Emedia Messaging Login

Please ensure that you have read and understand the following topic links before reading on.

Ensure that you understand what Email is.

Emedia refers to Electronic Media that can be sent across the internet and received by selected people who are connected to the internet. Emedia Messaging provides a way to send out a message electronically to a number of people linked to users within a TOTECS project. The message is wrapped up in an Email, and the message can be visually styled, as well as its message customised to each user.

There are a number of benefits using the Emedia Messaging feature:

• Send out Emails in bulk to 10,000+ users with the click of a button.
• Customise the structure, styling, and content of the Email.
• Choose the users who receive the Email using grouping, user subscription categories, and rules that match a range users.
• Display content that it tailored to each individual user being sent the Email.
• Track that statistics of users opening the Email, viewing the Email, as well as bounce rates.
• Send out file attachments with the Email.
• Send out marketing and promotional Emails to entice new users to a project, and keep existing users coming back.

How it works is an administrator user creates a new Emedia Email. For the Email they can set a number of details, including the message that will be displayed to the user. They then assign user subscription categories and user groups to the Emedia, which dictates the users who will receive the Emedia Email, then finally the administrator user clicks on the Send button to send out the Email to all the relevant users. Once it has been sent the administrator user can view the results of mail out, and analyse its effectiveness based on a number of statistics.

Emedia Email Details

Below are the details that can be configured for each Emedia Email.

Rich Text Verses Plain Text Emails

In the early days of Email all messages were sent as plain text across the internet. Plain text meant that the message displayed all text characters that could be read by people. There was limited formatting available to the Emails created, with the creator only being able to choose between placing lower-case, upper-case, and new-line characters. The earliest Email clients (that is the piece of software that allowed people to receive and view Emails) supported this simple way of displaying Email messages.

Along came the web browser and the ability for users to navigate the world wide web. Because of this the Email clients started supporting sending hidden web page data in the Email. This web page data allowed extra information to be included in the message that could style the colour of text, display downloaded images, and format the content through the use of table structures. This was great because beautiful looking Emails could be sent out to people, and allow them to click on links to navigate to web pages containing related content.

The problem however is that the old Email client software that some people used to look at Emails with could not understand the hidden "rich" web page data embedded in the Email, and because of this the old Email clients would show the hidden data as normal text, making it almost impossible for the recipient to read.

In order to counter this the Email data standards incorporated being able to send out both the rich text message with its more beautiful design, as well as the simple plain text message. It is then up to the Email client software to choose which version it wishes to display to the user. This allows the older Emails clients to be able to display the message, as well as the newer Email clients.

The TOTECS platform gives administrator users options on if they want to send out an Emedia Email as a plain text message, rich text message, or both. We generally recommend sending out both to cover all bases. Note that the plain text message is very limited in that the same message created for the Emedia Email will be sent out to all the recipients. The rich text message supports customisation, and generating personalised content via the content managed web page and its areas associated with the Emedia Email.

For each Emedia Email there is the ability to set the message that users will see if their Email Client software is older, or configured to view Emails in the simple message format. Any text that is placed into a plain-text message will appear the same for all users viewing the Email. The plain-text message does not support any styling, images, or links, and can be used to send a straight forward message to users receiving the Email.

To set a plain text message of Emedia Email follow these steps below:

1. Login to the Administration Centre
2. Click on the Marketing Menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Set Message button for an existing Emedia record, or click on the Add button to create a new Emedia Email.
5. For the Send Email As setting, click on either the Plain Text radio button, or the Both radio button.
6. Click on the Modify Text Message button.
7. In the Email Plain Text Message area type the message that you wish to send out to the users who will receive the Email.
8. Click on the Unsubscribe Link hook, then click the Insert Hook button. This will put into the message a placeholder that contains a URL that the user can follow to unsubscribe when they receive the message. This hook must be embedded into the message before the Emedia can be sent out.
9. Click the Set button.
10. Click on the Save button in the Configure Email Message to save your changes.

For each Emedia Email there is the ability to set the message that users will see if their Email Client software is newer, or configured to view Emails in the rich-text message format. The rich-text message allows the Email to be styled, allowing text to be coloured, different fonts to be set, images downloaded and displayed, table structures and layouts to be customised, as well as web page links embedded. Because of this it allows Emails to be visually appealing to users, and direct them to more information.

