Building Your Business

Custom Response Pages for your Web Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:23:00 +0000

You missed it for Valentine's Day but it isn't too late to plan a romantic getaway in Napa Valley at the Relevant Tool's customer Napa Cottages. While you are dreaming about relaxing in the Wine Country you can learn about how Napa Cottages uses custom response pages for their contact form and how you can personalize the response pages for your own Relevant Tools web forms.

Use Relevant Tools to set up your web forms, selecting the fields that you want. VIP customers have the option to enter a web page on your website to be used for the response page and the missing fields and error page (usually the same page). If you don't enter your own web pages here the standard Relevant Tools pages will be used with a link back to your site.

Relevant Tools will generate the form code for you to install on your website. You can customize the look and feel of the form to match your website.

Your website visitor fills out the form. If any required fields are missing the missing fields page is displayed with the list of missing fields.

The user can go back and make any corrections required.

Now when your website visitor completes the form they receive a customized response page.

It is easy to set up and if you have any questions or need technical help, Relevant Tools is here to help you with the details.

Unsubscribe Handling for your Email Subscribers

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:17:00 +0000

Keep your email subscribers happy with offering an automatic unsubscribe option for those that no longer want to receive your email. With Relevant Tools an unsubscribe link is posted in the footer of every email that is sent out. One click and the recipient is unsubscribed. The record is still in your database in case you need other information but Relevant Tools will automatically bypass all the unsubscribed email addresses when you send mailings.

In the case above the words remove are the link to the unsubscribe link but this can be customized as desired. Once the user clicks on the unsubscribe link their email address is immediately placed on the unsubscribe or do-not-send list. If you have specified a custom unsubscribe confirmation page then your own page will be displayed.

This process works well for anyone who wants to get off your list directly from the mailing but sometimes people want to unsubscribe directly from your own website. You can use Relevant Tools to generate the unsubscribe code to put on your own webpage.

When the unsubscribe form code is installed on your page you offer your readers another option to remove themselves from your list if they do longer want to receive your email.

Keeping your readers happy, perhaps especially when they no longer want to receive your email, is vital to maintaining a well performing list.

Database Field Usage

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:04:00 +0000

Relevant Tools web forms continuously fill your database with new contacts and you can import contact lists from Excel or other databases. Relevant Tools can also process data notifications from other sources. There can be a lot of data arriving from multiple sources.

Using the 'other operations' function available in Relevant Tools you can examine the field usage in your database and spot any potential issues. First display your database. Then click on the 'other operations' link.

The other operations page gives you three choices. You can display the contents of all records in one report, look at the values of a particular field, or look at field usage in your entire database. Click on 'show field usage' to see how fields are being used in your database.

The report shows the number of records that have a value for each of the user defined fields in your database. But sometimes there may be fields in use in your database that you haven't defined. There is an option to see field usage for all fields existing in your database, even if you haven't defined the field.

This report is particularly useful for finding problems where you may have changed a field name or made a typo and the data is being saved with a field name that you didn't expect. One of the features of Relevant Tools is that all data is saved, even if you haven't defined the field name. So when you see a field that isn't defined and should be, you can simply define it and all the data will automatically be displayed in your regular searches.

There are some fields that are system fields that are used internally, such as Record ID. Some of these system fields may be of interest, such as Created On. You can include system fields in custom views of your database if you want to view or export the system data with your user data.

Email to this List

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:52:00 +0000

Follow these simple steps to email your message to your database of contacts with Relevant Tools. Before you get started sending your email you should first create your message. Then click on Database in the top orange bar and press the green display data button.

Confirm that you displaying the expected database. Then click on the link "email to this list":

Next select the message that you previously created:

You should always test by sending a copy of the message to yourself:

Double check that it is the right message and it looks the way you want it to. Any bad email addresses, previous unsubscribes or duplicate addresses will automatically be removed from the mailing.

Press the "Send Mailing Now" button and your mailing will be on its way immediately or you can schedule it to be sent at a later time.

