Manual for Autoresponder 365

Autoresponder365 Manual For Technical support please submit helpdesk ticket here: http://www.computaworld.com/support Demo Version 1. Introduction 2. Installation 3. Global Settings 4. Working with Accounts 5. Setting Account Options 6. Making HTML Form for Subscribers 7. Working with Prospect List 8. Working with Messages 9. RSS Channel and Link Tracker 10. Main Menu Options 11. FAQ

1. Introduction 1.1 What is Autoresponder365? The Autoresponder365 (Autoresponder365) is a very specialized mailing list system. You can create unlimited email messages, which are automatically sent out to the subscribers of your mailing list at different time intervals. The script also allows you to create and assign an autoresponder to a mailing list, so when someone sends an email to the autoresponder, they are automatically added to the mailing list, and follow-ups begin. Tons of features are included with this powerful script such as multiple mailing lists,

multiple autoresponders, personalized follow-up messages, ability to schedule one-time mailings, unlimited custom fields, double opt-in, unsubscribe, plus much more.

1.2 Benefits and Uses This list is only limited by your own creativity. Below are some the benefits and uses our many satisfied customers are putting their autoresponders to: •

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Sales Tool- Use your autoresponder as a sales tool, Write multiple automated email follow-up messages to sell your products and services automatically, 24hrs a day, 365days a year! After Sales Service- Follow-up with your customers after closing a sale to make sure they're happy with their purchase. You can also inform them of any new products, services or special deals that you have available. Up-Selling- Entice customers who purchased basic packages from you, to upgrade to ones with more features by sending them a series of up-sell messages. Educational Program- Your autoresponder can send a series of tutorials or reports to your subscribers on a regular basis determined by you. A great way to increase sales and traffic. Ezine and Newsletter Delivery- the autoresponder's instant send feature enables you to send periodic ezines and newsletters while automatically accepting and removing registrations. MLM / Associates Programs- Use the autoresponder in any MLM / Associates program to give your downline members a powerful tool in their sales arsenal. Motivational Messages- Send a series of motivational messages to people in your sales organization with the autoresponder. Post Sales Confirmation- If your product isn't an instant delivery product or is "pricey", use the autoresponder to avoid buyer's remorse. Generate Email Lists- Your autoresponder can collect emails through an on online form or directly from incoming emails, create email lists, and automatically send back a reply!

And many other uses and applications. There really is no limit to the uses the Script can be put to in helping your business grow. As you can see by now, our autoresponder software can save you a tremendous amount of time. You will end up with a much healthier bank balance at the end of the month! What are you waiting for? Download the Autoresponder365 today and supercharge your business!

1.3 Features Below is a brief list of the features of the Autoresponder365.

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Mailing List Management- The Autoresponder365 allows very easy and powerful management of your mailing lists. An extremely easy-to-use interface has been created which allows you to add, edit, delete and view entries of your mailing lists. You can easily search and browse all your mailing lists. The script can support huge mailing lists (tested with 3,000,000 subscribers), with no problem.

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Managing List Entries- Managing mailing lists with the Autoresponder365 has been made very easy. You can easily edit, delete or view entries in your mailing list by the email address. You can easily search your entire mailing list for the needed entry.

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Subscribe Confirmation Message- If necessary you can define a subscribe confirmation message for every mailing list. By setting this, every time someone subscribes to the mailing list, whether through the autoresponder or by using a subscribe HTML form, the script will automatically send them a welcome message.

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Email Duplication Check- Every time someone subscribes to a mailing list, the script will first check to make sure that email address is not already in the mailing list. If it is, the script will not add the subscriber to the mailing list again.

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Autoresponders- You can easily create autoresponders, which may be attached to your mailing lists. Then, everytime someone sends an email message to your autoresponder, the script will automatically send an auto-reply, add the sender to the mailing list, and begin the follow-ups on them.

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Multiple Autoresponders- You can create multiple autoresponders. Each autoresponder you create can be assigned to a different mailing list.

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Multiple Domain Names- You can create autoresponders on multiple domain names. For example, you could create an autoresponder at [email protected], and another at, mailto:[email protected].

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Capture Both Name and Email Address- When someone sends an email to an autoresponder, the script will capture both, the sender's name and email address. This way, your follow-up messags can be personalized with the subscriber's name.