For each Emedia Email, the rich-text message is generated from a content managed web page associated to the Emedia Email. By linking a content managed web page to to the Email it allows the web page to be embedded into the rich-text message, and with it contains all the visual appealing styling and hidden code. It also allows the message to be modified by using all the tools that are available in the Web Page Editor. Administrators can add areas to the page, modify areas, change content, and use templates to provide consist looking Emails when they are being sent out. When creating new areas on a content managed web page linked to Emedia Email there is a reduced set of area types that are supported.

Personalised Rich-Text Email Messages

When an administrator user sends out an Emedia Email that has rich text to be embedded within it, the platform will render the linked content managed web page for each user receiving the Email, allowing the users to receive personalised versions of the web page containing areas with information specific to the user. The content managed web page area types that can be personalisated for each user are:

• User Details
• Redeemable Deal Products Listing
• Email Unsubscribe

At least one Email Unsubscribe area must be included on the content managed web page linked the the Emedia Email. This area contains a link that allows the user to unsubscribe from receiving any future Emedia Emails associated with a User Subscription Category, or completely.

Rich Text Email Message Content Managed Webpage Setup

To set a rich text message of Emedia Email follow these steps below:

1. Login to the Administration Centre
2. Click on the Marketing Menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Set Message button for an existing Emedia record, or click on the Add button to create a new Emedia Email.
5. For the Send Email As setting, click on either the Rich Text radio button, or the Both radio button.
6. For the HTML Message Template choose a template that will be used to style the content managed web page linked the Emedia Email.
7. Click the Create Web Page button. This will create a new content managed web page.
8. Click the Modify Web Page button to open the web page linked to the Emedia Email and modify the areas within the page.
9. Click on the Add button for any area container on the page, select the area type to "Emarketing", choose the Email Unsubscribe Form area action, then click the Create button.
10. Create or choose an existing content managed web page format that will display the unsubscribe link the Emedia Email, then press the Save button.
11. In the Email Unsubscribe Form area choose the web page that users are directed to if they click on the unsubscribe link in the area.
12. Click the Save button.
13. [optional] In the Web Page Area Editor create, or modify any existing areas on the page.
14. Back in the Emedia Messaging interface, click the Save button in the Configure Email Message dialog to save the setting changes. 

Rich Text Email Message Template Setup

Before a content managed web page can be created and linked to a Emedia Email for it rich-text message, there needs to be content managed web page templates created in the TOTECS platform. The templates provides the layout, styling, structure, and placement of areas for the web page. The template itself needs to have its mode set to "Email", this allows the template to be selected from within the Configure Email Message dialog. The template itself is a HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) file. In order to create a HTML file you will need to have knowledge, and computer programming skills in HTML.

To creata a new Email content managed web page template follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre.
2. Click on the Websites menu button.
3. Click on the Websites menu item link.
4. Click on the plus symbol next to the Email Templates tree node.
5. Click on the New Email Template tree node.
6. In the Template Name field set a name for the template.
7. Set the Template Node drop down to Email.
8. Click on the Choose File button, and locate a HTML file on the computer.
9. Click the Save Template button.

The template will be created and displayed within the Email Templates tree folder. From there you can modify the template, or remove it in the future. To find out how to set the content of the file in the template, read more information about content managed web pages in the link below.

User Subscriptions Categories allow users to sign up and receive marketing material for a given category of interest. Administrator users can set up any number of User Subscription Categories within a TOTECS project. Users can subscribe themselves to the categories from within the My Details of the Trade interface, or on content managed web pages that contains the following area types:

• User Registration
• Enquiry Form
• Emedia Subscription Form
• User Details/Favourites/Orders

Users can unsubscribe themselves from the User Subscription Categories in the My Details Trade Interface page, or from the User Details/Favourites/Orders, and Emedia Unsubscribe Form areas on a content managed web page. Administrator users can assign other users to User Subscription Categories through the My Details interface within the Administration Centre, or by using the Users Text File data import. If a user unsubscribes themselves from a category, administrator users cannot subscribe the user to the category again. This is a safe guard to ensure that users are only receiving messages that they wish to receive.

The following details can be set for each User Subscription Category.

Once User Subscription Categories have been set up within a project, and users are assigned to the categories, Emedia Emails can be sent out to users based on the subscription categories assigned to the Emedia. User Subscription Categories in association with User Groups determines the complete list of users who can receive Emedia Emails.

User Groups allows administrator users to have the ability to group a number of users together in a TOTECS project based on search rules. For example, one user group can be created that will match all users who have ordered in the last 90 days, and who are active. 

