Newsletter 19: Web+Center Help Desk Email List Server

Overview
One of the most overlooked functions of the Web+Center application is the customer/user group email list server function that is found in the Business+Center application. This is a great way for an organization or business to send out professional, personalized emails to clients and users easily and quickly. The opt-out options gives users the desired control over future email offerings. Each user email is sent individually with a personalized “Dear Firstname Lastname” created from a database merged just before sending of the email. This creates a more personalized and professional image for your important newsletters and emails.

The Email List functions include:

• Sending out HTML or plain text emails to all customers or specific groups or customer user groups/categories
• Creating personalized emails with ability to merge in customer names into the email.
• Options to provide links in the email to let users opt out of any future email notifications
• An email message can consist of both an HTML and plain text part to handle users that can not accept HTML based emails.
• All of the email’s subject, body, from reply to addresses and organizations are all stored in the database and can be easily edited, and the email can be resent if necessary.
• Numerous test options to verify and check the email before the complete group list operation is performed.
• The email list program is designed to handle tens of thousands of users from the Web+Center customer database.
• Web-based interface to create, edit, store and delete email messages.

Creating the HTML email message
Sending out an HTML and Text compatible email can often be difficult if you have ever attempted sending one from a Email client program. To better ensure email success for a variety of clients who might not support HTML based email, we recommend a message that includes a plain text part and a HTML part. The figure below shows a example HTML/Text message that includes graphics. Any links to external graphics must be the full http URL. Included in the example below are the special keywords TAGs to insert user names and opt-out links that you can place into your message that will automatically merge in the username and provide a opt-out link during the final individual sending of that email to the user.

Figure #1 – HTML code to create HTML/Plain text email with personalized line and link to opt-out of future emails.

Accessing the Email List functions
The Email List functions are found in the Business+Center application. To access the Business+Center, go to the Web+Center URL of:
http://your webcenter hostname or IP address/business50/Log into the Busines+Center application using your Tech account username and password.

Once you have logged into the Business+Center application, click on the Email Options button.

There are options to create, edit, delete and send the email. We highly recommend you send test messages to a special small group of users first before sending any message to the entire customer list or larger group. It is important to confirm that any links you provide to website graphics properly get resolved by the email client program.

Conclusions
The Web+Center suite of Help Desk, CRM, and customer self help applications was designed to supplement a variety of the business functions that one typically needs to help notify and support customers and users using Internet based technologies effectively. The email list server function provided by the Web+Center suite helps to accomplish that goal of utilizing the Internet as an effective tool to connect and support your users.