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Automatic Follow-Ups- This is the heart of the Autoresponder365. You can define follow up settings for every mailing list, which will send out the selected email messages at different time intervals. For example, you could have follow-up settings for a mailing list which will send out an email message three days after a subscriber is added, then send out a second email message four days later, and a third message two days after that.

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Easy to Manage- The Autoresponder365 allows you to easily manage all followup settings for all mailing lists. There is a nice, easy to use interface which makes managing the follow-up settings much easier. You can easily add a follow-up setting just by entering the number of days to wait, and typing in new message.

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Personalized email Messages- One of the great features of the Autoresponder365 is that the follow-up messages can be personalized with the subscribers information.

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One-Time Scheduled Mailings- You can even schedule one-time mailings with the Autoresponder365. This allows you to send an email to everyone in a selected mailing list on a specifed date. All you have to do is specify a mailing list, date, and type in the email message.

Here is a brief list of additional features: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Uses MySQL for speed and reliability. Installs on your web site or server for data security and 24 x 7 access. No monthly fees and no ads or banners in your messages. Create and run unlimited number of autoresponders, each with an unlimited number of follow-up messages. Create plain text and HTML messages. Optional double opt-in for the autoresponder. Customize your subscription confirmation pages to match your site. Create time-sensitive offers. Send one time broadcasts to your entire subscriber list or selected groups immediately or schedule for sending later. Multi-tasking - send multiple broadcasts at the same time. Receive a summary email when the process is complete. Attach files to your messages - e-books, spreadsheets, PDF files, music, video, graphics. Different (personalized) subject line per follow-up message. Optional email notification to you when someone subscribes or unsubscribes.

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Custom reply name and email address per autoresponder. Real time dates. Automatic form HTML generator with on-screen form preview. Store an unlimited number of custom fields per subscriber and use the data in your follow-up and broadcast messages, subject lines, headers and footers. Powerful subscriber management system with search capability. Importing and exporting of prospects. Automatic capitalization of subscriber's name. Automatic splitting of a name into first and last names. Background processing of lengthy tasks to free up your browser. You can even log off and switch off your computer - the background tasks will continue until complete. Email notification to you of task results. Choice of SMTP or Sendmail for sending your messages. Clone an existing autoresponder. Import messages from one autoresponder to another. Test each autoresponder by sending it to your own email address. On-screen preview of plain text, HTML follow-up and broadcast messages. Plus many more as we add new features constantly...

1.4 System Requirements Only the most basic of web hosting packages will not have the resources to run the Autoresponder365. Please check with your host before ordering the software: • •

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Apache web server running UNIX, Linux or Windows NT/2000/XP with your own CGI-BIN. Perl 5.005 or greater and modules: o DBI and DBD::mysql o CGI o GD (required for diagrams) FTP access for installing and configuring Autoresponder365 Sendmail, Qmail, or SMTP You don't need to have access to .forward or .procmail file to collect subscribers by sending a blank email. The Autoresponder365 can connect to any POP3 email account and check mail for new subscribers. Not just your domain POP3 access, but also the free ones!

2. Installation 2.1 Installation Summary of important information you need from your web host. You can log into your web host's control panel to obtain the information below.

Alternatively, you can contact them via email to request for the information (copy and paste them into your email). Record it below: MYSQL: Database server (eg., localhost):_________________ Database name:___________________________ Database username:_______________________ Database password:_______________________ Database prefix (optional):___________________ Mail Program Setting: Sendmail path (eg, /usr/sbin/sendmail):___________________ Send through (eg, sendmail):______________________________ SMTP server (eg, localhost or mail.mydomain.com):______________________

1. CRON 1.1 Setting up CRON (Optional) If you want to set up CRON you need to read this section. If you prefer or if you do not understand this, you can set up an activation link (Section 4). Firstly you need to set up script through the CRON (Note this step can be done automatically by Autoresponder365 Pro during installation): In the 'startercron' script in 'cron' folder in zip distribution, edit the line below "put here absolute path to your broadcaster directory": $yourdir='/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin/Autoresponder365'; Change it to your own directory path (refer to Section 0 above). Secondly, you must log into your webhost's control panel and do this (Note: this must be done manually): For cPanel, click the Cron Jobs to edit CRON. Select Standard. For some web hosts, click the FTP Manager and then CRONTAB to edit CRON. */25 * * * * perl /home/username/public_html/cgi-bin/Autoresponder365/cron/startercron What this means: */25 * * * * (minute, hour, day, month, day of week) This will run a cron every 25 minutes.