There are many different search rules that can be used to match users, these are broadly based on:

• All Users - Covers rules to match a large number of users in a project based on broad rules.
• Marketing - Covers rules to match users who are associated with different aspected of Emarketing such as previously receiving Emedia, or being assigned to user subscription categories.
• Order History - Covers rules to match users who have previously ordered.
• Shopping Basket - Covers rules to match users on the state of their basket.
• User Permissions - Covers rules to match users assigned to permission roles.
• User/Account - Covers rules to match users based on their own details or assigned customer account.

User Groups are used within Emedia Emails to allow the administrator to choose the users who are allowed to receive the Emedia. Unlike User Subscription Categories where users can voluntarily subscribe themselves to categories, user groups can only be defined by administrator users.

When an Emedia Email is created an administrator user can choose the user subscription categories to be assigned to the Emedia, as well as the user groups. When an Emedia is sent out only the users assigned to both the assigned categories, and are found to match the user group rules will be sent the Emedia. The platform will run the user group rule checks at the time the Emedia is sent out, this allows users to dynamically be added or removed from the senders list, which is one of the main reasons why user groups are used.

An example of using User Groups is if a special promotional VIP Email wanted to be sent out to all users who have ordered in the past 30 days with a product deal voucher code. A user group could be assigned to the Email that finds users who submitted orders in the last 30 days, then coupled with a user subscription category called "promotions"  that is assigned to the Emedia, the users who signed up for promotions and ordered will be receive the Email that has a product deal area embedded within the rich-text part of the Email to display the voucher code.

Once the details of a Emedia Email have been configured, the message components set, the user groups assigned, and the user subscription categories assigned, you are then almost ready to send out the Emedia Email. The next step is to send a test version of the Emedia Email to your own Email inbox.

Sending Test Emedia Email

The platform allows you to specify any Email address that you can send a test message to. This testing is critically important for the following reasons:

• Check that the generated Emedia Email appears the way you expect it to.
• Check that the Email does not contain any spelling mistakes.
• Check that any images embedded in the rich-text message load correctly.
• Check that any links embedded in the rich-text message link to the correct web page.
• Check that the Email looks consistent when being sent to many differernt Email clients. We recommend sending Emails to Microsoft Outlook Express 2007, 2010, 2013, Gmail, Hotmail, Thunderbird, and any other clients that used wildly by your target audience.
• Check how the personalised content for each user in the rich-text message is being displayed.

With Email clients there can be big differences on how they draw the rich-text message of an Email. Because of this you need to ensure that you test sending Emails on a variety of Email Clients. Additionally some clients will not automatically download images when the Email first opens, so its recommended that you test viewing your Email if the images cannot load and checking that it still looks good.

Before you send out the Emedia Email you can also see the current list of users who will be sent the Email. Additionally for each user you can view how the rich-text message would be rendered for them in a web page, and see the content of any personalised areas that display data unique to them.

Sending Emedia Email

Once you are happy to send out the Emedia Email, are OK of the costs involved, then you are ready to press the Send button. Once this occurs the following will happen:

1. The list of users receiving the Email will be determined based on the users associated with the assigned User Submiscription Categories and User Groups. Once this has been generated the Emedia's Status will be set to PROCESSING.
2. Each user will have the Emedia Email generated for them and sent out to their Email address.
3. For each Email it will be sent out through TOTECS outgoing SMTP server, with the server checking that recipent's Email server can be found, and that the Email recipient is not on the TOTECS bounce list.
4. If the checks success the Email will arrive at the server that hosts each user's inbox. The Email will then be marked as SENT against the user in the statistics of the Emedia.
5. If the Email was bounced back from the server that hosts a user's indox, then the Email will be marked as BOUNCED against the user for the sent Emedia.
6. Once all the Emedia Emails have been sent out then the Emedia's status will be changed to SENT.

Note that it can take quite a while for all Emedia Emails to be sent out if a large amount of recipients are receiving Emails. It can take even longer if the Emedia Email has file attachments linked to it. It is reccommended to regulary to visit the Emedia Messaging page within the Administration Centre to see the updated statistics as the Emedia Emails are processed, sent, and received by users.

For each Emedia Email being sent out there is the ability to view a number of different statistics that report on the effectiveness of send out. These statistics can be found within the Administration Centre, under the Marketing menu, within the Emedia Messaging interface by click clicking on the View Results button for an Emedia Email.