Easy Online Registration Integrated with PayPal

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:31:00 +0000

It is easy to set up online registration using Relevant Tools. We have implemented online registration for many sports, such as swimming, water polo, soccer, lacrosse, and Little League baseball. Rugby is the latest sport that is using Relevant Tools for online registration. As with many sports teams that only collect payments once a year, Highlanders Rugby is using PayPal to collect online payments.

To get started a registration page lists all the steps for a parent to do:

The registration information form is a standard Relevant Tools web form where all the information collected is stored in a Relevant Tools database.

Each player completing the registration form is automatically assigned a unique confirmation number using Relevant's auto increment fields. This confirmation number is used to track the payment. Payments can be made online using PayPal or by check.

The confirmation number and player name are passed into PayPal. Online payment is completed using PayPal's standard interface with a return to the rugby website when payment is complete.

The PayPal payment notification is automatically processed by Relevant Tools and a record is created in a Relevant Tools PayPal database. The player registration information is updated with the payment details. The volunteers running registration for Highlanders Rugby can easily generate reports.

Full details of the PayPal transactions are available in the Relevant Tools PayPal database. The credit card information itself is not stored online for added security and it is not needed in Relevant Tools as PayPal is handling the actual credit card transaction. You can create custom views of your PayPal and registration databases to show the information you need to see.

Let us know if you need help with your sports league registrations. We can customize the registration forms and payment processing for your particular sport and have you up and running right away.

Custom Views for your Relevant Tools Online Database

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:40:00 +0000

You can easily create custom views for your online database. With a custom view you can control which columns are data are displayed and the order of display. This is particularly useful if you have a database with a lot of fields that are used for different functions. For example you can define a contact view, a status view, a performance view, and so on.

To get started click on databases. Make sure your database that you want to define the view for is selected as the current database. Click on 'create/edit/delete' a view to start the process of defining or customizing a view.

To create a new view give it a name or you can select an existing view to edit.

Select the field that you want to use for each column. You can also specify the maximum column width if you want to have some columns be wider or narrower.

In addition to using any of the fields that you have defined for your database you can also include system fields in your view. System fields are fields such as "created on" or "IP address" that are automatically added to each record.

When you display your database you can toggle the view from 'all user defined fields' to the views that you have defined. The fields will be displayed in the order you have specified.

In addition to controlling the view that you see on the screen, views are also used to control what data is exported. When you export your database only the fields that are used in the current view are exported. If you want all fields exported make sure you are using the view 'all user fields'. If you want to export system fields such as the date created and IP address you will need to define a view that includes those fields.

Have fun creating views for your data. You can change your views at any time.

Send a Series of Emails with Scheduled Auto Responders

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:32:00 +0000

After someone completes your Relevant Tools web form you can send them an immediate email response. You can also automatically continue your connection to your new contact with scheduled auto responders. Also known as drip marketing, a scheduled auto responder is a series a messages that are sent at intervals after the initial signup. Here is how to set up scheduled auto responders using Relevant Tool's web forms.

First you must define each of your messages in the Messages area. Then click on Forms and select the form that you to use for the series of messages. When you click on scheduled responders you will have an option to define a new scheduled responder. Select the message you want to send and the interval that you want to send it, such as 2 weeks after form signup.

You can review and change the series of messages at any time.

Every night Relevant Tools will automatically check your databases to determine if any signup records qualify for the next message in the series. You can see the results of your scheduled auto responder message series by clicking on Results and clicking on auto responders.

To see the details of a particular day click on the name field. A detailed list of each email address that qualified for that particular day is shown with the message that was sent and the trigger that qualified that particular address. If a user decided that they did not want to continue with the series of messages they can always unsubscribe and they will not receive additional emails.

With scheduled auto responders you can automatically keep in touch with your customers and prospects with a series of scheduled emails that deliver your message for you. Put Relevant Tools to work.