The following line runs perl (Notice the space after perl): perl /home/username/public_html/cgi-bin/Autoresponder365/cron/startercron If you do not know how to do this, ask your web host to do it for you.

1.2 Upload all files using FTP Upload all the files contained in this archive (retaining the directory structure) to the /cgi-bin/ directory on your server or hosting account. Tip: I suggest you to create a new subdirectory in your /cgi-bin/ For example /cgi-bin/Autoresponder365/ All files should be uploaded in ASCII mode. If you are unfamiliar with what this means please refer to your FTP client documentation. In most cases this is all handled transparently by your ftp client but if you encounter problems later you should be sure the files were uploaded correctly as described here. If you do not want to use cron jobs to start broadcast you can remove your 'cron' directory from installation. HINT: A good FTP client you can use is CUTEFTP (evaluation) or SMARTFTP or FILEZILLA (free).

2. FTP Using your FTP client set the permissions of the following 16 files to CHMOD '755' • broadcaster • sender • bounce.cgi • conf.cgi • func.cgi • logpng.cgi • pref.cgi • r.cgi • register.cgi • responder.cgi • rss.cgi • starter.cgi • update.cgi • xmlexport.cgi • xmlimport.cgi

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install.cgi

Check that all the above files have attributes changed to "-rwxr-xr-x". You do not have to do anything to the other files which will have permission CHMOD '644', exept 'cnf.rd'. While installing file 'cnf.rd' must be set to '666' permission after that you can change permission to '644'. CHMOD '666' to the file 'broadcast.log' - script will write broadcaster logs there if you will check option "Save broadcast logs" in the "Statistics" "Current broadcast log". CHMOD 777 to directory 'backup' - script will write MYSQL backups there. HINT: To change the file permissions, right click and select "change file attributes" in your FTP client, enter the number into the Manual box.

3. INSTALL Once all the files have been uploaded and permissions set you should point your browser to the install.cgi file. For example if your domain name is www.mydomain.com and you placed Autoresponder365 in a directory http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/Autoresponder365/ you would enter: http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/Autoresponder365/install.cgi into your browser. When you have done this you should see the Installation screen appear. Before proceeding with installation you should ensure you have a database available. Most good hosting accounts now come with at least one database as part of the basic package although it may need to be setup before first use. Ask your provider for details if you are unsure whether you do or not. Once you have reached the installation page you need to fill out several fields. There are 4 steps. --Step 1: To start installation please enter your registration key (license code). This can be anything you like, we suggest you enter 12345. --Step 2: Database connection If you do not have or do not know the database server, database name, database username, database password, please check with your hosting provider.

The database server is typically localhost but this is not universal! The database prefix allows you to enter a few characters, short name, etc. which all tables used by this installation will be prefixed with. The default (swd_) will usually be fine. However if you have more than one copy of Autoresponder365 using the same database be sure to alter it or you will receive errors during installation. NOTE: If you receiving error like: "Can not write to cnf.rd file: permission denied", please set '666' permissions to it. HINT: Go to the cPanel of your web host, click MYSQL Databases to do the above changes. You must (i) create a database, (ii) Create database user and Password and (iii) add the user to the database with ALL privileges.

--Step 3: Database installation. The script will check existing tables on your database. If tables with same prefix exists, you can skip database installation. If you are updating script from Lite or old version please look at update*.txt file for instructions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------!ATTENTION: If you chose to install database all existing tables will ! !be dropped. ! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Step 4: Password to access to administration page. You will need to choose a password for the initial administration account. You will be able to change it later. Write down your password here for record purpose:________________________ The installation script will create and populate all the necessary tables. ===================== AFTER INSTALLATION YOU CAN REMOVE install.cgi and update.cgi scripts from server. Please backup and change permissions to '644' to your 'cnf.rd' file. =====================

4. ACTIVATION LINK You can omit this step if you use Cron. Now you MUST set up the activation link. You place a 1-pixel "image" on a well viewed web page, which activates the script periodically. If there even one visitor a day it will work fine. When activated, it checks the POP3 email accounts you specified and sees if it needs to send a confirmation email to your contacts and adds them to your mailing list. The syntax of the activation "image" follows: You can even place the activation image on another domain. It will activate the script everytime somebody visits that page. However, in my experience, I suggest that you place it on the entry page to your site. Alternative method is to set up script through the CRON: See Section 1.1 above for steps.