Each time the Emedia is sent out statistics are recorded against the the individual send time. This means that you can change the details of an Emedia Email, send it out, then change it again, send it out again, and see the statistics for each time it was sent out.

Emails Sent

The "Emails Sent" pie chart shows the amount of Emails that were sent out to all users assigned to the Emedia Email, and the results of sending the Email for each user. The graph is broken up into:

• Sent - Number of unique users who were sent the Emedia Email.
• Undelivered - Number of unique users that the system attempted to send an Email to but could not successfully do so. A number reasons for this can occur:
  • The Emedia Email is still being processed then this will be show the number of users who are yet to be sent the Email.
  • The user's Email address is not formed correctly then the platform will not be able to attempt to send an Email out.
  • The server that the Email is being sent to does not exist, or is unavailable.
  • The TOTECS outgoing Email server is down, or not available.
• Bounced - Number of unique users that an Email was sent to, but a bounce response was returned. There are several reasons why an Email bounce occurs, these are:
  • If a person goes on holiday and sets up their Email to automatically response with a message notifying that they are away
  • A hosting provider of the Email inbox advises that the inbox no longer exists.
  • The TOTECS outgoing Email server detects that an Email is being sent to an address that has already bounced more than 2 other times, and as such will automatically mark the Email as being bounced without sending it out. This is done to ensure that the TOTECS Email servers are not black listed and look malicious.
  • The Email hosting provider has black listed any Emails coming from the TOTECS Email servers, or based on the Email's from address.

Rich-Text Email Views and Clicks

The "Rich-Text Email Views and Clicks" graph shows the activity of users opening and viewing the rich-text message of an Emedia Email over a period of time. This allows administrators to see the total amount of users viewing the Email for each day since the Emedia was sent out.

Since the Email framework was not designed to report back to the Email sender if a person had viewed an Email, the TOTECS platform gets around this by embedding a hidden image into the rich-text message of the Emedia Email being sent. When a user opens the Email, a request will be made by their Email Client to download this hidden image from the  platform. This in turns allows the platform to record this image request as an Email view statistic. Some Email clients do not allow any external content such as images to be downloaded by default. Because of this it will affect the accuracy of the views statistics so please factor this in when interpreting the statistics.

Typically most views occur on the day, or day after an Emedia Email was sent out. If the Email contains interesting information then users may open it days or weeks after it was sent out, and the statistics will show this.

Email Clients

When an Emedia Email is sent out and the rich-text message is viewed by the recipient, the hidden image that is downloaded to the Email to register the view statistics can also give clues as to the the Email client software that is displaying the message. In can be very beneficial to know the Email clients that are displaying Emails since each client can display a rich-text message in many different ways. The older Email clients tend to support less styling and be restrictive on how beautiful an Email can look. Using these statistics it can help guide the designers of future Emedia Email on how the rich-text web page needs to be implemented.

Statistics

A number of aggregate statistics are calculated for a the sent Emedia Email, these are:

A common request is to be able to send out an Emedia Email within a TOTECS project that targets a list of Email addresses that have been obtain from other systems or data sources. To do this the Emails addresses need to be imported into the TOTECS project as users. Once users have been created with the assigned Email addresses, the users need to be set to allow receiving marketing material, as well as assigned to User Subscription Categories, that the Emedia Email will be targeting. Thankfully all these steps can be done at the same time by using Users Text File Data Import feature within the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.

Follow these steps below to import a list of Email addresses into a TOTECS project and have users created for each. Ensure that you have already set up User Subscription Categories, User Groups, and an Emedia Email.

1. Open a web browser and login to the Administration Centre of the relevant TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Data menu button.
3. Click on the Data Imports menu item link.
4. Click on the Modify Settings link in the same table row as the Users Import Type.
5. In the User Import Settings dialog untick the "Do Not Update Existing Users" setting, and untick the "Do Not Create Users With Email Addresses Already Present". This will ensure that when your list of Emails is imported that the details of existing users in the TOTECS project matching the Email addresses will not be altered.
6. Click the Close button in the Users Import Settings dialog.
7. Click on the Text File Format Details link in the same table row as the Users Import Type. This will open up the Text File Format Detail dialog that shows all the possible columns that can be set in a spreadsheet file used to import users. Take note of the columns labelled Login, Account, Email, Is Temporary, Receive Marketing, Marketing Category|<Marketing Category>. Close the dialog.
8. Seperately open up a Spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel.
9. In the Spreadsheet, for the first row set the names of the each of the columns as were displayed in the Text File Format Detail Dialog. For the Marketing Category column, set the name of the actual User Subscription Category that you want these new users to be assigned to. In the example below these new users will be assigned to a User Subscription Category called "Promotions", as well as a category called "Specials".
10. In the second, and all subsequent rows of the spreadsheet enter the details of each user, with each row contains the data of one user.

