Who this is for
College Administrator, College Workflow Reviewer
A workflow step that waits on a student or parent stalls when that person misses the first email. Automatic resends follow the step up on a schedule until it is completed or a maximum is reached. Read on for how the schedule is counted and when resending stops.
Why this matters
Some workflow steps wait on someone outside your office to act, most often the Parent Consent step, which waits on a parent. DualEnroll sends the step's notification once, when the step becomes active. If the recipient misses or ignores that first email, the workflow stalls until a staff member notices and resends by hand. Automatic resends let a step follow up on its own, on a schedule you set, so fewer registrations get stuck waiting on a notification the recipient never saw.
How it works
- What a resend contains: a resend is the same notification the recipient already received: the same message, the same subject line, the same recipients, and the same channel (email, text message, or both). DualEnroll does not add a "Reminder:" prefix or any other wording. It simply sends the notification again.
- The schedule: you choose how many days to wait between resends, and a maximum number of automatic resends so follow-up never continues indefinitely. DualEnroll then re-sends the notification at that interval until the step is finished or the maximum is reached.
- When the first resend goes out: the schedule is counted from the moment the step became active, not from the moment you set it up. A step that has just activated gets its first resend after the full interval. A step that has already been waiting longer than the interval gets its first resend on the next hourly check, and the normal interval applies from there.
- When resends stop: automatic resends stop as soon as the step is completed, if the step is cancelled, or when the maximum number of resends has been sent. The maximum applies to the step's current activation. Once it's reached, resends do not quietly start again.
- If a step starts over: if a step is turned off and later becomes active again, the resend count resets and the schedule starts fresh from that point.
Warning: Turning on automatic resends affects registrations that are already waiting on the step, not just new ones. If the step has been waiting longer than the interval you set, its first automatic resend (a real email or text to those students and parents) goes out on the next hourly check rather than after the full interval. Choose the interval and maximum with the registrations currently sitting on that step in mind.
Automatic resends are set up one step at a time, and a step sends them only after someone configures an interval and a maximum for it; most steps have no automatic resends at all. The setting is matched to the step by name, so it covers that step everywhere it appears in your college's workflows. If you don't see an Automatic Resend Properties section on a step, your college does not have the workflow configuration tools turned on. Contact the DualEnroll Help Desk.
Seeing when the next resend will go out
When you open a registration's Notifications page (the Notifications link in the registration's options menu), any step with a resend still pending shows a line like:
Next automatic resend scheduled for "Parent Consent": June 14, 2026
This line tells you a follow-up is already on its way, so you can decide whether to wait or step in. It disappears once the step is completed or the maximum has been reached. On the workflow's list of steps, a calendar marker also appears next to any step that has automatic resends turned on.
Automatic and manual resends together
You can still resend a notification manually at any time, exactly as before. A manual resend is independent of the automatic schedule: it does not cancel the next automatic resend, does not move its date, and does not count toward the maximum. Use a manual resend when you want to reach someone right now instead of waiting for the next scheduled follow-up.
Common scenarios
- Parent Consent follow-up: set a step to resend every few days, up to a small maximum, so parents who miss the first consent email get automatic reminders without your staff tracking each one.
- Any recipient-action step: the same applies to any step whose notification asks a student or parent to do something; automatic resends reduce the manual monitoring those steps otherwise require.