5. SETTING UP Now login to the admin area using the password you specified during installation. To run the admin area, just point your browser to the responder.cgi file Like this: http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/Autoresponder365/responder.cgi After you logged in please go to "GLOBAL SETTINGS" and enter all required information. A. Personal: Here you can set your admin email and admin name. • Admin email • Admin name • You can check to receive broadcaster statistics by email. B. Send Options: Here you should specify your server's mailing program You can get these from your host control panel or by contacting the host's support. • Sendmail path (eg, /usr/sbin/sendmail) • Send through (eg, sendmail) • SMTP server (eg, localhost, mail.mydomain.com)

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Performance Settings: a new feature which allows you to send within a budget host mail server's sending limit. For example for a sending limit of 200 email per hour- you enter a delay between emails of 18 seconds. • Bounce return path address: Choose one of the 3 ways- Read the explanation there. C. Access: Here you can change your password. Make sure you remember your password! D. Time Settings: Change time depending on your time zone. Enter the correction time ie., the difference between your server's time and your local time. For example you may live in Sydney but your host server (where you host the Autoresponder365 Pro) may be situated in Texas. So you enter the correction +14 hr to correct for the time difference. Then all the time will be adjusted to your local time in Autoresponder365 Pro. Select the date format setting whether US or British style. E. Performance: Use this to test send your messages. This is a quick way to test your setting in SEND OPTIONS. Enter your email address (preferably a POP mail on your own domain) and the blast size here. F. Backup/Restore: Backup and restore your database. This is where you can backup and restore your datebase. It is recommended you perform this at least once a fortnight. Once you have completed the installation, you need to delete out install.cgi and update.cgi from your server. Leaving it in place is a very serious potential security issue.

6. CREATE NEW ACCOUNT Add New Account: Press "Add New Account" to set up your accounts. Press clone to copy an existing account. A. Account Options This is where you setup the following account options: • Enter you name and email address • Set up subscribe, double opt-in and unsubscribe pages. • Admin notification settings • Duplication message checking • Localization

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Modification of contact information by prospects POP3 settings- allow your subscribers to sign up by sending a blank email.

For the subscribe, double opt-in and unsubscribe pages, you can either generate them automatically or set up three webpages on your site as follows: •

Redirect subscriber: thankyou.html ("Please check your email to confirm your subscription!") • Redirect removals: removal.html ("Your subscription is removed!") • Double Optin: confirmed.html ("Congratulation, your subscription is now confirmed!") B. HTML Form This is where you set up the following: • Copy the html code to use as form on your webpage. • Add customized fields eg., age, sex or address. • Select the other accounts you want to automatically subscribe/unsubscribe when a prospect sign up for a particular account. • Preview the form. C. RSS Channel RSS 2.0 Channel Settings • Main RSS Settings • Text input settings D. Subscriber Manager This is where you manage your subscribers: Add new prospects- you can add a prospect here and set which day of the message sequence to add him/her. Import list- you can import your prospects via the input box or a text file. The script accepts input in many popular formats. See the list for details. Export list- you can export your prospects (active or inactive or all) into a text file or a webpage. Copy from account- You can copy prospects from another account. 'Bulk removal- You can perform bulk removal by pasting emails of prospects into the box. E. Edit Messages This is where you edit all your messages (in text or HTML format) as follows: • Double Opt-in Message • Subscribe confirmation message • Unsubscribe confirmation message. • Add new messages to be sent out as follows: • Autoresponding messages to be sent on day=0, 2, 4 etc

