April 30, 2010
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November 17, 2009
Cooler Email: The Basics Pt. 3: Create and Send Out Your Blast
This post assumes you're familiar with the skills introduced in Part 1 and Part 2.
So now you've got at least one mailing list setup and you know how to manage the contacts in this list. Within each list are Editions. An Edition is simply the term we use for a distinct message that we're going to send out to that email list. Since we send this Edition out to everyone on our list, we also refer to it as a blast.
An edition can be as simple as text or a complete HTML email. Granted, not all the HTML used on the web at large is allowed or appropriate in an email. We'll go over these specifics and general good practices in this post.
I. Edition Creation
a. Brand New vs. Duplicate
b. Naming Conventions
II. Editing
a. Cooler Email Layouts
b. Gotchas and Workarounds with the Layout Editor
c. Custom Templates
d. Importing Your Own HTML File
e. Restrictions and Best Practices for HTML Import
III. Send It!
IV. Tracking
V. Edition Management
a. Naming (again)
b. Archiving
I. Edition Creation
Every list has by default one edition. You create your first edition when you create your list. Create other editions by hitting the "New Edition" button.
Ia. Brand New Vs. Duplicate
You can create a new edition by leaving the default option, "None - create new edition from scratch" selected. Else, create a new edition that starts from a previous one by finding the Edition you want to duplicate and selecting that.
You will notice that the list of editions to choose from is extremely long. This is because Cooler is pulling from ALL the Surfrider chapters. This is a quirk of the Cooler system.
You will also notice that each edition starts officially with the name of the list that it belongs to.
Ib. Naming Conventions
Cooler, on this page, suggests naming an edition by date. A good idea, but Cooler's example is problematic. We highly suggest naming by date year first, then month, then day, not day-month-year. The reason is that editions are typically sorted alphabetically. If you name by date, your editions will be listed in an order that's difficult to manage, for instace on the "New Ediyion" screen referenced above, and on the Control Panel.
Other possibilities for ordering are year-month-date, followed by a description... ex. "2009 10 29 Halloween Party Invite".
Editions, unlike Lists, can have spaces in the name.
II. Editing
Right after creating an edition, Cooler will place you in the Edition Editor. By default, you'll be using the Postcard (1 Article) Template. You can change this.
IIa. Cooler Email Layouts
Layouts are simply preformatted email messages. Some are simple, like the Postcard layout. Some are more involved, having multiple columns and/or allowing for multiple articles. In all cases, choosing a layout results in filling out a form, with a place to put your headlines, content, images, etc.
You can get a better approximation of what the layouts look like by going to the "Layout" area, from the top menu.
This area will allow you to see and choose your layout. Once chosen, you'll go back into the editor.
IIb. Gotchas and Workarounds with The Layout Editor
The Cooler Email layout editor is, unfortunately, buggy in some browsers. The best way to use it is to learn some very basic HTML, which is not hard. (If you are going to be doing email blasts, you should know some of the basics even if the editor was flawless.)
HTML has a lot of parts, but you can get by just knowing about italic/emphasis, bold, hyperlinks, and images as a start. Here are some good tutorials:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
http://htmldog.com/guides/htmlbeginner/
http://vzone.virgin.net/sizzling.jalfrezi/iniframe.htm
One thing to keep in mind is that we are building HTML emails, not HTML pages, so you do not need to worry about the headers or the body. You just need to learn the basic HTML tags.
The Cooler Email editor has icons to automatically format your text, but you can use HTML directly to do the same thing.
The biggest bug deals with images. Sometimes the layout editor forms have specific places for single images, but sometimes you'll want to place an image within the flow of your content. The Cooler editor icon for doing this without coding up HTML (the little tree) does not work in many browsers. In the case of inserting an image, you can either show one from somewhere on the web, or use the Cooler Email library.
The CE library, while functional, is unneccessarily complicated and difficult to use. If you want to use it, of course you may, but if you have any issues, please contact Brian for some help.
The other way is to place an image somewhere on the web and include it via HTML, as in <img src="http://www.surfrider.org/mychapter/images/myimage.jpg" />. You can put the image on your chapter's webserver, or you may use the Surfrider Global server for webspace. If you need webspace for your chapter, contact Mark Babski: mbabski AT surfrider DOT org.
IIc. Custom Templates
Cooler Email offers plenty of layouts/templates, but you can also create your own. A Custom Template is essentially your own layout. You write it using a formatting language specific to CE. Directions for this are in CE Help. Katz can also help you with that (part of the job!).
IId. Importing Your Own HTML File
Importing your own custom HTML is not the same as using HTML in a layout or template. This means you write your own HTML page, albeit simply, and acknowledging the restrictions on HTML in an email blast, and upload that. This way you bypass using the Cooler Email forms, and any problems or limitations there.
To use this feature, simply choose "Import Your HTML File" in the dropdown for the Layout choice, in the CE Editor. You'll then be able to upload a file from your computer.
IIe. Restrictions and Best Practices for HTML Import
Well once you save your edition, preview it, and everything looks good, you can send it.
You can send it to a temporary list, say one containing only your email address, to make sure it comes through okay. You can also schedule the send; it need not go out right away.
Click "Send" on the top level menu.
On the Send screen, "Send edition to only" is the field to fill out for your temporary, test blast. You can enter emails separated by commas. Typically you'll only want a few, say yourself, somebody else, part of your executive committee, etc.
Ignore what Cooler Email calls the "Test List". This is another user interface deficiency... this refers to a test list setup globally, that doesn't apply to individual chapters.
When you are ready to send out the real deal, select the "Broadcast edition to all..." option.
If you want to schedule your blast to go out later, choose that option in the "Deliver Broadcast" section. NOTE: THE LOCAL TIME IS SAN CLEMENTE, CALIFORNIA TIME, Pacific Daylight or Standard.
Be sure to click the confirmation checkbox that states you are not spamming anyone.
"Send Now"! (Even if you're sending later. "Send Now" means initiate the Send. You may cancel a scheduled Send by going to this Send screen, and if there is time left, you'll see your scheduled sends and be able to cancel.)
There may be a delay before the emails all actually get sent. Within a few hours though, they will all be delivered. Or at least sent out. The next step is to see how many were successfully delivered, how many bounced, and of those delivered, how many were actually read, and how many were clicked thru, if you had hyperlinks in the message.
IV. Tracking
As stated, you can track bounces, delivery rates, read rates, and click thru rates. Read rates and click thru rates will change over time, of course, as more people respond to the email you've sent.
To track, go to your Control Panel, choose the relevant edition, and hit "Track".
You'll see several graphs, statistics, and links to reports. There are many ways to interpret these, too many to go over in this blog engtry. Read rates above 35% are pretty good.
One area you may wish to focus on, if you have the time, energy, and motivation, is the bounce reports. Many bounces can be avoided if your recipients give explicit permission for emails from your domain, be it surfrider.org or otherwise, or your "From" email address, to come into their inbox. You may wish to compile your bounced emails and attempt to contact those individuals. You also may look at the reports of which domains are bouncing the most, and contact those domains to see if they have you on a blacklist.