Understanding Email Mailing Results

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:48:00 +0000

You can immediately see the results of your mailing after you have sent a mailing using Relevant Tools Email Campaign Management services. In your Relevant Tools account click on the results icon in the top tool bar:

Next click on the link 'mailings, sending/sent' to see the list of mailings that you have sent or are in the process of sending.

On this screen you can see the status of the your mailings. The status column will show Sent for mailing that have gone out. Other status flags are pending or sending. As you refresh this screen you will see the status update along with the counts for the number of emails sent.

When you submit your mailing to be sent, Relevant Tools automatically eliminates any records that have no email addresses or bad (improperly formed) email addresses. Your mailing list is automatically dedupped so that if there are duplicate email addresses in the list, each email address will only receive one email message. Anyone who has previously unsubscribed is automatically eliminated from the mailing.

The total sent column shows how many emails were actually sent. The bounce column shows the number that were undeliverable for any reason. The number of email messages that bounced will grow for a short period after your mailing has been sent as reports are processed from the receiving mail servers.

To see more detail on a specific mailing, click on the mailing name.

On the detail page you can get a list of the bad email addresses or the email addresses that have bounced. If you sent an HTML message you can also see who opened your email. If you enabled click through tracking you can see who clicked on the links in your email.

Let us know if you have any questions about your mailing results.

MIME Email Messages - Something for Everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:17:00 +0000

MIME email messages combine text, html, and other components such as images and documents. Most email messages sent are MIME messages. With Relevant Tools it is easy to create a MIME messages. Click on Messages and then click on Create a New Message.

Enter in the name of your message. This is the name that you will use to select the message when you mail it out. By default the from name and from email address will inserted from your account but you can change it if need be. Then enter the subject of the email. Enter the text portion of your email or upload a text file. If you upload a text file it must be an actual text file with a .txt extension - not a Word document. You can then enter your html or upload an html file.

After you create your message you should ALWAYS test it. Send a copy to yourself and others. Email can look different through different email programs on different computers. If possible in addition to testing with your own email program test through a web based email program as well.

Here is the html version of the email. It is easy to create an email message in Relevant Tools. There are many ways to create an email message. Today we will look at MIME messages which typically have a text portion and an HTML portion. The receiving email program chooses which version to use, text or HTML, but both versions are seen by spam filters.

This is the HTML version of the message. There are advantages to html. You can make your message visually interesting and engage your reader with the use of fonts and colors. Make it tasteful - don't get carried away with anything. You can have links to make it easy for your customers to learn more and contact you and you can have images to convey information.

Here is the text version of the email. The format is plain text but there are advantages to plain text. The text will be seen by the spam filters. Text may have better deliverability than HTML depending on the content and format of your message.

Having both text and html makes the message consistent with the email messages created in programs such as Outlook or Mail that create MIME messages by default.

Send Email Messages with Attachments

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:29:00 +0000

It is easy to use Relevant Tools to send email messages with attachments. From your own email program you can create the message just as you normally would. Attach your file to your message. The email address that you send it to will be message@relevanttools.com. The subject will be your userid that you use to login followed by a colon followed by the real suject of your email.

You will get an email response back from Relevant Tools letting you know that your message has been installed and is ready for you to edit or send.

You can then login to your Relevant Tools account. Click on Messages and select the message that was just installed to edit it. Often you will want to change the from email address so that instead of coming from your personal email address the message will come from your company email address.

Now you are ready to send the message out in a mailing to your database or use it as an auto responder email message that people receive when they complete a web form.

There is one warning for attachments - they can't be too big. No one likes to receive huge attachments that take too long to download. Relevant Tools will check the size of your message with the attachment when you send it and if it is too large you will not be able to send it. If you run into this situation just ask us about file upload as then you can upload the file and just include a link to to file instead of sending it as an attachment.

Easy Online Program, Conference or Event Registration with Payment Processing

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:51:00 +0000

With the flexibility of Relevant Tools it is easy to setup an online registration system for programs, conferences or events. Ross Recreation is using Relevant Tools to handle all program registrations for their enrichment and sports programs for children and adults.