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On a particular date eg., May 5, 2010 Manually ie., broadcast. F. Link Tracker This is where you add your link tracking tag for link tracking statistics ie., clicking of links in your email messages. Here you define a tag like [LINK22] with its forwarding URL. You then insert the tag into the body of your messages. 7. MORE MENU OPTIONS Below are some menu options: • Languages- Select the languages in: English, Portugese, Russian, German, French and Spanish. • Global Settings- Explained in Section 5 above. • Statistics- Activity log and broadcast log. • XML Import- A tool for XML import. Read instruction. • XML Export- A tool for XML export. Read instruction. • Bounced emails- bounced email handling. Add your bounced email account and blacklist here. 8. HTML EDITOR Online HTML editor installation: 8.1. Download Xinha online html editor from: developers website: http://xinha.python-hosting.com/ 8.2 Upload 'xinha' directory to your server document ROOT. HTML editor URL must be like http://www.yourhost.com/xinha/ and you can not change directory name.

9. INSTALLATION SERVICE (If not included with your purchase) Do you want us to install Autoresponder365 Pro for you? If you want me to install it for you, please send $25 (per account) by paypal to "netsales @ computaworld.com" (remove spaces before and after @). Please provide the following information required for the installation of Autoresponder365 Pro from your web host. You can request for them by copying and pasting the following items marked with an * into an email and send it to your host. *1. Ftp server *2. Ftp username and password *3. Domain url *4. Absolute path to your directory eg., /home/yourname/public_html/cgi-bin/maillist

*5. Mail Program Setting: Sendmail path (eg, /usr/sbin/sendmail):___________________ Send through (eg, sendmail):______________________________ SMTP server (eg, mail.mydomain.com or localhost):______________________ 6. Either one of the following: a) Login details to your web host's control panel. This allows us to login and create the mysql for you. Control Panel URL: _________________________________ Login name: ______________________________________ Password:________________________________________ *b) Supply the following to us: MYSQL: Database server:_________________________ Database name:___________________________ Database username:_______________________ Database password:_______________________ Database prefix (optional):___________________ 7. Give us the email you want to use as admin email Note: You must uninstall your earlier installation(s) of Autoresponder365 in order for the new installation to work properly.

3. Global Settings So finally you have installed the script. Now you need to set up the global settings. • • • • • •

Personal Send Options Access Time Settings Perfomance Backup/Restore

Personal Here you can set the admin username and email address that will receive mailing reports and notifications when someone subscribes or unsubscribes. You can check to receive broadcaster statistics by email.

Send Options Mailing method setup. Here you will need to select and setup either your servers mail program and path or the address of your SMTP server. You can get these from your host control panel or by contacting the host's support. Sendmail path- here you should write down the path to the sendmail program on your server (ask you hosting administrator for it - usually it is /usr/sbin/sendmail) Send Through- sendmail or SMTP SMTP server- in this field type your SMTP server. You can have it on your server or in other place. Usually it is something like localhost or smtp.myhost.com If you select sendmail you will have to set sendmail path. By default: /usr/sbin/sendmail/

If you select SMTP you'll have to define SMTP server. By default: localhost. If your SMTP server request authorization you have to set username and password. Performance Settings- With the help of this feature our script sends email through some concurrent streams. There you can define how many competing processes your messages will send. If you use shared server and don't need high performance I advice you to set this value to 1 process. Performance of processing your messages depends on your server configuration and I can advice to find optimal value by testing. If your server has not many resources you can use delay between sending each messages in seconds. If you set this option script will wait between sending each message. Quantity of concurrent processes - select how many processes do you want to be (the more the better for most servers).

But if you have some problems with concurrent processes you can check the checkbox use old (single proccess) algorithm of sending and the script will send email with the help of old algorithm. Delay Between Emails: a new feature which allows you to send within a budget host mail server's sending limit. For example for a sending limit of 200 email per hour- you enter a delay between emails of 18 seconds. Bounce return path address: Choose one of the 3 ways- Read the explanation there.

Access You can change your admin area login password here. Make sure you remember your password!

Time Settings Here you can synchronize your server's time with your local time. Useful for scheduled and time sensitive mailouts. Enter the correction time ie., the difference between your server's time and your local time. Use "-" sign before the time to decrease time or "+" sign to increase For example you may live in Sydney but your host server (where you host the Autoresponder365 Pro) may be situated in Texas. So you enter the correction +14 hr to correct for the time difference. Then all the time will be adjusted to your local time in Autoresponder365 Pro. Select the date format setting whether US or British style.