To compile a list of the bounced emails, click on the word "Bounced" underneath the main graph. This will popup a new window in which you can create a new list from the bounced emails. You can then try to send a message to this new list asking recipients to allow your domain, or at least the main "From" email for your domain (ex. membership@surfrider.org) to come thru. Granted, you may get another bounce from this list, so you can also take these bounced emails and put them into a spreadsheet, for individual contacting. This is a less efficient method, to be sure, but better than nothing!
The other thing we mentioned was contacting domains with high bounce rates and asking them to clear your domain or "From" email from any restrictions or blacklists. This sometimes happens with service providers like "cox.net" or "pacbell.net". In fact, better than you contacting these domains, is if Cooler Email contacts these domains. They do this as part of their ongoing efforts to improve service to their clients. If you find domains which are problematic, please contact Brian Katz (the author of this entry) and I will contact Cooler Email. I don't encourage you to contact suppport AT cooleremail DOT com directly because of disorganization in the communications flow.
V. Edition Management
Va. Naming (Again)
We mentioned in section Ib naming conventions to use for your editions. The idea is to name them so that they can be more easily organized.
Vb. Archiving
You may also archive editions. You may not want to lose editions in case you want to use them as a start to the creation of new editions, and also if you want to retain tracking information, but they may be cluttering up your Control Panel. You may archive editions simply by hitting "Archive" from the top right of the Control Panel. There, you'll be provided a list of all your editions, and can choose which ones to archive. You may also choose to de-archive, using the same method.
So now you've got at least one mailing list setup and you know how to manage the contacts in this list. Within each list are Editions. An Edition is simply the term we use for a distinct message that we're going to send out to that email list. Since we send this Edition out to everyone on our list, we also refer to it as a blast.
An edition can be as simple as text or a complete HTML email. Granted, not all the HTML used on the web at large is allowed or appropriate in an email. We'll go over these specifics and general good practices in this post.
I. Edition Creation
a. Brand New vs. Duplicate
b. Naming Conventions
II. Editing
a. Cooler Email Layouts
b. Gotchas and Workarounds with the Layout Editor
c. Custom Templates
d. Importing Your Own HTML File
e. Restrictions and Best Practices for HTML Import
III. Send It!
IV. Tracking
V. Edition Management
a. Naming (again)
b. Archiving
I. Edition Creation
Every list has by default one edition. You create your first edition when you create your list. Create other editions by hitting the "New Edition" button.
Ia. Brand New Vs. DuplicateYou can create a new edition by leaving the default option, "None - create new edition from scratch" selected. Else, create a new edition that starts from a previous one by finding the Edition you want to duplicate and selecting that.
You will notice that the list of editions to choose from is extremely long. This is because Cooler is pulling from ALL the Surfrider chapters. This is a quirk of the Cooler system.You will also notice that each edition starts officially with the name of the list that it belongs to.
Ib. Naming Conventions
Cooler, on this page, suggests naming an edition by date. A good idea, but Cooler's example is problematic. We highly suggest naming by date year first, then month, then day, not day-month-year. The reason is that editions are typically sorted alphabetically. If you name by date, your editions will be listed in an order that's difficult to manage, for instace on the "New Ediyion" screen referenced above, and on the Control Panel.
Other possibilities for ordering are year-month-date, followed by a description... ex. "2009 10 29 Halloween Party Invite".
Editions, unlike Lists, can have spaces in the name.
II. Editing
Right after creating an edition, Cooler will place you in the Edition Editor. By default, you'll be using the Postcard (1 Article) Template. You can change this.
IIa. Cooler Email Layouts
Layouts are simply preformatted email messages. Some are simple, like the Postcard layout. Some are more involved, having multiple columns and/or allowing for multiple articles. In all cases, choosing a layout results in filling out a form, with a place to put your headlines, content, images, etc.
You can get a better approximation of what the layouts look like by going to the "Layout" area, from the top menu.
This area will allow you to see and choose your layout. Once chosen, you'll go back into the editor.IIb. Gotchas and Workarounds with The Layout Editor
The Cooler Email layout editor is, unfortunately, buggy in some browsers. The best way to use it is to learn some very basic HTML, which is not hard. (If you are going to be doing email blasts, you should know some of the basics even if the editor was flawless.)
HTML has a lot of parts, but you can get by just knowing about italic/emphasis, bold, hyperlinks, and images as a start. Here are some good tutorials:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
http://htmldog.com/guides/htmlbeginner/
http://vzone.virgin.net/sizzling.jalfrezi/iniframe.htm
One thing to keep in mind is that we are building HTML emails, not HTML pages, so you do not need to worry about the headers or the body. You just need to learn the basic HTML tags.
The Cooler Email editor has icons to automatically format your text, but you can use HTML directly to do the same thing.
The biggest bug deals with images. Sometimes the layout editor forms have specific places for single images, but sometimes you'll want to place an image within the flow of your content. The Cooler editor icon for doing this without coding up HTML (the little tree) does not work in many browsers. In the case of inserting an image, you can either show one from somewhere on the web, or use the Cooler Email library.The CE library, while functional, is unneccessarily complicated and difficult to use. If you want to use it, of course you may, but if you have any issues, please contact Brian for some help.
The other way is to place an image somewhere on the web and include it via HTML, as in <img src="http://www.surfrider.org/mychapter/images/myimage.jpg" />. You can put the image on your chapter's webserver, or you may use the Surfrider Global server for webspace. If you need webspace for your chapter, contact Mark Babski: mbabski AT surfrider DOT org.
IIc. Custom Templates
Cooler Email offers plenty of layouts/templates, but you can also create your own. A Custom Template is essentially your own layout. You write it using a formatting language specific to CE. Directions for this are in CE Help. Katz can also help you with that (part of the job!).
IId. Importing Your Own HTML File
Importing your own custom HTML is not the same as using HTML in a layout or template. This means you write your own HTML page, albeit simply, and acknowledging the restrictions on HTML in an email blast, and upload that. This way you bypass using the Cooler Email forms, and any problems or limitations there.
To use this feature, simply choose "Import Your HTML File" in the dropdown for the Layout choice, in the CE Editor. You'll then be able to upload a file from your computer.IIe. Restrictions and Best Practices for HTML Import
- Do not worry about or rely on items in the HEAD of your document. Many email readers strip the HEAD tags completely. So any styles, meta tags, etc. that go there in a traditional HTML page lose their meaning.
- If using CSS, use inline styles in all cases. And do not use CSS classes. That is, each element must be specifically styled. This takes away from much of the efficiency and beauty of using CSS, but is safer in emails.
Ex. I style this phrase
is coded up as
<span style="font-weight:150%;font-color:#00FF00;">I style this phrase<span>.
Don't use linked style classes or external style classes. They usually won't work. - Attachments are not allowed in email blasts. Period.
