NATS4 Mailing Admin
The Mailing Admin allows you to create, edit, and manage automated emails to affiliates and members. Here you can set who mail goes out to, when it is sent, and the subject line of the email; you can also view information about completed mailings. Outgoing emails must be configured here, as NATS4 requires all outgoing emails to go through a queue in the Mailing Admin before they are sent out.
Mailing List
The Active Mailing list shows information about each uncompleted mailing. To the right of each mailing are several action icons:
- The View Mail icon previews both the plain text and HTML versions of the email
- NATS allows you to create both HTML and plain text versions of outgoing emails.
- The Edit Mail icon lets you edit both the plain text and HTML versions of the email
- The Set Display Rules icon lets you customize which members or affiliates get this email
- The Send Test Mail to Myself icon sends a test mail to you
- The Send Mail Now sends the email to matching members or affiliates upon demand
- The Delete Mailing icon deletes this email
The Completed Mailing list show information about each completed mailing. Right of each mailing are several action icons:
- The View Mail icon previews both the plain text and HTML versions of the email
- The Send Test Mail to Myself icon sends a test mail to you
- The Send Mail Now icon sends the email to matching members or affiliates now
- The Reset Mail End Time icon is a feature available in NATS version 4.0.74.1 or greater. This allows you to manually stop failed mailers in your NATS system from going out, and immediately set your mailer's end time to end.
The Remove Lists tab is described below.
Remove List
You can prevent NATS from sending email to affiliates and members who don't want to receive your email. To configure this, click the "Remove Lists" tab at the top of the Mailing Admin to access the Affiliate and Member Remove Lists. Enter the emails of the affiliates or members you would like to remove from your mailing list and click "Store Lists". No matter what display rules you set, none of these listed affiliates or members will receive mailings from NATS.
Mailing Queue
The Mailing Queue is a feature in NATS that is available in version 4.0.73.1 or greater. This creates a list of automated e-mails that are either waiting to be sent, or have an error. This list will be updated every time the mailing cron is run, with certain e-mails (such as ones marked ASAP) taking priority over others (such as regularly scheduled mails). Any e-mails that failed to be sent out will also be displayed in this list with an error displayed under the "Errors" column.
You can search for specific mail by using the "Mail Queue Search" box at the top of the page. This allows you to refine your search results by Type (All, Owner, Affiliate, Member) and Status (All, In Queue, and Error). You also have the option to show mail that was deleted from the queue. Simply select the parameters you wish to search by and click "Search Queue."
The check boxes next to individual mails also allow for batch actions to be taken. To perform a batch action, use the drop-down menu at the bottom of the Mailing Queue box. The options available are "Retry All Mails," "Delete All," and "Un-Delete All." Select the action you wish to take, and click "Perform Action."
It is also possible to perform a batch action only on selected mails. To do so, use the check boxes in the left-most column to select individual e-mails you would like to affect. Once you have done that, select an batch option from the drop-down menu below and click the Green Arrow icon to the left of the drop-down menu. This will perform your selected action on all checked mails. You can delete individual e-mails from the Mailing Queue by clicking the "Delete Mailing" icon in the Actions column.
Send On
NATS allows you to specify when you want your mass mails to go out. For one time mails, you can put in a specific date (i.e., December 15 2010) or a relative time (next Friday). You can also leave the mail set to never which means NATS will not automatically send this mail without further action from you, or to asap which means nats will send this mail on the next quarter hour.
NATS mailings can be set up to be recurring, on a daily, weekly, monthly, or payment_period basis. Possible send on values are:
- asap -- Send this mail once, on the next quarter hour
- never -- This mail will not send unless you hit 'send now'
- daily -- This mail will send every day
- period -- This mail will send on the first day of every pay period
- monthly -- This mail will send on the first day of every month
- monday -- This mail will send every Monday
- tuesday -- This mail will send every Tuesday
- wednesday -- This mail will send every Wednesday
- thursday -- This mail will send every Thursday
- friday -- This mail will send every Friday
- saturday -- This mail will send every Saturday
- sunday -- This mail will send every Sunday
- m2 -- This mail will send on the second of every month -- you can replace 2 with any day of the month
- w1 -- This mail will send on Monday of each week -- you can replace 1 with any day of the week 0-6
Examples
Creating a Monthly Recurring Mail
To set up a monthly recurring mail, go to the Mailing Admin and create a new email. When you are filling out the "Send On" value, fill in 'monthly' -- this will send the email on the first of every month. If you want the email to be sent on a different day, fill in the letter 'm' followed by the date number you would like the email to go out.
For example: "m5" will send out your email on the 5th day of each month.
Email Opt-out
Affiliates can manually choose to not receive emails sent by the NATS4 Mailing Admin. To opt out of automated emails, go to the affiliate homepage and click the Display Defaults tab. Go to the Main Display Defaults section and modify it ny toggling the "Receive Mailings" setting.
Once these settings have been configured, email will only be sent to affiliates that have not opted out of automated emails.
Member Email Opt-in Checkbox
Your members can choose to receive automated emails from the Mailing admin as well. To do so, navigate to your join form template and enter the following code:
<input type="checkbox" name="signup[mailok]" value=1 checked>
Opt-out/Unsubscribe links
For affiliates to be able to opt out of emails you need to provide them with a link similar to:
For members to be able to opt out of emails you need to provide them with a link similar to:
If you would like to generate a custom unsubscribe link per affiliate using HTML, you can add this code to this bottom of the page, changing "Unsubscribe" to whichever text you wish to display:
<a href="http://linkdomain/unsubscribe.php?userid={$loginid}&email={$email}">Unsubscribe</a>
Replace linkdomain with your domain.
Smarty Email Error
If you or your affiliates receive an email with the following Smarty error, you created an email without a body. Please fill in the body of all emails.
Warning: Smarty error: unable to read resource: "var:body" in /var/www/nats/Smarty-2.6.7/libs/Smarty.class.php on line 1083
Inserting Linkcodes in Affiliate Email
See: Listing Linkcodes in an Email
Email Expired Members
To email expired or disabled members, go to the Mailing Admin, create a new email, then click the "Set Display Rules" icon. In the display rules, open the Status drop-down menu and select the "disabled" option to send that email to your expired members.
Emailing Discount Join Options
To create a discount join option, go to Programs Admin and create a new program. Go to the Sites Admin, create or edit a tour for that program, and create a new discounted join option using your new program. Once your new join option is configured, click the "Set Display Rules" icon and make this join option only show in the special program. After you have set up all your necessary settings, get the linkcode for this special program and site.
To send this discounted join option to your members, go to the Mailing Admin and use the instructions above to send your email (including your linkcode) to expired members.
Checking for Sent Mail
NATS allows you to check if a repeating email was sent through the Mailing Admin. To do so, click the "View Mail Details" icon next to the email you wish to view. This will allow you to see how many times the mail was sent, as well as how many people it was sent to.