Performance This is a facility to test the performance of your server in sending out mailings. This test will tell you how long it takes your server to send out emails. Enter your email address (preferably a POP mail on your own domain) and click the Test button ONCE only. The Autoresponder365 will send emails to the address you enter. The process will be timed. This test will use sendmail.

Enter the blast size (minimum 30).

Backup/Restore This is where you can backup and restore your database. Useful for those who want to move the script to other server or for those who want to backup their databases. It is recommended you perform this at least once a fortnight.

4. Working with Accounts Next we will learn how to work with accounts.

The accounts work panel is located on the left column of your admin panel. This panel allows you to: • • •

Create an account Delete an account Change accounts status

To create an account: 1. Type the name of the new account in the "Name" field

2. In the field "Clone" you can choose an account to clone or make a new account. For new account choose option "--blank--". 3. Click "New account" button Clone means that the whole options will be copied to the new account.

To delete an account: 1. Click the check boxes near accounts you want to delete. 2. Push "delete selected" button

To change status of the account: If the status is "inact." that mean that this account do not work. 1. Click the check boxes near accounts you want to change status. 2. Click the "Change status" button

5. Setting Account Options To get to the account options do this: 1. Login to the admin area 2. Select the account from the accounts working panel 3. Click on "Account options" In this place we have such groups of options: This is where you setup the following account options: • • • • •

Personal- Enter you name and email address Set up subscribe, double opt-in and unsubscribe pages. Admin notification settings Duplication message checking Localization

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Modification of contact information by prospects POP3 settings- allow your subscribers to sign up by sending a blank email. Ban emails

Personal In this group of setting you should set up personal information. "From" name "From" name Default User Name Reply-to header

in this field write down the name which is indicated in the field "From" of the email here write down the name which is indicated in the field "From" of the email (email part) in this field you should type the user name which will be used if the user name isn't set in this field you should type an email you want that email will be replied to

Set up subscribe (Thank You Page), double opt-in and unsubscribe pages. For the subscribe, double opt-in and unsubscribe pages, you can either generate them automatically or set up three webpages on your site as follows: • • •

Redirect subscriber: thankyou.html ("Please check your email to confirm your subscription!") Redirect removals: removal.html ("Your subscription is removed!") Double Optin: confirmed.html ("Congratulation, your subscription is now confirmed!")

Prospect will be redirected to "Already subscribed page URL" if email already exists in account. If this page is not defined existing prospect will be redirected to Thank you page. In thank you page settings you can define to ways how to show it after registration. Redirect to to static page

In this case prospect will redirected to Thank you page URL Show personalized page

In this case personalized page will be displayed after registration. Personalized page must be located in personal/templconfirm folder of Autoresponder365. Pages can be personalized with same rules as you're using in message Subscribers double opt-in confirmation settings

Here you can enable double opt-in confirmation. If you enable this option special message with confirmation URL will be sent to subscriber after registration. Prospect will be redirected to Double opt-in confirmation page or to personalized page from template. Unsubscribe settings

Here you can define 2 URL: Usubscribe and already unsubscribed pages

Admin notification settings Notify me when

Send email to admin when someone subscribes

someone subscribes Notify me when someone unsubscribed

Send email to admin when someone unsubscribed

Here you can set notifications options. You can enable or disable notification and set administrator email address, different from those than you've entered in Personal settings.

Duplication message checking Do not send duplicate messages to subscribers

Check this to stop sending duplicated emails

If you will set option Do not send duplicate messages to subscribers Autoresponder365 will not sent the duplicated messages.

Localization Do not uppercase first letter of prospects names Default character set • •

Check it if you want it Select the default charset depending on your region

Do not uppercase the first letter of prospects names - when this option is enabled first letter of prospects names will not be uppercased. Default character set- will be used as default in your messages

Modification of contact information by prospects You can perform the following related to contact information of prospects: •

Allow the modification of contact information.

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Preferences page template. Confirmation email.

If you add special tag [MODIFY_CONTACT_INFO] in your messages your prospects will be able to modify contact information by clicking the link that will be generated in messages. In this section you can set additional parameters or disable modification options.

