Messages and renewal emails
Items marked Coming soon are being rolled out and will be available soon. See What's new for 2027.
Group Messages
Group Messages holds the emails Abra sends to the group's employees. You can edit the welcome message, the open enrollment and post-enrollment emails, and messages to the whole group. Choose whether new employees get a welcome email when they're added. Turn on Blackout Group to pause messages to the group.
Reset to Default brings back Abra's standard wording for that type of message, after you confirm. Unsaved edits are lost; press Save to keep the default.
- Coming soon Messages can include merge fields that Abra fills in for each employee:
{{employee_first_name}},{{group_name}},{{window_end}}and{{effective_date}}. In the new-employee message,{{window_end}}is that new hire's own enrollment deadline. Messages go out as formatted (HTML) email. - New for 2027 The account set-up email employees get with their username starts with the group's own welcome message, if you've written one here. Groups without one keep Abra's standard email.
- Group admins need the Group Messages permission to read these messages, and Add/Edit to save or send them.
Renewal emails Coming soon
For brokers. The Renewal emails panel sends three emails for each renewal. Edit the subject and message (the merge fields above work here too), press Preview to see the real recipient count and a sample, then Send now. Abra asks you to confirm, showing how many people will get it. Emails go to active employees with an email address who haven't opted out.
| When to send | Who gets it | |
|---|---|---|
| Open enrollment is open | The day the window opens | Every active employee |
| Reminder to employees who haven't responded | About two weeks before the window closes | Employees with no election or waiver yet |
| Enrollment closed confirmation | After the window closes | Every active employee |
- Each employee gets each email at most once per enrollment period. Sending runs in the background: the panel shows progress, and Send now waits until it finishes. The Send log shows who sent it and when.
- If the email service turns a send down, it's marked as failed, and Send now tries it again.
Sends that need a check
If Abra can't tell whether a send went through, it marks it as needing a check instead of sending it again, so nobody gets it twice. Brokers can press Release stuck sends, then confirm, to make those sends available again. Group admins, ask your broker. Abra support can also confirm whether a send actually went out (see What Abra support does for you).