Your beta is only as good as the people in it, and getting them in is usually the first real work of setting one up.
There are three ways to do it in Stomio, and which one you want depends on what you're starting from. Maybe you already know exactly who you want. Maybe you've got a spreadsheet of 200 people from a previous program. Or maybe you'd rather open the door and let people put their hand up. This guide covers all three, plus the invitation email itself, which is the first thing any tester ever sees from you.
In this article
- Add testers one at a time
- Import a list with bulk upload
- Customize the invitation email
- Open a public opt-in link
- Chase the invitations nobody accepted
Add testers one at a time
Adding a tester is just their email address, entered from the beta's users area. If you're using beta labels to segment your tasks, you can pick the labels right there in the same step, which saves going back over the list later to tag everyone.
Now, the thing that catches people out: adding testers while the beta is still in draft doesn't contact them at all. No email goes out, and as far as the tester is concerned nothing has happened. That's on purpose, so you can build your roster while you're still writing tasks. They only hear from you once you publish the beta.
Adding a tester by email to a beta, with the option to assign labels
Import a list with bulk upload
If your testers are already sitting in a spreadsheet somewhere, don't retype them. Bulk upload takes the whole list in one go.
Download the templates first. There's a Download .xlsx and .csv templates link in the dialog, and starting from one saves you guessing at column names. Uploads accept .csv and .xlsx.
The template also takes a labels column, where you separate label names with semicolons. So a single import can create your testers and segment them at the same time, and 200 people land already sorted into the groups your tasks are aimed at. Not using labels? Just leave the column out.
The Bulk upload dialog with the template download link and the file drop area
Customize the invitation email
Spend ten minutes on this one. It's the first impression of your whole program, and a vague invitation costs you acceptances before the beta has even started.
You'll find it on the beta's Onboarding page, under Invitation email:
- Subject, up to 128 characters.
- Message, a rich text body with formatting, up to 1024 characters.
The message can pull in details per recipient, so the email doesn't read like a form letter. Pick these from the editor's variable menu, which inserts them wrapped in double curly braces:
{{PROJECT_NAME}}{{WORKSPACE}}{{MANAGER_USERNAME}}{{MANAGER_FULL_NAME}}
Do use the menu rather than typing them out. The braces are what turns the name into a variable, and a missing pair means your testers get an email that literally says PROJECT_NAME.
The Onboarding page is also where you upload an NDA agreement as a PDF, if testers need to sign one before they get access. There's a separate guide on that: Simplify Your NDA Agreements.
The Onboarding page showing the invitation email subject and rich text message with variables
Open a public opt-in link
Sometimes there's no list to work from. You've got a community, a newsletter, or a stand at a conference, and you want people to sign themselves up.
Switch on Share Opt-in from the beta dashboard, which appears once your beta is published, running or paused. Stomio generates a link and a QR code for it, and gives you Copy link and Download QR buttons so you can drop either into slides, an email, or something printed.
A public link is public, though, so you'll probably want a fence around it. Allowed email domains, in the same section, limits who can get in through the link. Add the domains you'll accept and everyone else is turned away.
Two things to know about how it behaves. Matching is exact, so there's no wildcard that catches subdomains. And it only applies to people coming in through the opt-in link, never to testers you invited by email, so you can't accidentally lock out someone you deliberately invited.
Leave the list empty and the link stays open to anyone, which is what you want for a genuinely public call for testers.
Chase the invitations nobody accepted
Invitations get buried. Your testers table has two actions for the people still sitting in pending:
- Ping sends them a reminder. It works on a selection too, so you can nudge everyone who hasn't accepted in one go.
- Copy invite link gives you that tester's personal link, for when you want to reach them somewhere other than email, over Slack or in a reply to a thread you're already in. It's one tester at a time by design, because the link belongs to that person.
Before you start writing reminders, though, check what you're actually looking at. Someone who never accepted the invitation is a different problem from someone who accepted weeks ago and has since gone quiet. And if invitations are getting accepted but your later emails seem to vanish, that's a third thing entirely, covered in Make Sure Your Emails Reach Your Testers.