Organize And Streamline Cooler Email: Simplify Your Control Panel

Software systems are like cars. They need regular checkups and maintenance in order to run well. Here we're going to go over a couple points and things you can do with your Cooler Email account from time to time, or as a habit (depending on the type of activity), in order to make it work more smoothly for you.

All of these points have to do with managing your Control Panel, which is the default screen you see after logging into CE.

Basically, the more lists you have, and the more editions you have, the more difficult it is to manage your account. Additionally, performance suffers... pages take longer to load and searches and form elements take longer to complete. So let's look at what can be done to clean up and maintain.

1. Archive Old Editions

You don't have to keep old editions that you're not managing anymore in your face. But neither do you need to trash them. Really simple solution: archive them.

The archive button is located at the top right of the control panel, above all your lists (and below the tabbed menu). Once there, you'll be taken to the archive manager:



You simply choose to make an edition "Active" or "Archived". You can archive and de-archive at your leisure. Just remember to hit the "Update Archive" button before you're done.

2. Delete Unsent And Incomplete Editions

Some editions you archive, and some you don't need anymore. Especially for editions that were never sent or those that were simply used in development of final editions, there's no sense keeping them around. You can Delete them via the Control Panel, using the buttons to the right of each edition.

3. Name Your Editions According To An Alphanumeric Pattern...

... That is, of course, if you want them sorted in your control panel, per list. (Many chapters have only one list.)

One of the drawbacks in CE is that for each list, editions are sorted in only one way: alphabetically.

If you have more than just a couple active editions, you may want to see these in an easy to search order. This also goes for other areas of the CE system where editions may appear in a list to choose from.

The good thing is that you can rename Editions anytime. (You can't rename Mailing Lists, but you can rename the Editions.) To rename an edition, simply edit it, and look for the field that displays the Edition Name. Change and save!

You can pattern your Editions in anyway you see fit... a common way is to do it by date, in format YYMMDD (2 digits for each date, no matter what, starting with year and month).

Here's an example of a list with editions named and sorted in this format:


Hope this helps you to get thru CE faster, easier, and more pleasantly. Surf on.

Downloading Membership Lists, Part 2

related: "Downloading Membership Lists, Part 1
The Membership List download application has been revamped to make things hopefully easier and the functionality clearer to you.

You can choose to limit your lists to members who joined during a certain time period, or get all of them.

You can use the application to download a list of your members that you can open up in any spreadsheet program, or specifically for importing into Cooler Email. In both cases, the application delivers you a tab-delimited file; that is, a file whose entries are separated by tabs.

The important thing to note when downloading for Cooler Email is that there is a simple format, which gives you just Name, Company, and email, and a complete format, which gives you a lot more. If you download the complete format for Cooler Email, you are going to need to use the "CRM" feature of Cooler Email to import the list, instead of the simpler methods available in the Contacts area of your list. More on CRM in another blog... but if you investigate, you'll find that the CRM method allows you more flexibility as well as putting emails into more than one list at a time.

Thus, if you download for Cooler Email in the Complete format, you need to enter a mailing list name, or several mailing list names, separated by commas. Note: Cooler Email is case-sensitive.

The other thing to note about the Cooler Email Complete format is that it uses some computer-friendly, but not human-friendly, headings. If you want to download a list with Complete data just for your own reference, select the option for Human-Friendly headings.

The Membership List Download tool is located in the Chapternet, under Internet Technologies Support. As always, contact Brian K. if you need any help at all, anytime.

Downloading Membership Lists, Part 1

related: "Downloading Membership Lists, Part 2
Did you know that as a chapter you can download up to date lists of your members at any time?

It's via a tool located in the Surfrider Chapternet (http://www.surfrider.org/chapternet). So the first step is making sure you have a Chapternet Login.

If not, please contact Ed Mazzarrella. (i'm not putting his email here in the interest of keeping spam away from Ed. If you don't have his address, please contact your chapter coordinator or me, via the Surfrider San Diego contact form.

Once logged into Chapternet, go down to "6. Internet Technologies Support". Follow the link to Download a File of your chapter's active members. Then you'll see the form.

For the next blog entry, I'll go into the various options of this form. Before then, tho, know that all you need for the basics are a password for your particular chapter. Whether or not you are signed up for the Cooler Email service (more on that shortly), you need (and can get) a password per your chapter for the download. (We know that having both a Chapternet password and a password here is kind of clunky, but it's for security reasons.) If you need a password, please contact me or your regional coordinator, if you have one.

More details soon... try out the basics for now and see how it goes...

Welcome To SurfwrITer.

Hello Surfrider world! Welcome to SurfwrITer. It's a blog about tech inside the foundation. I'm Brian K... I help out with tech around these parts. Some of you know me. Howzit?

I first became active with Surfrider in the early 2000s, down in San Diego. I grew up on the east coast, in a few different cities, some on the Great Lakes, some on the Atlantic. Either way, big bodies of water have always struck me as, well, everything.

I hope thru using modern info technology the as well as we can, we spread information and increase communication about how to best harmonize with them.

So... for the first blog entry I just want to ask you to go to the next entry, which will deal with downloading your membership lists. Smoke 'em if u got 'em.

(My own particular vice for this next entry will be some funky tea i got in Chinatown. Totally delicious.)