    Login	Account	Email	Is Temporary	Receive Marketing	Marketing Category|Promotions	Marketing Category|Specials
    someemail@somewhere.com	WEB_RETAIL	someemail@somewhere.com	Y	Y	Y	Y
    someemail2@somewhere.com	WEB_RETAIL	someemail@somewhere.com	Y	Y	Y	Y

11. Continue to add more rows of users until you are happy with your data. Ensure that the spreadsheet contains no more than 10,000 rows. If you have more then create a second spreadsheet file.
12. Save the spreadsheet file. Ensure that when the spreadsheet is save that it is saved as a CSV file.
13. Open the web browser once again that contains the Data Imports Administration Center interface.
14. Click on the Upload File button that is displayed on the same row as the Users import type.
15. Locate the CSV file that you had saved to your computer from step 8 and click the Open button (in some operating systems the button may be called differently). The file will then be uploaded to the TOTECS project and its contents imported with new users being created for each row in the file.
16. Once the import is complete view any errors that may have occurred in the Error Log. View the amount of users who were created by viewing the History log.
17. Click on the Marketing menu button.
18. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item link.
19. Find the Emedia that you wish to send out, click on the Set Users button.
20. Select the User Subscription Categories that your CSV file was assigning its users to. Also select User Groups that contains rules that covers the user just imported. Click on the Save button.
21. Click on the Send button of the Emedia.
22. Click on the View Users button and view the users displayed in the table.

Hopefully you will see the list of users in the table that were imported with the Emails that you had in your list. If some users do not show up then check that the user was created by navigating to the Search Users interface and try to find them. Also make sure the users are marked as active, are set to receive marketing, are assigned to the User Subscription Categories that assigned to the Emedia, and that they are matched in the one of the User Group rules assigned to the Emedia.

Temporary Users

The imported Users text file import contained the Is Temporary column to ensure that when users are created that they are set as being Is Temporary. This will allow a person who decides to register with a matching Email address to be assigned to existing user. If these imported users were not set to be temporary then when a person registered with a matching Email address they would be told that they cannot register since another user already exists with the same login.

Within the Administration Centre of a TOTECS project, under the Marketing menu, there a menu item labelled Emedia Messaging that takes an administrator user to the interface. The Emedia Messaging interface allows administrators to create, and manage sending out Emedia Emails to a large number of selected users within the TOTECS project. The following actions below can be done within this interface.

Create Emedia Email

To create a new Emedia Email follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Add button below the Emedia Items table.
5. In the eMedia Name field set a name to label the Emedia.
6. In the From Email Address field set an Email address that will be shown in the From field when recipients receive the Emedia Email.
7. In the Subject field enter a brief description of the content in the Emedia Email that will be shown when recipients receive the Emedia Email.
8. [Optional] Click the Add button to choose a file to attach to the Emedia Email. Please note that attachment files will incur additional costs when being sent out per user, as well as slow down the sending process. We recommend avoiding sending attachment files, and instead provide links from your Email to a relevant file.
9. Set the Send Email As field to either Rich Text, Plain Text, or both. Depending on how you want the users receiving the Email to be able to view the message.
   1. If the Send Email As field is set to Rich Text, then for the HTML Message Template drop down choose an web page template that will style the rich text part of the message. If the project does not have any templates then at one will need to be created to allow the Send Email As field to be set to Rich Text, or both.
   2. Click the Create Web Page button.
10. If the Send Email As button is set to Plain Text or Both, then click on the Modify Text Message button.
11. In the Modify Email Text message dialog sent the contents of the Email message that will be displayed to users when they open the Email and their client displays the message in the plain text mode.
    1. Click on the Unsubscribe Link hook.
    2. Click the Insert Hook button. This embeds a hook that will be display a URL when the user view the Email message. This ensures that the user has the ability to unsubscribe from receiving future Emails. This is mandatory, as well as required by law in several goverment juristrictions.
12. Click the Set button.
13. In the Unsubscribe Web Page choose a content managed web page containing a Emedia Unsubscribe Form area within it. This page will be used in the Unsubscribe link embedded within the Email's content to allow users to unsubscribe from receiving future Emails.
14. Click the Save button.