Well once you save your edition, preview it, and everything looks good, you can send it.
You can send it to a temporary list, say one containing only your email address, to make sure it comes through okay. You can also schedule the send; it need not go out right away.
Click "Send" on the top level menu.
On the Send screen, "Send edition to only" is the field to fill out for your temporary, test blast. You can enter emails separated by commas. Typically you'll only want a few, say yourself, somebody else, part of your executive committee, etc.
Ignore what Cooler Email calls the "Test List". This is another user interface deficiency... this refers to a test list setup globally, that doesn't apply to individual chapters.
When you are ready to send out the real deal, select the "Broadcast edition to all..." option.If you want to schedule your blast to go out later, choose that option in the "Deliver Broadcast" section. NOTE: THE LOCAL TIME IS SAN CLEMENTE, CALIFORNIA TIME, Pacific Daylight or Standard.
Be sure to click the confirmation checkbox that states you are not spamming anyone.
"Send Now"! (Even if you're sending later. "Send Now" means initiate the Send. You may cancel a scheduled Send by going to this Send screen, and if there is time left, you'll see your scheduled sends and be able to cancel.)
There may be a delay before the emails all actually get sent. Within a few hours though, they will all be delivered. Or at least sent out. The next step is to see how many were successfully delivered, how many bounced, and of those delivered, how many were actually read, and how many were clicked thru, if you had hyperlinks in the message.
IV. Tracking
As stated, you can track bounces, delivery rates, read rates, and click thru rates. Read rates and click thru rates will change over time, of course, as more people respond to the email you've sent.
To track, go to your Control Panel, choose the relevant edition, and hit "Track".
You'll see several graphs, statistics, and links to reports. There are many ways to interpret these, too many to go over in this blog engtry. Read rates above 35% are pretty good.
One area you may wish to focus on, if you have the time, energy, and motivation, is the bounce reports. Many bounces can be avoided if your recipients give explicit permission for emails from your domain, be it surfrider.org or otherwise, or your "From" email address, to come into their inbox. You may wish to compile your bounced emails and attempt to contact those individuals. You also may look at the reports of which domains are bouncing the most, and contact those domains to see if they have you on a blacklist.
To compile a list of the bounced emails, click on the word "Bounced" underneath the main graph. This will popup a new window in which you can create a new list from the bounced emails. You can then try to send a message to this new list asking recipients to allow your domain, or at least the main "From" email for your domain (ex. membership@surfrider.org) to come thru. Granted, you may get another bounce from this list, so you can also take these bounced emails and put them into a spreadsheet, for individual contacting. This is a less efficient method, to be sure, but better than nothing!
The other thing we mentioned was contacting domains with high bounce rates and asking them to clear your domain or "From" email from any restrictions or blacklists. This sometimes happens with service providers like "cox.net" or "pacbell.net". In fact, better than you contacting these domains, is if Cooler Email contacts these domains. They do this as part of their ongoing efforts to improve service to their clients. If you find domains which are problematic, please contact Brian Katz (the author of this entry) and I will contact Cooler Email. I don't encourage you to contact suppport AT cooleremail DOT com directly because of disorganization in the communications flow.
V. Edition Management
Va. Naming (Again)
We mentioned in section Ib naming conventions to use for your editions. The idea is to name them so that they can be more easily organized.
Vb. Archiving
You may also archive editions. You may not want to lose editions in case you want to use them as a start to the creation of new editions, and also if you want to retain tracking information, but they may be cluttering up your Control Panel. You may archive editions simply by hitting "Archive" from the top right of the Control Panel. There, you'll be provided a list of all your editions, and can choose which ones to archive. You may also choose to de-archive, using the same method.
Cooler Email: The Basics Pt. 2: Getting Started
(Part 1: http://www.surfrider.org/surfwriter/2009/08/cooler-email-basics-pt-1-what-it-is-and.php)
Before you send out your first Cooler Email blast, you'll have to setup at least one list of contacts, and configure it and your system appropriately. After that, we can work on sending out your first blast, which will be covered in Pt. 3 of this blog series.
I. Setting Up A List
a. Creating Your List
b. Configuring Your List
II. Managing Contacts
a. Importing Existing Contacts From Another System or File
b. Adding Contacts Individually
c. HQ's Membership List Download Tool
d. How Contacts Are Stored In The System
e. The CRM (Contact Relationship Manager)
f. Web Signup Form
III. Next... Part 3
I. Setting Up A List
You can have multiple lists for your chapter. For instance, you may have one list for your confirmed members and another that includes everybody. Keep in mind in many cases multiple lists may mean more maintenance and management, and having just one list works for most chapters. But it's up to you.
Ia. Creating Your List
Login to Cooler. You'll be in the Control Panel by default.
Hit "New List". It's near the top left.
We'll fill out the basic information about this list. There are three columns of information that Cooler presents to you; we'll only concern ourselves with the first column. You may look at the others and change the default setup if you like, but the first is all that I want to talk about right now. Certain important configurations can be made only after, not while, you create the list, so please do not ignore that part of the process. I agree that it is a deficiency to make you go thru extra steps, but there it is.
For the name of the list, please use a 3-4 letter capitalized prefix at the beginning of its name. If you have a training with me, I'll typically suggest something to use or we can come up with something. For instance, "SMC" for San Mateo, "SFL" for South Florida, "OFG" for Ocean Friendly Gardens. The reason I ask for this is so I have an easier and quicker time managing things (and giving support).
Note, the list name cannot change, so make sure you name it appropriately so you can understand it. If we ever do need to change the list name, we can create a new list and import all the old contacts, but we won't be able to import sending and tracking history for editions on that old list.
Even tho we are not sending anything yet, Cooler requires at least one edition per list, so give your first edition a name. You can call it "Dummy" or "Test" or anything... edition names CAN change, as opposed to the list name, which can't.
When it comes to edition names, the only way Cooler displays these is alphabetically, so a good practice is to name things by date. For instance
2009 10 10 Gala Invite
2009 09 25 City Council Meeting
2009 09 19 Chapter Meeting
The "Brief Description Of List" is the wording that appears on the Profile Update page for your recipient. The Profile Update page is where recipients go when they click on the footer for ANY email sent by Surfrider chapters. If you're not sure what I mean here, next time you get an email from Surfrider sent via Cooler Email, go to the bottom of that email and note where it prompts you to click to update your profile information (unsubscribe, take yourself off the list, etc.) This is the footer that appears at the bottom of every email sent by Cooler automatically, to give recipients control over their subscriptions.
All the Surfrider lists appear here. If you do not fill out the "Brief Description Of List", the wording that appears will be the typically cryptic actual name of the list. That is, instead of "Cocoa Beach, Florida" it'll say "COCOMain01", etc.
