, you can rely on the awareness program to start scheduling campaigns.
From the Campaigns > Calendar section, click the New campaign button and select the component you are going to schedule. In this case, for example, we will create a campaign for an Interactive Module with an Exam.
To see all the configuration options of a campaign, we recommend, as a first action, clicking the More options button located at the bottom of the screen.
We will now explain each available configuration option.
Mode
There are two campaign modes:
- Single initial assignment and specific expiration date: All users designated to receive the campaign will be assigned upon the start date of the campaign. If after the start date, a group that has been selected as the recipient of this campaign is edited, the changes made will not be considered.
For example, if you remove an already assigned user from the grouping, the user will still be assigned to this campaign. If you add a new user to the grouping, the user will not be assigned to this campaign.
For each assigned user, the expiration date of the campaign is identical and is defined in the Planning section.
- Recurring assignment and relative duration: when the campaign start date arrives, all users who are part of the groupings selected as recipients at that time will be assigned. If you add new users to any of the selected recipient groups after the start date, those users will be automatically assigned to it. This automatic assignment is not immediate but occurs the day after the editing, at the same time selected as the start date of the campaign. If users already assigned in the current campaign are removed from any of the recipient groups, they will continue to be assigned. For each assigned user, the specific expiration date of the campaign is different since it is calculated according to the duration in days set in the Planning section.
The campaign we are going to schedule will be with recurring assignment and relative duration. This mode will be very useful for those organizations that need to provide specific training to each employee who joins their staff. The campaign is scheduled once, and it will be sufficient to add users to its recipient groups.
Recipients
Allows defining which users we will reach in the campaign.
- Assign to users that belong to at least one grouping of each type
- Assign to users that belong to any of the selected groupings
Target users of a campaign may be Groups, Functional Areas, Levels of Hierarchy, Smart Groups, and/or individual users.
Topic
Each Interactive Module campaign has a topic that determines its theme. Only one topic per campaign is possible. In the dropdown list, first, there are the predefined contents and at the end of the list, the customized contents will appear. Read our article on content customization to learn how to create customized content.
From the dropdown list, select the topic The Importance of Information Security.
Planning
The campaign planning is associated with the selected mode, and the configuration aspects vary according to the chosen option.
As we have chosen the mode of recurring assignment and relative duration, we must indicate:
- Start date: Choose the start date of the campaign.
- Duration in days: Indicate how many days the campaign will last.
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Allow the user to be automatically assigned in the campaign: Yes, I want it to be reassigned automatically.
- If allowed, specify how many times it will be assigned automatically: it will be automatically assigned 2 times.
The platform will send reminders automatically to those users who have not completed the activity. This functionality is optional and can be activated or deactivated in the Settings > Notifications > Reminders section.
If the campaign has single initial assignment and specific expiration date mode, you can choose the option to use custom dates for sending reminders.
Notifications
It allows you to decide if the users assigned to the campaign will receive a notification related to it. This notification consists of an email with the URL to access the content which can be customized if desired.
Campaign data
In campaign data, you can assign a name to the campaign and a description that provides more information.
Campaigns can be real or for testing. Real campaigns generate an audit detail that is kept in the historical record within the Audit section. Depending on the type of component used, they will impact the risk scoring, for example in simulations. Test campaigns are used for testing, mainly to validate a correct whitelist configuration, and do not impact the risk scoring in the case of test simulation campaigns. You will be able to see the audit details in the campaign itself, but since it is a test campaign, it will not appear in the Audit section.
In this case, the campaign will be real. In the Test Campaign option, we select No.
Derived actions
When users finish the interactive module, we can assign them a derived action. In the exam option, we select Add exam, indicate its topic, in this case, The Importance of Information Security, and define the percentage to pass and the available minutes for the duration of the exam.
We can indicate if we want users to receive feedback at the end of the exam and if it will have one or more attempts to pass it. If the user does not pass the exam, we can assign it again and indicate how many times.
Finally, having configured all the options as we have defined, we click the save button so that the campaign is recorded in the calendar.
Content Gallery
From the Content Gallery section, in addition to browsing our content and previewing it, you can create campaigns by clicking the Create campaign button.
This article aims to explain in detail how to configure a campaign within the SMARTFENSE calendar. You can visit our Calendar and Components section of our Help Center as a guide to schedule campaigns with other components such as videos, video games, newsletters, USB Drop, phishing, ransomware, and smishing simulations, surveys, and exams.
Below, we share a link to the SMARTFENSE Campaign Scheduling workshop provided by our technical support team.