Set Emedia Email Content

An Email can have two message versions configured within it. Depending on a user's Email client software it will choose one of these versions, either the simpler plain-text version, or the more stylistic rich-text version. Follow the steps below to set up both.

Set Rich Text Email Message

To set a rich text message of Emedia Email follow these steps below:

1. Login to the Administration Centre
2. Click on the Marketing Menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Set Message button for an existing Emedia record, or click on the Add button to create a new Emedia Email.
5. For the Send Email As setting, click on either the Rich Text radio button, or the Both radio button.
6. For the HTML Message Template choose a template that will be used to style the content managed web page linked the Emedia Email.
7. Click the Create Web Page button. This will create a new content managed web page.
8. Click the Modify Web Page button to open the web page linked to the Emedia Email and modify the areas within the page.
9. Click on the Add button for any area container on the page, select the area type to "Emarketing", choose the Email Unsubscribe Form area action, then click the Create button.
10. Create or choose an existing content managed web page format that will display the unsubscribe link the Emedia Email, then press the Save button.
11. In the Email Unsubscribe Form area choose the web page that users are directed to if they click on the unsubscribe link in the area.
12. Click the Save button.
13. [optional] In the Web Page Area Editor create, or modify any existing areas on the page.
14. Back in the Emedia Messaging interface, click the Save button in the Configure Email Message dialog to save the setting changes. 

Set Plain Text Email Message

To set a plain text message of Emedia Email follow these steps below:

1. Login to the Administration Centre
2. Click on the Marketing Menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Set Message button for an existing Emedia record, or click on the Add button to create a new Emedia Email.
5. For the Send Email As setting, click on either the Plain Text radio button, or the Both radio button.
6. Click on the Modify Text Message button.
7. In the Email Plain Text Message area type the message that you wish to send out to the users who will receive the Email.
8. Click on the Unsubscribe Link hook, then click the Insert Hook button. This will put into the message a placeholder that contains a URL that the user can follow to unsubscribe when they receive the message. This hook must be embedded into the message before the Emedia can be sent out.
9. Click the Set button.
10. Click on the Save button in the Configure Email Message to save your changes.

Assign Users to Emedia

To assign users to an Emedia Email administrator users must choose assign User Subscription Categories and User Groups to the Emedia Email. The users who assigned to both will be allowed to receive the Emedia Email. Follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Set Users button against the Emedia that users are to be assigned to.
5. In the Select Marketing Categories list choose the User Subscription Categories that are assigned to the Emedia Email. You can hold down the Control key and left click with a mouse to choose multiple categories. 
   • If no User Subscription Categories have been created in the TOTECS project then some will need to be created, and have users become assigned to them.
   • Click on the Manage Categories button to have a new window open to the User Subscription Categories Administration Centre interface that allows you to create categories.
   • Once User Subscription Categories have been created navigate back to the Emedia Messaging browser window and click on the Refresh button under the Select Marketing Categories list to have the list display the new categories created.
6. In the Select User Groups list choose the User Groups that are to be assigend to the Emedia Email. You can hold down the Control key and left click with a mouse to choose multiple groups in the list.
   • If no User Groups have been created in the TOTECS project then some will need to be created.
   • Click on the Manage User Groups button to have a new window open to the Marketing Users Groups Administration Centre interface that allows you to create user groups.
   • Once User Groups have been created navigate back to the Emedia Messaging browser window and click on the Refresh button under the User Groups under the Select User Groups list to have the list display the new user groups.
7. Click the Save button in the Emedia Users dialog to assign the selected categories and groups to the Emedia.

Once the categories and user groups have been saved you can then view the users who are calculated to receive the Emedia Email by following these steps.

1. Click on the Send button for the relevent Emedia Email.
2. Click on the View Users button.

The Users dialog will show all the users who would receive the Emedia Email if it was sent out at the time. Against each user is a button labelled "Rich-Text Message", which if clicked on will open a browser window that shows the web page that the user would receive in the Email if they were viewing the rich-text message. This allows administrators to view areas on the page that display personalised information related to each user.