The list type, "Public", "Private", or "Hidden", should be set to "Public" in almost all cases. A "Private" list cannot be subscribed to by the public. A "Hidden" list is even more restrictive in that a recipeint can't even tell that they belong to this type of list. Never use a Hidden list. This is only appropriate for companies with employees, or one shots, etc. Hidden lists violate an agreement with Cooler and our subscribers that they have the right to unsubscribe at anytime. Hidden lists may have a place in the world of email communications, but not for Surfrider chapters!
Ib. Configuring Your List
After you create and save your list, Cooler will place you back into the Control Panel. For the list, hit "Settings". Again, lots of options, lots of sections. We'll focus on the most important here.
In the top left, fill out all the "Contact Information". This is about your chapter. The "Contact From" email address should be something officially Surfrider, either your chapter's surfrider.org email address or something with the domain of your specific chapter (ex. surfridersd.org). NOT the personal email address of the volunteer performing the blast. (If you need a surfrider.org email for your chapter, contact Ed Mazzarella or Brian Katz). You may leave the administrator's email blank if you don't want to receive reports and things from Cooler. The postal address is important for legal reasons, and can be your chapter's address or Surfrider Global's (942 Calle Negocio Suite 350, San Clemente, CA 92673).
In the "Send To A Friend" section, there's a default message "Take A Look At This Email!" that comes with it. My personal preference is to remove (or change) this message and I just point that out because it's easy to miss.
The color, logo, and banner options are those which will serve as defaults for the design of all editions created under this list. They're defaults only... they can be changed (and don't need to be set at all, necessarily).
II. Managing Contacts
You manage contacts by hitting the "Contacts" button for the list, in the Control Panel, or, in a more advanced way, by going to the "CRM" tab.
IIa. Importing Existing Contacts From Another System or File
Cooler can import contacts via a file. It must be a text-based tab-delimited file. All major spreadsheet programs (Excel, Calc, etc.) can export into this format. All this format means is that, in a simple text file, each contact has a row and each field for that contact is separated by a tab. (The abbreviation for this type of file is TSV, tab separated value, or CSV, character separated value. CSV can be confused with Comma separated values!) You can open up a TSV in any spreadsheet program like Excel, but also in any text application like Notepad, and it just looks something like
myemail@here.com Bill Smith
anotheremail@there.com Jenny Jones
boyisthiseasy@barrio.com Manuel Ramos
Note that you may import contacts at any time... when you create your list and throughout its lifetime. Cooler Email gracefully prevents duplicates, and also prevents repeat uploads from wiping out previous statii, such as an unsubscribe request. You need not do the work of checking lists for this type of thing before import.
To import, go to "Contacts", then hit "Import" at the top left. There are instructions here for the format of your file. The CRM gives you more options, but is also more complex.
I help out chapters on a regular basis getting their existing lists into the proper file format. If you need some help, don't hesitate to contact me about it.
In Excel, the process is typically to first organize your columns as Name, Company, and Email. Then "Save As", and choose the tab delimited format.
Once your file is setup, use Cooler to "Browse" for the file, and then "Import Data Now". Cooler will report on how many records were successfully imported, how many bounced, how many were already listed as unsubscribed, etc. More details on this below.
IIb. Adding Contacts Individually
Adding contacts one by one is straightforward. In the "Contacts" area for your list, there is a form at the bottom, below the existing contact list, that allows you to enter the individual contacts (And if you're wondering, having the form at the bottom of this screen is indeed somewhat of a user interface deficiency).
IIc. HQ's Membership List Download Tool
We have a tool setup on the chapternet that allows you to download your chapter's current members, in a format that you can use for importing into Cooler, or simply for your own, human use. There are several options there, and instructions. In Chapternet, it's in section #7, Internet Technologies Support.
(If you need Chapternet access, contact Ed Mazzarella.)
You can download all your members, or just those joined up since a month and year.
You'll need an extra password (besides the Chapternet password) in order to download your list. We can set this up for you anytime, and it can be the same as your Cooler Email password.
IId. How Contacts Are Stored In The System
Your Cooler Email account is a subaccount of the overall Surfrider account. Contacts are shared between subaccounts... for instance, there may be a Contact on a South Orange County list, and a San Diego list, all legitimately.
What this means is, you should never delete a Contact. If you need to remove a contact from your list, just remove them from your list.. don't delete them from the entire system. You can also set their status to "Unsubscribed" if you are sure they want to be removed from ALL lists. Typically, recipients can do this themselves via the footers in the emails (described above). But once in a while, you'll get a phone call. You can unsubscribe a contact by finding them, viewing them, editing them (this brings up the CRM), and changing their EmailFormat to "Unsubscribed".
There is more to editing a contact than just this, but I'm leaving the additional features out for simplicity's sake. Feel free to explore it.
What you should take from here is that removing a contact from a list is much different than deleting a contact. Deleting a contact removes their record entirely; removing a contact from a list just changes the record.
So another reason you do not want to delete contacts is in the case where, for instance, their status has changed to "Unsubscribed". If the contact were to be deleted, then that contact could be re-imported later, and they'd no longer be Unsubscribed. This results in bad karma! Cooler keeps track of duplicates, but not if the contact has been deleted.
The one exception for never deleting a contact is if it has "noemail.com" as part of its email address. In this case, the email address for the contact is blank or illegitimate, and so can't be used by any list, or any chapter. It's basically a bogus or erroneous record. In this case, and in this case only, you can permanently delete the contact.
The email address is the key used by the system for identification.
Cooler keeps track of duplicate emails and does not allow them... you do not have to worry about parsing lists for duplication. If you enter, via an import list or individually, a contact whose email is already in the system, Cooler will detect that and update the contact record with the new information (say the new address you are entering or a change in first name spelling). There will never be two contacts with the same email address in the system, across all the chapters.
IIe. The CRM (Contact Relationship Manager)
If you click on a contact in your list, Cooler will open that contact's record in the CRM. The CRM is a more comprehensive view of the contacts. In some cases, the CRM takes the POV of the overall system, and in some cases that of your local chapter account. I mean things like subscriber counts, and mailing list memberships. There's not a perfect logic to it, by any means... knowing this may help with some questions that come up from time to time. Perfectly justified questions, by the way.
Like several other items in this blog post, the CRM is more involved than for writing about here. So use it if you like by all means; just be careful. And like other items, if you want any assistance or training on it, I'm happy to oblige!
IIf. Web Signup Form
You can place a small form on your chapter's website to allow visitors to signup for your Cooler Email list. For instructions on this, go to the Help Section, where there is a menu item specificially for this. Whoever sets up this form should have a good grasp of HTML. While it is simple, HTML knowledge is required.
Next... Part 3
We're almost done! The next blog entry focusing on getting started with Cooler Email addresses creating the email editions themselves, sending them out, and tracking. Thank you for reading this far, and in case I haven't said it enough, I'm here for any questions, training, and help your chapter needs.
Peace and waves!
Before you send out your first Cooler Email blast, you'll have to setup at least one list of contacts, and configure it and your system appropriately. After that, we can work on sending out your first blast, which will be covered in Pt. 3 of this blog series.