POP3 settings You can also get subscribers by having them click on an email link. Just create a new email address for your domain or any pop3 email account. This is especially useful if you want to avoid the possibility of someone entering a false name and email address because it will collect their information directly from their email client. Allow subscribing by sending blank email Subscribe email POP3 server POP3 username POP3 password POP3 server port

Check it to enable blank email subscription Type here an address for blank emails Type an address of the server to get mail from the address with blank email (usually pop3.yourhost.com) Write down a username for authorization Set a password for the authorization Set the port (usually 110)

Collecting subscribers from mailboxes

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Allow subscribing by sending a blank email: Checkmark this box if you wish to allow people to subscribe

to your mailing list by clicking on an e-mail link or by sending a blank email. •

POP3 server: The incoming mail server for your POP3 account. Your POP3 email account provider

should provide you with this information. • • •

POP3 username: Your username for accessing your POP3 account. POP3 password: Your password for accessing your POP3 account. POP3 server port: On the majority of servers- 110. But if you receive an error, ask your server administrator.

Ban emails Ban list (1 rule each line) Custom error message • •

You can add emails adresses or hosts which you whant to ban like "[email protected]" or "hotmail.com" This message get prostects if they emails was banned in registration error form.

Ban list: You can add email addresses or hosts which you want to ban like "[email protected]" or "hotmail.com". Custom error message: This is the message prospects see at registration if their email address is banned.

Now we have set up the account options. The next operation is to set up HTML form for the subscribers

6. Making HTML Form for Subscribers It is time to make a special form for those who want to subscribe to your list. To make a HTML form: 1. Login to the admin area 2. Click in the accounts working panel on the account 3. Click on the "HTML Form" This is where you set up the following: • • • •

Copy the html code to use as form on your webpage. Add customized fields eg., age, sex or address. Select the other accounts you want to automatically subscribe/unsubscribe when a prospect sign up for a particular account. Preview the form.

You can add customized fields. The two fields above with the names "Name" and "Email" are reserved. They cannot be deleted or moved. You can: • • • •

Add field Remove field Change field position Edit field

How to add a field? Under the fields you have such a link "Add a new field". Click it. • • • •

Give the name to the field Check "is required?" if you want that the user necessarily fill it Select field format: TEXT - means one string text field, TEXTAREA - means multi string field Click "Add field" button

The browser will return to the previous page and you will see the new field position. To change the field position, do this: •

Using "Move UP | DOWN" move the field where ever you want

If you need to remove a field: •

Just click "Drop" near the field to remove it from the form.

And if you want just to change some setting you should use "Edit" feature: •

Click on the "Edit" and fill in fields in the "Add field" form

Below you can see the HTML code of your form. You must copy it and paste into your page without changing anything! Autoresponder365 have an option that help to subscribe people to other accounts: Select accounts where do you want automatically subscribe prospects when they are subscribed on this account Just check other account you want subscribers to be subscribe to and press "Save accounts" Under the HTML code you can see in real time you HTML form as it is shown on your site.

7. Working with Prospect List Up to this time you have set up global and account options, HTML form for the users. Now let us learn how to work with prospects. To start work with prospects you have to get to the prospect menu: 1. Click in the account menu on the account 2. Click the "subscriber manager" Now you see a new menu with five items: • • • • •

Add new prospect Import list Export list Copy from account Bulk removal

You manage your prospect lists in this menu.

You also see display features for viewing your prospects.

To delete the prospect check the checkbox near prospect (highlighted above in green circle) and click "Remove" (highlighted above in red). Also you can change account status (active/inactive). For this check the checkbox near prospect (highlighted above in green circle) and then click button "Invert status". To show/hide field check/uncheck checkboxes highlighted in blue line and click "Display" Let us examine the first item of the menu:

Add new prospect This item is used for administrators to add prospect by hands. For example, you want to add a prospect and with the help of this item you can do this from the admin area. After clicking on this item you'll see your HTML form as it is on your site. You have to fill in the fields. Below the HTML form you have to choose beginning what day prospect should be added: Without sequence Add prospects into sequence beginning with

Check this if you want prospect be added from today Check this if you want prospect to be sent message from xth day in the sequence

day But it is impossible to add a lot of prospect by hands. For this you can use the "Import List" item of menu.