Send Emedia Email

To send out an Emedia Email follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the Send button for the relevant Emedia Email to open in the Send Emedia Email dialog.
5. In the dialog click on the View Users button to open the Users dialog and review the users who are to receive the Emedia Email. Click the Close button to close this dialog.
6. Click on the Send Test Email radio button. This will allow the Emedia Email to be sent out as a test Email. It is highly recommended that this is done first before sending the Emedia out to all users.
7. In the Test Email Address field enter the Email address to send the test Email to.
8. Click on the send button. A test email will be sent to given Email address. Review this Email and make sure that appears the way it should.
9. If you are happy with the test Email then back in the Send Emedia Email dialog click on the Send Email To Users radio button.
10. Review the total costs of the Email to make sure that the costs are acceptable.
11. Click on the Send button.

The Emedia Email will be verified to ensure that it contains the required unsubscription areas in the Email message. Once the checks have passed then the Emedia Email will be generated for each user and send out to them. It may take hours to send out all the Emails if a large number of users are receiving the Emails, and if there are attachments assigned to the Email. Once all the Emails have been sent out then the Emedia's status will be changed from PROCESSING to SENT.

View Emedia Sending Results And Statistics

To view the results of an Emedia Email being sent out follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Emedia Messaging menu item.
4. Click on the View Results button against the relevant Emedia Email.
5. In the Send Table choose a row to view the statistics of the Emedia Email that was sent out at the specified date. By dialog the Emedia Results dialog will select the last time that the Emedia Email was sent out.

If an Emedia Email was only partially sent out to users at the given date time, in the Send Table if the Resend Undelivered button is clicked on then the platform will try to resend out the Emedia Email to all the users where the Email was marked as undelivered. It's recommended that before pressing this button that the Undelivered link under the Emails Sent section is clicked on to view all the users who did not receive the Email. If their Email address is not properly formed then they will never receive the Email.

Within the Administration Centre of a TOTECS project, under the Marketing menu, there a menu item labelled User Subscription Categories that takes an administrator user to the interface. The User Subscription Categories interface allows administrators to create, modify, and delete user subscription categories within the TOTECS project. These categories allow users to choose the types of information that they want to be marketed to, by assigning themselves to selected categories.

The following actions below can be done within the administration interface.

Create A User Subscription Category

To create a new Emedia Email follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the User Subscription Categories menu item.
4. In the Category Name field enter a label to define the category.
5. Click on the Create Category button.

The category will then be created and appear in the categories table.

Modify A User Subscription Category

To modify the details of an existing User Subscription Category follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the User Subscription Categories menu item.
4. Click on the Details button for the relevant category that you wish to modify. This will open up the Category Details dialog,
5. In the Category Name set text to name the category. Choose a name that customers will be able to identify with. eg, Monthly Product Specials.
6. In teh Description field enter a description for the category.
7. In the visibility field choose one of the options:
   • All Users: Allows all users (except administrators) to see and subscribe to the category.
   • No Users: Allows no users to see or subscribe to the category.
   • Assigned Users: Only allows users already subscribed to the category to have the ability to view the category, and unsubscribe from it.
   • Trade Users: Only allows users within the Trade interface to see the category, subscribe  themselves to it, or unsubscribe from it.
   • Content Managed Website Users: Only allows users within a content managed website interface to see the category, subscribe themselves to it, or unsubscribe from it.
8. Click the Save button. This will save the updated details of the user subscription category.

View Users Assigned to the a User Subscription Category

To see the users assigned to a User Subscription Category follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the User Subscription Categories menu item.
4. Click on the View Users button for the relevant category that you wish to view the subscribed users. The Category Users panel will display a table list all of the users assigned to the category.

Remove Users From A User Subscription Category

To unsubscribe users from a User Subscription Category follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the User Subscription Categories menu item.
4. Click on the View Users button for the relevant category that you wish to view the subscribed users. The Category Users panel will display a table list all of the users assigned to the category.
5. In the Users table click on the Remove icon against the user that you wish to unsubscribe from the category.

You can also unsubscribe a user from categories within the User Details Administration Centre interface. This can be done by:

1. Clicking on the Users menu button,
2. Click on the Search Users menu item link, 
3. Fill out the search form to locate a user.
4. Click on the user's login ID to open up a browser with the User Details page.
5. Untick the User Subscription Categories that the user is to no longer be subscribed to.
6. Click on the Update button to save the settings.