I. Setting Up A List
a. Creating Your List
b. Configuring Your List
II. Managing Contacts
a. Importing Existing Contacts From Another System or File
b. Adding Contacts Individually
c. HQ's Membership List Download Tool
d. How Contacts Are Stored In The System
e. The CRM (Contact Relationship Manager)
f. Web Signup Form
III. Next... Part 3
I. Setting Up A List
You can have multiple lists for your chapter. For instance, you may have one list for your confirmed members and another that includes everybody. Keep in mind in many cases multiple lists may mean more maintenance and management, and having just one list works for most chapters. But it's up to you.
Ia. Creating Your List
Login to Cooler. You'll be in the Control Panel by default.
Hit "New List". It's near the top left.
We'll fill out the basic information about this list. There are three columns of information that Cooler presents to you; we'll only concern ourselves with the first column. You may look at the others and change the default setup if you like, but the first is all that I want to talk about right now. Certain important configurations can be made only after, not while, you create the list, so please do not ignore that part of the process. I agree that it is a deficiency to make you go thru extra steps, but there it is.
For the name of the list, please use a 3-4 letter capitalized prefix at the beginning of its name. If you have a training with me, I'll typically suggest something to use or we can come up with something. For instance, "SMC" for San Mateo, "SFL" for South Florida, "OFG" for Ocean Friendly Gardens. The reason I ask for this is so I have an easier and quicker time managing things (and giving support).Note, the list name cannot change, so make sure you name it appropriately so you can understand it. If we ever do need to change the list name, we can create a new list and import all the old contacts, but we won't be able to import sending and tracking history for editions on that old list.
Even tho we are not sending anything yet, Cooler requires at least one edition per list, so give your first edition a name. You can call it "Dummy" or "Test" or anything... edition names CAN change, as opposed to the list name, which can't.
When it comes to edition names, the only way Cooler displays these is alphabetically, so a good practice is to name things by date. For instance
2009 10 10 Gala Invite
2009 09 25 City Council Meeting
2009 09 19 Chapter Meeting
The "Brief Description Of List" is the wording that appears on the Profile Update page for your recipient. The Profile Update page is where recipients go when they click on the footer for ANY email sent by Surfrider chapters. If you're not sure what I mean here, next time you get an email from Surfrider sent via Cooler Email, go to the bottom of that email and note where it prompts you to click to update your profile information (unsubscribe, take yourself off the list, etc.) This is the footer that appears at the bottom of every email sent by Cooler automatically, to give recipients control over their subscriptions.
All the Surfrider lists appear here. If you do not fill out the "Brief Description Of List", the wording that appears will be the typically cryptic actual name of the list. That is, instead of "Cocoa Beach, Florida" it'll say "COCOMain01", etc.The list type, "Public", "Private", or "Hidden", should be set to "Public" in almost all cases. A "Private" list cannot be subscribed to by the public. A "Hidden" list is even more restrictive in that a recipeint can't even tell that they belong to this type of list. Never use a Hidden list. This is only appropriate for companies with employees, or one shots, etc. Hidden lists violate an agreement with Cooler and our subscribers that they have the right to unsubscribe at anytime. Hidden lists may have a place in the world of email communications, but not for Surfrider chapters!
Ib. Configuring Your List
After you create and save your list, Cooler will place you back into the Control Panel. For the list, hit "Settings". Again, lots of options, lots of sections. We'll focus on the most important here.
In the top left, fill out all the "Contact Information". This is about your chapter. The "Contact From" email address should be something officially Surfrider, either your chapter's surfrider.org email address or something with the domain of your specific chapter (ex. surfridersd.org). NOT the personal email address of the volunteer performing the blast. (If you need a surfrider.org email for your chapter, contact Ed Mazzarella or Brian Katz). You may leave the administrator's email blank if you don't want to receive reports and things from Cooler. The postal address is important for legal reasons, and can be your chapter's address or Surfrider Global's (942 Calle Negocio Suite 350, San Clemente, CA 92673).
In the "Send To A Friend" section, there's a default message "Take A Look At This Email!" that comes with it. My personal preference is to remove (or change) this message and I just point that out because it's easy to miss.
The color, logo, and banner options are those which will serve as defaults for the design of all editions created under this list. They're defaults only... they can be changed (and don't need to be set at all, necessarily).
II. Managing Contacts
You manage contacts by hitting the "Contacts" button for the list, in the Control Panel, or, in a more advanced way, by going to the "CRM" tab.
IIa. Importing Existing Contacts From Another System or File
Cooler can import contacts via a file. It must be a text-based tab-delimited file. All major spreadsheet programs (Excel, Calc, etc.) can export into this format. All this format means is that, in a simple text file, each contact has a row and each field for that contact is separated by a tab. (The abbreviation for this type of file is TSV, tab separated value, or CSV, character separated value. CSV can be confused with Comma separated values!) You can open up a TSV in any spreadsheet program like Excel, but also in any text application like Notepad, and it just looks something like
myemail@here.com Bill Smith
anotheremail@there.com Jenny Jones
boyisthiseasy@barrio.com Manuel Ramos
Note that you may import contacts at any time... when you create your list and throughout its lifetime. Cooler Email gracefully prevents duplicates, and also prevents repeat uploads from wiping out previous statii, such as an unsubscribe request. You need not do the work of checking lists for this type of thing before import.
To import, go to "Contacts", then hit "Import" at the top left. There are instructions here for the format of your file. The CRM gives you more options, but is also more complex.
I help out chapters on a regular basis getting their existing lists into the proper file format. If you need some help, don't hesitate to contact me about it.
In Excel, the process is typically to first organize your columns as Name, Company, and Email. Then "Save As", and choose the tab delimited format.
Once your file is setup, use Cooler to "Browse" for the file, and then "Import Data Now". Cooler will report on how many records were successfully imported, how many bounced, how many were already listed as unsubscribed, etc. More details on this below.
IIb. Adding Contacts Individually
Adding contacts one by one is straightforward. In the "Contacts" area for your list, there is a form at the bottom, below the existing contact list, that allows you to enter the individual contacts (And if you're wondering, having the form at the bottom of this screen is indeed somewhat of a user interface deficiency).
IIc. HQ's Membership List Download Tool
We have a tool setup on the chapternet that allows you to download your chapter's current members, in a format that you can use for importing into Cooler, or simply for your own, human use. There are several options there, and instructions. In Chapternet, it's in section #7, Internet Technologies Support.
(If you need Chapternet access, contact Ed Mazzarella.)
You can download all your members, or just those joined up since a month and year.
You'll need an extra password (besides the Chapternet password) in order to download your list. We can set this up for you anytime, and it can be the same as your Cooler Email password.
IId. How Contacts Are Stored In The System
Your Cooler Email account is a subaccount of the overall Surfrider account. Contacts are shared between subaccounts... for instance, there may be a Contact on a South Orange County list, and a San Diego list, all legitimately.