The first step is to set up an account so that you can login using User Login, a custom option available from Relevant Tools.

The account registration uses standard Relevant Tools web forms to collect the information needed. For Ross Recreation there are two registration forms depending on if you are interested in programs for the entire family or if you only want to register for adult programs. The account setup form can be easily customized to collect the information needed for your particular organization.

Browse through the list of program offerings to determine what you want to register for. All of the programs are in a Relevant Tools program database that you can easily edit at any time, adding new programs or changing existing offerings. Relevant Tools Custom Reports is used to display the program options. You can specify what information that you want displayed for each program and how you would like it to be presented.

When you find a program that you would like to register for you start the registration process by clicking on the registration link. All the information from your account is automatically entered into the registration form. You review the registration form and enter any additional information that may be needed for this particular program. The registrations are all stored in a Relevant Tools Registration database. In addition to managing the registration process it is easy to email everyone in your Registration databases with reminders about the program.

You can continue to register for other programs. In the case of a family with multiple children you can change the child that you are registering and register your other children for their programs. When you are finished registering for programs you can easily check out and pay for all the programs at once.

Once the payment process has been completed the class inventory is updated. Relevant Tools will automatically close off registrations when the maximum number has been received for a particular program. When a program is full an option to join a wait list is presented instead of the registration link.

Online payments can be handled through an online gateway such as Authorize.net. Relevant Tools will set up the shopping cart and interface to your online credit card processing. No credit card information will be stored in your Relevant Tools database. Relevant Tools does not charge a per transaction fee and does not collect or retain the payments for your programs. The revenue collected is yours and Relevant Tools only charges for the one time setup and monthly flat service fee that is bundled into your Relevant Tools VIP account.

Please contact us if you would like to learn more about how to get started using Relevant Tools Online Registration. We can take care of everything for you so you can focus on running your programs, conferences or events.

Display your Database on your Web Page with Relevant Tools Custom Reports

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:40:00 +0000

You can display information from your Relevant Tools database on your web site. This can be information that you enter and update yourself or it can be information that is entered by anyone on your website using a standard Relevant Tools web form.

In the interests of local organic food I started a garden this spring. It has been very successful and satisfying. It is so relaxing to water the garden at the end of the day and pick green beans, peas, tomatoes and zucchini for dinner. Since I can't ship everyone a tomato I am happy to share the results of my garden through a web page that I set up:

Jean's Garden

I hope you enjoy the pictures. You can use Relevant Tools databases to update your own web site using Relevant Tools Custom Reports feature. There is a one time setup charge starting at $150 but once set up you can use it on as many databases and websites as you would like (some restrictions apply - don't try launching a new social networking site just yet).

Standard Relevant Tools web forms are used to update your information:

You can edit the information in your database. You can customize the database to use the fields that you need.

Enjoy the tomatoes!

Use Your Relevant Tools Database to Update your Website

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:41:00 +0000

You don't have to be a technical wizard to display information from your Relevant Tools database on your website. There are many different display options depending on your website and what you need to do. This tutorial shows how to easily update a page on your website from your Relevant Tools database.

After dynamic powered webpages has been set up in your Relevant Tools account you will be able to preview your webpages. We will work with you to configure the look of the page to match your website and meet your requirements. The elements used on the page are customized for you.

You use the edit item link to edit the information displayed on the webpage. You don't have to know html but if you do you can use all the html you want.

To add a new item to the webpage you click on the add item link:

Here is the item displayed with the template used for the sample page:

How does it all work? It is all driven from an ordinary Relevant Tools database. You can have the specific fields that you need for your web site.

Let us know if you would like to learn more about Database Powered Webpages. There is a one time setup fee for installing and customizing this feature but once setup you can use it for multiple webpages.