Remove A User Subscription Category

To permanently remove a User Subscription Category from a TOTECS project follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the User Subscription Categories menu item.
4. Click on the Remove icon for the relevant category that you wish to remove.

The category will be permanently removed from the TOTECS project. Please make sure that you wish remove the category, since once it is removed it cannot be restored. Users will also be unsubscribed from the category when it is being removed.

Within the Administration Centre of a TOTECS project, under the Marketing menu, there a menu item labelled Marketing User Groups that takes an administrator user to the interface.

The Marketing User Groups interface allows administrators to create, modify, and delete marketing user groups within the TOTECS project. These user groups contains rules that are used to match a number of users based on different criteria. For example one user group may have a rule that matches all users who have placed an order within the last 90 days. When these user groups are assigned to an Emedia Email they will be used to determine the users who will receive the Email at the time the Email is sent out.

The following actions below can be done within the administration interface.

Create A Marketing User Group

To create a new Marketing User Group follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project.
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Marketing User Groups menu item.
4. Within the interface set a name for the user group in the Group Name field.
5. Click on the Create Group button.

A new user group will be created and appear in the User Groups table within the interface.

Add Rules To A Marketing User Group

To create rules against a Marketing User Group follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project. 
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Marketing User Groups menu item.
4. Within the interface's User Group table click on the User Group Rules button within a user group table row.
5. Within the User Group Rules panel click on the Add Rule button.
6. Within the User Group Rule dialog, click on the the Rule Category drop down and choose a category to search for rules within.
7. In the Rule Base drop down choose a rule to find users by.
8. Enter values in any of the 3 Value fields that may appear below the Rule Base.
9. Read the final rule that determines how the users will be found.
10. Click on the Save button to save the rule to the user group.
11. Repeat steps 5 to 10 to additional rules to the marketing user group.

When the user group is used to match the users based on its rules, it will only find users who are matched in all of the rules assigned to the group. You can see the users that would be returned for a rule by going into the Users menu, clicking on the Search Users interface, then using the Advanced Search form which has the same form for setting a rule. Clicking on the Find button within the interface will then show all the users that the rule matches with.

Removing Rule From A Marketing User Group

To remove a rule from a Marketing User Group follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project. 
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Marketing User Groups menu item.
4. Within the interface's User Group table click on the User Group Rules button within a user group table row.
5. Within the User Group Rules panel click on the Remove icon that displays in the in the rule table row.

Delete A Marketing User Group

To permanently delete a Marketing User Group from a TOTECS project follow these steps:

1. Login to the Administration Centre of the TOTECS project. 
2. Click on the Marketing menu button.
3. Click on the Marketing User Groups menu item.
4. Within the interface's User Group table click on the remove icon within the user group table row that you wish to delete.

The marketing user group will be unassigned from any Emedia Emails and permanently removed from the project,

• To allow administrator users to see the Emedia Messaging, User Subscription Categories, or Marketing User Groups Administration Centre interfaces they must be assigned to an Administrator Permission Role that has the "Marketing Emedia, Categories, User Groups" permission set to Allow.
• To allow users assigned to the Trade interface to have the ability to subscribe/unsubscribe themselves to a User Subscription Category, they must be assigned to the Facility Permission Role that has the "My Details" permission set to Allow. This will allow the user to navigate to the My Details page to view the categories.
• To send out an Emedia Email the rich-text message must have an "Email Unsubscribe" area in its linked content managed web page that is located within a local container. The plain-text message must also have the "Unsubscribe Link" hook embedded in its content.
• Attachment files added to Emedia Email must be under 10MB in file size. If you have a file bigger than this then consider hosting it with a service such as Drop Box, and provide a link within the Email so that users can click on the link to download the file. This file size limit is put in place to ensure that the TOTECS servers can efficiently send out Emails and serve website traffic efficiently.

• Within a content managed web site, there are several areas that can be displayed on a content mangaed web page that will list User Subscription Categories and allow users to subscribe to them. These areas are:
  • Emedia Subscription Form
  • User Registration
  • Enquiry Form
  • User Details/Favourites/Orders
• After an Emedia Email has been sent out view the users who had the Email undelivered. Then within the User Details Administration Centre interface check the Email address of the user and correct any mistakes with how the Email address was set.
• After an Emedia Email has been sent out view the users who had the Email bounce. Then within the User Details Administration Centre interface untick the Receive Emarketing tickbox so that these users are not attempted to be sent the Email again. This will reduce the users sent the Emedia and cut down the costs.