What this means is, you should never delete a Contact. If you need to remove a contact from your list, just remove them from your list.. don't delete them from the entire system. You can also set their status to "Unsubscribed" if you are sure they want to be removed from ALL lists. Typically, recipients can do this themselves via the footers in the emails (described above). But once in a while, you'll get a phone call. You can unsubscribe a contact by finding them, viewing them, editing them (this brings up the CRM), and changing their EmailFormat to "Unsubscribed".
There is more to editing a contact than just this, but I'm leaving the additional features out for simplicity's sake. Feel free to explore it.
What you should take from here is that removing a contact from a list is much different than deleting a contact. Deleting a contact removes their record entirely; removing a contact from a list just changes the record.
So another reason you do not want to delete contacts is in the case where, for instance, their status has changed to "Unsubscribed". If the contact were to be deleted, then that contact could be re-imported later, and they'd no longer be Unsubscribed. This results in bad karma! Cooler keeps track of duplicates, but not if the contact has been deleted.
The one exception for never deleting a contact is if it has "noemail.com" as part of its email address. In this case, the email address for the contact is blank or illegitimate, and so can't be used by any list, or any chapter. It's basically a bogus or erroneous record. In this case, and in this case only, you can permanently delete the contact.
The email address is the key used by the system for identification.
Cooler keeps track of duplicate emails and does not allow them... you do not have to worry about parsing lists for duplication. If you enter, via an import list or individually, a contact whose email is already in the system, Cooler will detect that and update the contact record with the new information (say the new address you are entering or a change in first name spelling). There will never be two contacts with the same email address in the system, across all the chapters.
IIe. The CRM (Contact Relationship Manager)
If you click on a contact in your list, Cooler will open that contact's record in the CRM. The CRM is a more comprehensive view of the contacts. In some cases, the CRM takes the POV of the overall system, and in some cases that of your local chapter account. I mean things like subscriber counts, and mailing list memberships. There's not a perfect logic to it, by any means... knowing this may help with some questions that come up from time to time. Perfectly justified questions, by the way.
Like several other items in this blog post, the CRM is more involved than for writing about here. So use it if you like by all means; just be careful. And like other items, if you want any assistance or training on it, I'm happy to oblige!
IIf. Web Signup Form
You can place a small form on your chapter's website to allow visitors to signup for your Cooler Email list. For instructions on this, go to the Help Section, where there is a menu item specificially for this. Whoever sets up this form should have a good grasp of HTML. While it is simple, HTML knowledge is required.
Next... Part 3
We're almost done! The next blog entry focusing on getting started with Cooler Email addresses creating the email editions themselves, sending them out, and tracking. Thank you for reading this far, and in case I haven't said it enough, I'm here for any questions, training, and help your chapter needs.
Peace and waves!
August 6, 2009
Cooler Email: The Basics Pt. 1: What It Is (And Isn't)
Heard about Cooler Email? Just started volunteering for the Surfrider Foundation? Been tasked with communicating with your public about your chapter's issues, events, and happenings? Cooler Email is a tool and online service that the Surfrider Foundation has contracted with for FREE use by our chapters. This is a very basic rundown of what it is designed to do, and what it is NOT!
Part 2 and Part 3 go into the basics of Getting Started, and Sending Your First Blast.
Cooler Email IS:
Cooler Email IS NOT:
Part 2 and Part 3 go into the basics of Getting Started, and Sending Your First Blast.
Cooler Email IS:
- for sending out "one to many" email messages from a chapter to the public.
- an active way to increase the read rates of your email messages and decrease the chance that they get filtered out due to spam trapping.
- a tracker for seeing how well your communications are being received, via graphs, statistics, and reports.
- capable of importing email lists from other applications (ex. Yahoo, Outlook, etc.), some of which you may currently be using (inefficiently!) for email communications.
- capable of integration on your chapter's website via a signup form, which can be stylized however you like.
- capable of managing and gracefully handling bounces, unsubscribers, and duplicates.
- capable of sending out any email that you can design and that modern email technology can handle.
- a provider of basic design templates for your emails.
- free for your chapter, no matter how many emails you send.
Cooler Email IS NOT:
- an email program. It's not a replacement for Gmail, Yahoo!, Outlook, Thunderbird, Surfrider.org webmail, etc. You should continue to actually read and write standard emails via the program of your choice.
- an email address, or a provider of an email address. If you need a surfrider.org chapter address, please contact the writer of this blog, your chapter's regional coordinator, or Ed Mazzarella (director of chapters).
- An activist listserv. It is not for ongoing back and forth communications . It is not specifically designed for generating discussions.
- for sending out emails containing more than basic information, instructions, or explanations... tho it can be used for alerting and linking to webpages that may contain more comprehensive information.
- perfect, but can do most of what you need with some learning and training, and training from Surfrider is always available.
June 8, 2009
Two Quick Ways To Edit Email Images (1 for Mac, 1 for PC)
Inserting images into emails requires, in almost all cases, that the images satisfy some sort of limitation on their width and height. Especially the width! Sometimes you'll have an email template which requires that they are a specific number of pixels wide, or perhaps a maximum number of pixels. Even without restrictions, say when you are just creating an email message from scratch, we typically don't want to have the message be too wide. After all people will be viewing email in a number of formats... a web browser, an iphone, various email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.
One way to increase the odds that as many people as possible view the message correctly is to have compact, reasonably sized images in your emails, and to control those sizes yourself! Don't leave it to chance, like leaving it to the user's application.
So you may need to resize and/or crop your images before composing your emails. In some cases a simple resize will be all you need, but maybe you have a big image from your camera, that, instead of or in addition to resizing, you want to crop. (Cropping means using only part of the image). Here's how to Resize and Crop for two platforms: 1) Mac, 2) PC.
FOR THE MAC
Modern Macs (OS X) come with Preview.
If you're a regular Mac user, you know this application. It's the default app for opening up PDF files, and many image formats like JPEG. But Preview can also be used for editing images. So open up your image in Preview.
Customize your toolbar to show the editing tools.
You'll want to have at least the Crop and Select buttons added. (Resize is not an element on the toolbar, but the menu.)
To crop, hit Select, and then make your rectangle of your chosen size and placement. Then hit Crop!
To resize, go to Tools->Adjust Size. Select the dimensions you want. You can do this for the original image or a cropped image. Also, you can keep the ratio of the dimensions of your original image ("Scale proportionally" - almost always the best option), or change them so there's a "stretch" to one of the sides. The lock linking the width and height reflects the "Scale proportionally" checkbox.
You can choose to Resample the image or not... a lower sample reflects a lower filesize, which is preferred until it gets to the point where the image doesn't look good anymore. Space is limited with Cooler Email, but we don't want you to sacrifice quality.
Remember to "Save As..." if you want the new image to be a separate file, and simply to "Save" the file if you want to replace the original.
FOR THE PC
For the PC I use a software program called Faststone Image Viewer, which is free (but you can donate if you like!). Tim Tringali of the South Florida chapter first introduced me to this. Download it at http://www.faststone.org.