Managing the Email Unsubscribe Process to Keep your Email List Clean

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:57:00 +0000

There is no reason to waste your resources sending email to people who don't want to receive it. If you do not honor unsubscribes requests you are in violation of the law and opening yourself up to potential complaints. Using Relevant Tools it is easy to automatically handle unsubscribe requests.

Every email that is sent by Relevant Tools has the unsubscribe automatically inserted into the footer. We do offer the option to customize your footer if you don't like the default footer. Each person receiving your mailing has an unsubscribe link that will place them on the unsubscribe list with a single click. Dave Chambers of Sideways Wine Club does an excellent job of maintaining his email lists and offering his customers a smooth integrated unsubscribe process. This example shows the unsubscribe footer from one of his email updates.

When I click on the unsubscribe link I am immediately added to the unsubscribe list and see the custom confirmation page for Sideways Wine Club. If you don't want to setup a custom confirmation page on your website you can always use the default one offered by Relevant Tools.

On Relevant Tools you can run a report showing your unsubscribe list. The unsubscribe list is a 'do-not-send' or suppression list so that even if you upload the same email address again in a different database that email address will never receive email again. Records remain in your database until you elect to delete them.

But what if you unsubscribe by mistake? It is easy to get back on the list but to honor the unsubscribe process Relevant Tools verifies all resubscribe requests before they are processed.

I do want to keep receiving email from Sideways Wine Club because I always learn something new and Dave offers such interesting wines at great prices.

CAPTCHA Protects your Relevant Tools Web Forms from SPAM

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:50:00 +0000

There are spambots roaming the internet that target helpless forms and submit repeatedly to these forms with garbage information. One defense against spambots is to use CAPTCHA which are randomly generated fuzzy characters. The person completing the form must type in the matching characters to prove that they are human and not a computer. Each time the form is displayed the fuzzy characters are different.

It is easy to setup CAPTCHA with Relevant Tools web forms. In the forms setup area all you need to do is click the CAPTCHA option and the form code will automatically be generated for your form.

By default the CAPTCHA will be placed as the last item in the form just before the submit button. You can move the code to a different location in your form if so desired. Let us know if you need help doing this.

You can also control the number of characters used and the size of the box used for the characters. To do this you need to add some parameters to the generated code. By default there are 6 CAPTCHA characters with each character being 35 pixels wide and 40 pixels high. If for example you want to use 8 characters that are 20 pixels wide and 30 pixels high you would add c=8&w=20&h=30 so that the code looked like this:

Using the default setup will enable you to use CAPTCH to protect your forms without worrying about any of the technical details. If you need to change how it looks and need help, just let us know.

Auto Increment Fields in Relevant Tools Web Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:19:00 +0000

With Relevant Tools web forms you can easily setup fields that can be used as counters so that each time the form is filled out the field will automatically be increased from the last signup. For example if you are registering players for a youth sports league you can have a unique registration number that is automatically assigned to each player.

To set this up for you need to first define a field in your database to be used for the auto increment counter. The field type should be integer. You can name the field anything that you would like. If you are registering customers for a conference you could name the field Customer Number. Then in the forms area select the form you want to add the auto increment field to and click on forms setup. Next click on the link "auto increment field".

If you do not see the auto increment field link for your account on the forms setup page all you need to do is go to our contact page and request that the auto increment feature be turned on for your account. There is no additional cost for turning on or using the auto increment fields.

Select the field that you want to use for the auto increment field. You can enter the starting number. If you do not enter a starting number it will start at one.

You also have the option to enter a limit number. If you do not need to limit your form signups simply leave the limit number blank. A limit number is useful if you are registering customers for a conference or event and need to limit the number of registrations. Once the limit is reached anyone signing up will receive an error message that the event is full. On your error page you can have yet another Relevant Tools form to signup for the waiting list!

Create Messages Easily in your Own Email Program

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:19:00 +0000

It is easy to create messages to use in your Relevant Tools account for an email campaign to your database. There are many different ways and each method has advantages. One of the easiest methods is to simply email the message into Relevant Tools. On the Relevant Tools Messages page click on 'create a new message' and follow the instructions for option 1.

