Keep the topic present between one simulation and the next, without demanding time from anyone: a course requires dedication and a simulation puts you to the test; a newsletter only informs.
Warn about something timely and urgent —a threat that's circulating, a fraud attempt that already hit your company— without waiting for the next course.
Support an internal campaign, like cybersecurity month or the launch of a new policy.
Reinforce what went wrong in the last simulation, while the result is still fresh.
Communicate without evaluating anyone: there are no failures, no passes, no consequences for whoever doesn't read it, no impact on the risk score.
Go to the gallery
Awareness → Resources in the side menu. The screen is titled Awareness Gallery and has four tabs: Images (opens by default), PDF, Videos, and HTML.
The four don't do the same thing, and this is the most important distinction on this screen:
Images and HTML are sent as a newsletter. The main action on each card is a paper airplane.
PDF and Videos can only be downloaded. They're material for you to distribute through your own channels —intranet, messaging channel, bulletin board—: they aren't sent from the platform.
In each tab you first see your company's pieces and then the Whalemate catalog. You have a search by name, description, and tags, and an alphabetical order that you can reverse. If the search finds nothing, the tab shows No templates found.
Choose a piece or create your own
If something in the catalog works for you as is, use it. If you want to start from it and change it, open the card's menu and choose Copy: it asks for a name and leaves you your own copy, which is editable.
To build one from scratch, the New Template button only appears in the Images and HTML tabs. All fields are required:
Name — you'll find it later in the gallery by this name.
Subject — this is the subject of the email that the recipient sees.
Description — what the piece is for. It's also used in the search.
Tags — at least one. They help you group by topic or by campaign.
Logo — the image that represents the piece in the gallery.
Content — in Images, the flyer file. In HTML, an editor with bold, colors, tables, links, and images.
The menu for each card also gives you View (full-screen preview), Download, and, only if the piece is your company's, Edit and Delete. Whalemate catalog pieces can't be edited or deleted: for that, you make a copy.
The HTML editor offers a user variables button (Name, Last Name, Email, URL). Don't use these in a newsletter. They aren't replaced here: whoever receives it reads the variable code exactly as written. The preview hides them, so the problem isn't visible before sending. These variables work in phishing simulations, not in newsletters.
Set up the send
With the piece chosen, tap the paper airplane. New Launch opens, with four sections:
Name — this is the internal name of the send, the one you see later in analytics. The recipient of the email doesn't read it.
Employees — three options: All employees; Only employees from selected groups, which opens the list of groups with the member count for each; or Only selected employees, which opens the full roster with filters by email, department, and country. Below it tells you how many people were selected, and you need at least one.
Template — a read-only preview of what will go out. It comes from the piece you chose and can't be edited from here.
Schedule — date, time, and time zone it goes out.
Then, Send. There's no confirmation step: the send is scheduled and the platform leaves you on Awareness Analytics, where the newsletter already appears.
From then on, the platform checks every minute which newsletters have reached their scheduled time and sends them. If some person's email fails, it retries with the pending ones on the next pass, without resending it to whoever already received it.
What's worth keeping in mind before pressing Send
If you choose today with a time that has already passed, the newsletter goes out right away. The platform validates that the date isn't earlier than today, but it doesn't validate the time. Scheduling today at 9 when it's 15:00 doesn't schedule it for tomorrow: it sends it the next minute.
A scheduled newsletter can't be edited or paused. If you made a mistake, the only way out is to delete it from Analytics before its scheduled time arrives.
Changing the recipients option erases the previous selection. If you choose 200 people by hand and then tap All employees, what you had marked is lost.
An image newsletter is an email with the image alone. If the recipient's email blocks images —common in corporate configurations—, they'll see an empty message. For content that can't be lost, HTML with real text is preferable.
Which address it's sent from depends on your configuration. Newsletters have their own sender, separate from that of simulations and the Academy. If your company set up its own domain but didn't activate the newsletter sender, the email still goes out, but from the Whalemate address.
Can I send a PDF or a video as a newsletter?
No. Only pieces from the Images and HTML tabs can be sent from the platform. PDFs and videos are downloaded and you distribute them through your own channels.
From what address does the email reach my people?
It depends on how your email sending is configured. Newsletters have their own sender: if your company uses its own domain but didn't specifically activate the newsletter sender, the email goes out from the Whalemate address. If you need it to go out with your domain, ask your Whalemate contact to review it.
Can I personalize the newsletter with each person's name?
Not today. The same content reaches everyone the same way.
Can I cancel a newsletter that's already scheduled?
There's no cancel option. You can delete it from Awareness Analytics before its scheduled time arrives; that erases the send and all its history.
Do newsletters affect my people's risk score?
No. Only whether the email was delivered and whether it was opened is recorded, and none of that counts toward risk.