Faststone is great for navigating thru images on your PC. Once you find the one you want to edit, a double click on it opens it up in full screen mode; then a right click on the image brings up the menu which will lead to "Edit", which leads to the features we're talking about here.
To crop, choose "Crop Board".
You can immediately save this cropped image to a file via the "Lossless Crop To File" button, or, if you want to pull this temporary image into another application, "Crop To Clipboard".
To resize, choose "Resize/Resample".
One way to increase the odds that as many people as possible view the message correctly is to have compact, reasonably sized images in your emails, and to control those sizes yourself! Don't leave it to chance, like leaving it to the user's application.
So you may need to resize and/or crop your images before composing your emails. In some cases a simple resize will be all you need, but maybe you have a big image from your camera, that, instead of or in addition to resizing, you want to crop. (Cropping means using only part of the image). Here's how to Resize and Crop for two platforms: 1) Mac, 2) PC.
FOR THE MAC
Modern Macs (OS X) come with Preview.
If you're a regular Mac user, you know this application. It's the default app for opening up PDF files, and many image formats like JPEG. But Preview can also be used for editing images. So open up your image in Preview.
Customize your toolbar to show the editing tools.
You'll want to have at least the Crop and Select buttons added. (Resize is not an element on the toolbar, but the menu.)
To crop, hit Select, and then make your rectangle of your chosen size and placement. Then hit Crop!
You can choose to Resample the image or not... a lower sample reflects a lower filesize, which is preferred until it gets to the point where the image doesn't look good anymore. Space is limited with Cooler Email, but we don't want you to sacrifice quality.
Remember to "Save As..." if you want the new image to be a separate file, and simply to "Save" the file if you want to replace the original.
FOR THE PC
For the PC I use a software program called Faststone Image Viewer, which is free (but you can donate if you like!). Tim Tringali of the South Florida chapter first introduced me to this. Download it at http://www.faststone.org.
Faststone is great for navigating thru images on your PC. Once you find the one you want to edit, a double click on it opens it up in full screen mode; then a right click on the image brings up the menu which will lead to "Edit", which leads to the features we're talking about here.
To crop, choose "Crop Board".
You can immediately save this cropped image to a file via the "Lossless Crop To File" button, or, if you want to pull this temporary image into another application, "Crop To Clipboard".
To resize, choose "Resize/Resample".
In almost all cases, you'll want to keep the "Preserve Aspect Ratio" checkbox selected; otherwise you'll get a stretch on one side of the pic that will look unnatural (for real photos).
Remember to "Save As..." if you want the new image to be a separate file, and simply to "Save" the file if you want to replace the original.
Remember to "Save As..." if you want the new image to be a separate file, and simply to "Save" the file if you want to replace the original.
May 25, 2009
How To Export Lists From Cooler Email
For many chapters, your main Cooler Email list may have been derived simply by importing your latest membership list from Chapternet. But if you have a webform tied to that list, or if chapter volunteers have been manually adding to it, there will be more contacts than are in the Surfrider National database, and you may very well want to export or download that list (or lists) from Cooler Email. Here's how to do it.
The basic steps, which will be expanded upon below, are:
1. Login to Cooler Email.
2. Figure out which list you want to export (your chapter may very well have only one list).
3. Click "Contacts".
4. Click "Export".
5. In the "Email List Export Manager", (de-)select the fields you do and don't want to grab.
6. Click "Export Now".
7. Save your file.
Pretty simple! The only real stumbling block is that the Email List Export Manager defaults, somewhat haphazardly, to selecting a whole lot of fields that the vast majority of us do not need, the vast majority of the time.
1. Login to Cooler Email.
If you don't have a Cooler Email login, contact Katz.
2. Figure out which list you want to export (there may very well be only one list).
3. Click "Contacts".
4. Click "Export".
5. In the "Email List Export Manager", (de-)select the fields you do and don't want to grab.
Don't ask me what logic went into the decision to default certain fields here as checked! This wouldn't be a big issue except that if you only want some of these fields, there's no way to de-select all of them in one shot. You have to manually go thru and de-click (or click) the ones you don't (or do) want to export in your file.
Something else to keep in mind: several of these fields will likely have blank, or even incorrect data. Things like "SpouseFirst" and "Industries" are rarely used.
I would also de-check "Include Stats" if you are using this for anything other than specifically seeing how your email blasts have been doing. In the case where you really do want to see that, A-OK, but if not, it's a lot of clutter.
(Note: on Windows, I believe you can de-check these lists without using your mouse/trackpad by using the tab keys and spacebar keys).
6. Click "Export Now".
7. Save your file.
That's it! The only thing to say about Saving the File is that it's a pretty fast download in many cases and depending on your browser configuration, you may not even know that it's worked... you may suspect it is not working at all! Check your desktop... there may be a new file there. You can open this file in a spreadsheet application (or a text editor).
The basic steps, which will be expanded upon below, are:
1. Login to Cooler Email.
2. Figure out which list you want to export (your chapter may very well have only one list).
3. Click "Contacts".
4. Click "Export".
5. In the "Email List Export Manager", (de-)select the fields you do and don't want to grab.
6. Click "Export Now".
7. Save your file.
Pretty simple! The only real stumbling block is that the Email List Export Manager defaults, somewhat haphazardly, to selecting a whole lot of fields that the vast majority of us do not need, the vast majority of the time.
1. Login to Cooler Email.
If you don't have a Cooler Email login, contact Katz.
2. Figure out which list you want to export (there may very well be only one list).
3. Click "Contacts".
4. Click "Export".
5. In the "Email List Export Manager", (de-)select the fields you do and don't want to grab.
Don't ask me what logic went into the decision to default certain fields here as checked! This wouldn't be a big issue except that if you only want some of these fields, there's no way to de-select all of them in one shot. You have to manually go thru and de-click (or click) the ones you don't (or do) want to export in your file.Something else to keep in mind: several of these fields will likely have blank, or even incorrect data. Things like "SpouseFirst" and "Industries" are rarely used.
I would also de-check "Include Stats" if you are using this for anything other than specifically seeing how your email blasts have been doing. In the case where you really do want to see that, A-OK, but if not, it's a lot of clutter.
(Note: on Windows, I believe you can de-check these lists without using your mouse/trackpad by using the tab keys and spacebar keys).
6. Click "Export Now".
7. Save your file.
That's it! The only thing to say about Saving the File is that it's a pretty fast download in many cases and depending on your browser configuration, you may not even know that it's worked... you may suspect it is not working at all! Check your desktop... there may be a new file there. You can open this file in a spreadsheet application (or a text editor).
March 10, 2009
Sending Email That Appears To Come From Surfrider.org
» View updated information about the Surfrider.org email service here
Perhaps you have sent a Surfrider related email message from your personal email account, and wished that instead of it coming through to the recipient(s) as mehere@yahoo.com, or brian@gmail.com, etc., it came through as mychapter@surfrider.org. That is, you want it to come into the recipient's inbox as if it came not just from you, but from your Surfrider chapter. This is good for style points, and it's practical, as it increases the odds that your email will be read.