Compose your email message in your own email program. You can format it as you normally would and can even attach a small file or picture as part of your message. Send it to the email address specified on the create a new message page as it varies depending on the location on your account. The subject will be your userid that you use to login, followed by a semi colon and the actual subject of the message.

After you send the message into Relevant Tools you will get an email message back to let you know that your message has been installed. You can then edit your message. You can change who the email is from so that it is not from your personal email address but rather from a company address. You can edit the subject if need be.

The actual message is typically a MIME message that is composed of multiple parts - text, html, and any associated images or files. The nice thing is that you did not have to worry about these different parts.

But if you want to change the actual content of the message you may want to go back to your email program and make the changes there and send it again as editing the generated html can be tricky.

The last part of your message are any associated images or files. They have been encoded so that they can be transmitted on the internet. Don't change this part at all in the edit screen. If you need to make changes go back to your email program.

Test your message and when you are happy with how it looks you are ready to start your email campaign and send it out to your database.

How to Send Your Newsletter with Relevant Tools Email Campaign Management

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:48:00 +0000

Launching your first email campaign with Relevant Tools is easy. First you must create your newsletter or email message by using one of the methods available in the message area. You can upload your message, mail it in, create a text only or image email, upload a file or use a specially designed template. Once your message has been created you are ready to send it out to your database. Click on Mailings in the top navigation bar and select your message.

Your mailing will automatically be assigned a mailing name that will be used for viewing the mailing progress and results. You can change the mailing name if you would like. Next you will select who the mailing will be sent to. Many times you will be sending it to everyone in a particular database but you can also select people who signed up in a particular time period, from a particular signup form, or do one or more searches on your database to select people by any parameters you would like.

You should ALWAYS TEST before sending or scheduling the real mailing. Enter your email address to receive a test message.

After sending the test message you should look at the statistics displayed for the mailing. It will show how many records are selected, the number of deselected records due to duplicate, bad or missing email addresses and the number of records that have been previously unsubscribed. Verify that the database is the right database and this is the number of records that you are expecting.

You should have also received the test mailing in your inbox. Verify that it is indeed the message that you want to send. Do not be alarmed when you see that the unsubscribe link in the footer of the email is not your own email address. The system randomly selects a record to use for the test mailing.

You can choose to either send the mailing now or schedule it for later. When you schedule a mailing for later everything associated with the mailing - the message and the records selected for the mailing - are copied over to the mail server queue and held until the specified date and time. If you change the message in Relevant Tools or records are added or changed in your database that will not be reflected in the mailing unless your delete the scheduled mailing and submit it again.

When you send the mailing out now it is immediately submitted to the mailing queue. Depending on how many other mailings are already in the mailing queue it may start going out immediately.

You can track the results in the results area and see real time how many messages have been sent. If you have open and click through tracking turned on you will also be able to see how many people are reading your message and taking action.

Cleaning Email Bounces from your Database

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:02:00 +0000

Databases need regular maintenance to maximize effectiveness and to reduce your costs. Each time you do a mailing detailed statistics are available in real time showing you how many records were selected for a mailing, the number of missing and bad email addresses, the number of prior unsubscribes and the number of duplicates. The total number of records to be mailed to is displayed along with bounces. A bounced email is an email that could not be delivered. This could be because the email address is no longer valid, the mailbox is full, or the message was rejected.

Each email address that can't be delivered to is added to the bounce list for the mailing. You can click on bounces to see the bounce list for a specific mailing. This is useful when resolving a delivery issue for specific email addresses.

You should periodically clean your database of bounces to reduce your monthly charges. Once an email has bounced, depending on the particular email address and the bounce reason, that email address might not be sent to again. A special bounce report is available to enable you to clean up your database and remove records that have bounced multiple times. The bounce report is located on the main database page in the special searches section on the right side of the screen.

Make sure you have the correct database selected as the current database. You can then select how many times you want the same record to have bounced and how many mailings to include in the search.