Prior to anything:
1) Make sure you have a working surfrider.org email address for your chapter.
(If your chapter does not have an email address, contact your regional coordinator to initiate setup.)
2) Your email may have one or more aliases. Always use the main, primary one for any configurations, setups, and/or logins.
(Not sure which is the primary? Ask your regional coord or SF tech assistance).
There's a different way to setup sending which depends on how you access your email: 1. via webmail, 2. via your own email client/service, or 3. as a forwarding address.
1. Via Surfrider.org Webmail.
The Surfrider Webmail URL is http://mail.surfrider.org. It operates just like any web-based email client, like Gmail or Yahoo. When you use webmail, you need not do any other setup. You are essentially operating on the Surfrider Foundation mail server, so emails you send from here actually are coming from surfrider.org. No additional configuration is neccessary.
2. Via Your Own Email Client/Service
» View setup instructions for various clients/services
BUG ALERT! If you ever receive "doubles" of your SF emails, it may be because you are accessing your surfrider.org email directly AND as a forward. Contact SF tech assistance to fix this behavior.
Once you setup your client/service (ex. Outlook, Gmail.com, etc.) to receive (and send) email via surfrider.org, you only need to make sure that when you send out emails related to Surfrider, you choose the specific surfrider.org account you just setup. You do this slightly differently in different clients and services.
Here's an example using gmail. Gmail has a modifiable "From: " field when you send. So you just need to set up the Surfrider.org account, and then switch as neccessary before hitting "Send".
In gmail, setup is in "Settings::Accounts::Send Mail As".
3. As A Forwarding Address
In the case where you receive your surfider.org emails at a separate, different email account, a reply-to address is the best option. In account setup, set your chapter@surfrider.org address as the reply-to.
Reply-tos are like sending an actual package from your house but putting a different address on the return-to label. Except that in the digital world, clients and spam filters can tell that the different address is not authentic, and may misinterpret that as mailicious.. which is why this method is the least preferable.
That's it!
Perhaps you have sent a Surfrider related email message from your personal email account, and wished that instead of it coming through to the recipient(s) as mehere@yahoo.com, or brian@gmail.com, etc., it came through as mychapter@surfrider.org. That is, you want it to come into the recipient's inbox as if it came not just from you, but from your Surfrider chapter. This is good for style points, and it's practical, as it increases the odds that your email will be read.
Prior to anything:
1) Make sure you have a working surfrider.org email address for your chapter.
(If your chapter does not have an email address, contact your regional coordinator to initiate setup.)
2) Your email may have one or more aliases. Always use the main, primary one for any configurations, setups, and/or logins.
(Not sure which is the primary? Ask your regional coord or SF tech assistance).
There's a different way to setup sending which depends on how you access your email: 1. via webmail, 2. via your own email client/service, or 3. as a forwarding address.
1. Via Surfrider.org Webmail.The Surfrider Webmail URL is http://mail.surfrider.org. It operates just like any web-based email client, like Gmail or Yahoo. When you use webmail, you need not do any other setup. You are essentially operating on the Surfrider Foundation mail server, so emails you send from here actually are coming from surfrider.org. No additional configuration is neccessary.
2. Via Your Own Email Client/Service
» View setup instructions for various clients/services
BUG ALERT! If you ever receive "doubles" of your SF emails, it may be because you are accessing your surfrider.org email directly AND as a forward. Contact SF tech assistance to fix this behavior.
Once you setup your client/service (ex. Outlook, Gmail.com, etc.) to receive (and send) email via surfrider.org, you only need to make sure that when you send out emails related to Surfrider, you choose the specific surfrider.org account you just setup. You do this slightly differently in different clients and services.
Here's an example using gmail. Gmail has a modifiable "From: " field when you send. So you just need to set up the Surfrider.org account, and then switch as neccessary before hitting "Send".
In gmail, setup is in "Settings::Accounts::Send Mail As".
3. As A Forwarding Address
In the case where you receive your surfider.org emails at a separate, different email account, a reply-to address is the best option. In account setup, set your chapter@surfrider.org address as the reply-to.
Reply-tos are like sending an actual package from your house but putting a different address on the return-to label. Except that in the digital world, clients and spam filters can tell that the different address is not authentic, and may misinterpret that as mailicious.. which is why this method is the least preferable.That's it!
February 21, 2009
Surfrider Is Using A New Email Service; Here's What You Need To Know.
We have transitioned all Surfrider email over to a new and genuinely improved email system. Here's the details on how to use the new system, some troubleshooting, and some general new notes.
If you use webmail, login at http://mail.surfrider.org.
For all other email clients, setup instructions can be found
at this support link. (If you use an email program or service that isn't listed here and are having trouble setting up, please send me a message (my email's also in the Chapternet).
Make sure you are logging into the "Email Account", not the "Control Panel".
Your username is your email address.
In most cases the password is the same as before. In some cases tho, the password did not satisfy the new "strength requirements"... for instance, a password of "mypassword" is too weak. We'll need to set you up a new one. If you have setup your email client as described in the documenation above and/or can't get onto webmail, please contact me (my email's also in the Chapternet) and we'll get you re-setup.
Just to refresh, we can setup your chapter email in any way you see fit... we can make it a distribution list that forwards to several people, have it be an alias for one or many other emails, or have it be a bona fide email mailbox that one or more chapter administrators may have access to.
In most cases, if you use webmail, you can now go into settings and update things like your password, which you could not before. Legacy Exchange accounts, in general staff, however have less power to update their own settings than the newer style
accounts (the official name for this newer type of account is "Noteworthy").
If you use webmail, login at http://mail.surfrider.org.
For all other email clients, setup instructions can be found
at this support link. (If you use an email program or service that isn't listed here and are having trouble setting up, please send me a message (my email's also in the Chapternet).
Make sure you are logging into the "Email Account", not the "Control Panel".
Your username is your email address.
In most cases the password is the same as before. In some cases tho, the password did not satisfy the new "strength requirements"... for instance, a password of "mypassword" is too weak. We'll need to set you up a new one. If you have setup your email client as described in the documenation above and/or can't get onto webmail, please contact me (my email's also in the Chapternet) and we'll get you re-setup.
Just to refresh, we can setup your chapter email in any way you see fit... we can make it a distribution list that forwards to several people, have it be an alias for one or many other emails, or have it be a bona fide email mailbox that one or more chapter administrators may have access to.
In most cases, if you use webmail, you can now go into settings and update things like your password, which you could not before. Legacy Exchange accounts, in general staff, however have less power to update their own settings than the newer style
accounts (the official name for this newer type of account is "Noteworthy").
July 5, 2008
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.
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.
May 13, 2008
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.
April 21, 2008
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.)
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.)
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