The search will display the list of records that have bounced that match your requirements. You can then delete these records using the 'delete this list' link.

You will have to confirm that you really do want to delete the selected list. We backup all data on a nightly basis so if you make a mistake you can contact us and ask for a restore.

Running the bounce report periodically and deleting bounced records will keep your bounce statistics low and improve your deliverability. You also will only be charged for good emails that are helping you to grow your business.

Keeping your Database Free of Duplicates

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:59:00 +0000

You may be getting information from multiple sources and it is possible that you may have more than one record in your database for the same contact. Relevant automatically takes care of dedupping when doing a mailing so you don't have to worry about sending the same email address more than one message in a mailing. But you should periodically dedup you database to reduce your record storage costs and keep your database lean and fit.

Click on Databases and make sure the correct database is selected. The duplicates report is located on the right side of the main database screen in the special searches section.

Often the simple dedup report will work for you. Select the field that you want to dedup on, usually email address. Select display first only.

There are some cases where you need to dedup on more than one field. If that is the case try the advanced duplicates search. Click on the option 'show all but one' to delete all but one record.

Next you will see a display of all the duplicate records. Click on 'delete this list'. You can safely do this as assuming you clicked on display first only or display all but one you know that you are only deleting the duplicate record. And just to make you feel more comfortable about deleting data be reassured that we back up all data every night so we can always restore for you just in case. You also must always confirm before any deletions:

After you have deleted your duplicates the clean database will be displayed.

Let us know if you have any questions or need help.

Importing your List into your Relevant Tools Database

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:08:00 +0000

You can easily import your lists into your Relevant Tools Database. Collect your data in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet should be setup with columns such as first name, last name, company, email, and so on. Each row should contain information for one of your contacts.

The next step is to save your spread sheet as either a tab-delimited text file or a comma separated values (CSV) text file.

In Relevant Tools, click on Database and then click on 'import'. On the import screen give this group of imported records a name such as 'March 2009 list'. Giving your records a name will help you find this group of imported records in case you want to delete them before uploading them again or if you want to take other actions.

Then select the file that you prepared - either the text tab delimited file or the CSV file.

For each column in your spreadsheet match it to the field name for the information in that column.

After you click the import button at the bottom of the import screen you will see the confirmation page telling you how many records you imported.

Display your database to see your imported list.

When you display your database you may see a record that contained the header information from your spreadsheet. That is often a useful way to check to make sure that you selected the right fields for each column but you can delete the header record now.

Now your database is ready for action. Click on the column headers to sort the data by that column.

Understanding Relevant Tools Database Field Types

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:53:00 +0000

Your Relevant Tools account comes with a contact database that you can customize or you can define your own databases. There are many different choices for the field types - text, text area, pulldown menu, checkboxes, radio buttons, integer, floating point, email, url, image url, and date.

Text is the most common field type. On a web form the user can enter a line of text. So for example if you have text fields first name and last name you can sort your database by last name by clicking on the last name column heading. Text area allows multiple lines of text to be entered. When a text area field is displayed as a result of a database search you will only see the first part of the text and you can click on the little 'v' to the left of the record to view the entire record.

Email, URL and image URL enables those fields to be displayed as proper links in the database display. If you have a field called website that is type URL you can click on the field and be taken to the website. Image URL generates the code for an image source so you can include images from other websites in your database. The email field will generate the html code to bring up a window so you can type in an email message. Fields that are type email also get some extra checking when the user enters them into a web form to make sure that the email address entered is a properly formated address.

Pull down menus allow you to enter a choice of items. In a web form the user will be able to select one. One of that standard fields Relevant Tools includes in the contact database is state. But perhaps you or many of your customers are in Canada and you want to include Canadian provinces. Click on Database and then click on 'create/edit/delete' fields in the database functions selection. Click on the state field. You can change the field name to call it State or Province.

Then click on Edit Field. Next you will see the list of states and you can select to replace them with a list of states and provinces or you can enter your own list of choices for your pull down menu.

Check boxes and radio buttons are defined in the same way where you enter the list of choices. The html code that is generated for your Relevant Tools form will display the check boxes and radio buttons with the options that you have specified.

Integer fields are for whole numbers and can be totaled when you display your database. Floating point fields are for decimal numbers, such as currency, and can also be totaled. When you specify a field as a date and then sort your database by the date field it will be sorted in chronological order instead of alphabetic or numeric order.

In addition to the common field types Relevant Tools databases can contain complex fields. Complex fields can be used to link to other databases or dynamically generate links using data from the current record. If you have special requirements ask us for more information as complex fields may be able to implement your solution.

Setting Up Your Own Database

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:10:00 +0000

It is easy to setup and define your own database. Before you get started think about how you are going to use the database. If you are going to email to one set of contacts on a monthly basis and another set of customers on a weekly basis you should set up two different databases. To define a new database in Relevant Tools click on the 'Database' icon. Then click on 'create,edit, delete a database' in the "Database Functions' section. Then enter a name for your new database and press the create button.

Now that you have your new database define you need to define the fields that go into the database. To get started quickly you can copy the field definitions from an existing database and then make changes as needed for the new database. This is a very important step if you ever might want to move or copy records from one database to another. If they have the same field names for common fields such as first name and last name you will be able to move records back and forth easily.

To define your fields enter a short descriptive field name. This is the name that will be used internally in the xml database. You will not be able to change this field name later. Then you can enter a longer field label. You will be able to change the label at any time, even after your database has records in it.

You have many choices for field types - text, text area, pulldown menu, check boxes and radio buttons. We will leave the discussion of the field types to another tutorial. Let us know if you have any questions about how to set up your database.

Create Personal Email Messages

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:58:00 +0000

Selective use of personalization in email messages can be very effective. Personalization helps to confirm that information was entered correctly and has been accepted after completing a web form. To create a personalized message using Relevant Tools start by clicking on the 'Messages' icon.

There are many different ways to create an email message using Relevant Tools depending on what type of message that you want to create. For this example we will create a plain text personalized message. Plain text emails often have the highest delivery rates and that is especially important for the confirmation email that people receive after completing a web form.

You can personalize your message using any of the information collected in your web form. The field names are entered with a dollar sign in front and behind the field name. Clicking on the help link on the right of the create message page will display the list of available fields for the database associated with the web form.

Don't get carried away with personalization. If you over use information, such as repeating the first name multiple times in the email, your email may be flagged as junk mail. Keep it simple and you will get your message delivered.

Getting Started with Web Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Jean Christofferson) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:52:00 +0000

Collecting information from your web site visitors is an effective way to grow your database. This is a short preview that shows how to create forms for your website using Relevant Tools.

Start by clicking on the Forms icon. To create a new form type in a name for the form, such as signup, and click the "create form" button.

If you have more than one database you will be prompted to select the database that you want to use with your new form. If you have just signed up with Relevant Tools you will have a contact database that you can use to get started. Next you can select the fields that you want to have on your form. For each field you can specify if it is a required field or not.

Next you can select an email message that you want people to receive when they have filled out the form. You can use personalized messages that use the data from the web form to deliver a custom confirmation message, messages with attachments, formated html messages or plain text messages. You can also specify if you would like to receive an administrative notification with the form data each time someone completes the form on your website. The data from the form will be automatically stored in your Relevant Tools database so you can take further action on it depending on your requirements.

After you have created your form you can test it and make sure it is working as desired. Fill out the form and check the data stored in the Relevant Tools contact database. Make sure the auto responder email message looks the way you want it to.

When you are satisfied with your form the last step is to install the form on your website. Relevant Tools generates the form code so that you don't need to be technical to create a working form. If you do know html you can update the html to change the formating of the form to present the desired look.

If you need help with any of these steps we are here to help you. Fill our our /contact.html form and we will be able to assist you in getting your custom web form installed quickly and easily on your web site.