Import List Here you can add new contacts to your "current prospects" list and run them through your entire message set. You can either paste them into the "Insert text" box or upload them in a txt file using the many popular formats as follows: Tom Jones|[email protected] or: [email protected] or: or: Tom Jones or: “Tom Jones” [email protected] or: Tom Jones [email protected] One contact per row. When ready, click the Import Prospects button. Check "Send subscribe confirmation message for all imported prospects" if you want all users to confirm their subscription before adding them to the list. And then below you can choose beginning what day prospect should be added: Without sequence Add prospects into sequence beginning with day

Check this if you want prospect be added from today Check this if you want prospect to be sent message from xth day in the sequence

Export List The next item of the menu is Export list

This feature is for copying your mailing list and backup to a text file or a webpage. Now set export options. In the "Format" field select the exporting format for the list. In "Filter" field select what account to export: Active, All, Inactive. And below select where to export your list: File or Page.

Copy from Account In the next item of menu Copy from account you can copy prospect from the other account. For this select an account in the select box and in the filter field select what type of prospects do you want to copy.

Bulk Removal And the last item of the menu is Bulk removal. This item for removing prospect from the list. You can type an email or emails and it will be deleted from account or accounts. You can also use a mask. For example if you type "hotmail" in the text box this will remove all emails that contains "hotmail" in any part of the email address. i.e. [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] - all these will be removed from the list.

8. Working with Messages The last item of our manual is this page. Here you'll know how to create, edit, remove messages. Also how to send them. To get to the message manager you should do this: • •

Click in the account panel on the account Click menu item "Edit messages"

When you do this you'll see such a screen:

With this manager you can: • • • • • • •

Editing double opt-in, subscribe and unsubscribe messages Create new messages Edit messages Remove messages Send messages Terminate processes Test send

Editing Double Opt-In, Subscribe and Unsubscribe Messages At the top you can see three messages which cannot be removed because they are reserved by the script. But they can be edited as you wish. To edit these messages just press "Edit" button next to them. There you can change the subject, type, charset, priority and body of the predefined messages. The messages consist of three types of messages which you can edit in text or HTML format:

• • •

Double Opt-in Message Subscribe confirmation message Unsubscribe confirmation message.

Uncheck the checkboxes and press "Update settings" if you want messages not to be sent. With the preview button opposite the messages you can preview how they will look. Now let's learn how to create a new message.

Create New Messages For this press "Add new message>". You'll get to the create message section. Fill in the form as you wish (you can use tags or variables as described at the bottom of Create message section) and press "Save". The message could be of three different types: • • •

Autoresponding - the script sends messages automatically after specified days (these messages displayed in the "Sequential messages" section) At date - the message will be sent at the specified date (these messages displayed in the "Manual/Schedule messages" section) Manually - you should by your hands send message (these messages displayed in the "Manual/Schedule messages" section)

You can create either TEXT message or HTML messages. For this please select an option in the field "Type"

Edit Messages You can also edit messages which are already made. For this just click on the Message Subject and you'll get to the "Edit message" section as from "Create message" earlier.

Remove Messages You can also remove a message. Just check the checkboxes next to the messages and press "Remove" button underneath to remove the selected messages.

Send Messages We have also feature which gives the opportunity to send messages manually. With the help of "Broadcast" button you can send "manual messages" and "At date messages". For this: • •

Check the boxes opposite messages you want to send Press "Broadcast

The marked messages will be sent immediately. Note you cannot do this with "Sequential messages" which is queued for sending at the appropriate time.

Terminate Process And one more thing - what is the use of the button "Terminate process"? In the column "In progress" which is opposite the message subject you can see how much messages are left to send. It terminates the process of sending messages. For example, you have pressed "Broadcast" but have mistaken and want to terminate the sending process. Then you: • •

check checkboxes opposite message where you need to terminate broadcasting and just press the Terminate Process button.

Test Send To check sending messages at the bottom there is test send: • • •

Check messages what to send Enter email for testing Press "Test send"

9. RSS Channel and Link Tracker There are two more items under the Account Menu: • •

RSS Channel Link Tracker

RSS Channel These is also an input screen for RSS 2.0 Channel Settings: • •

Main RSS Settings Text input settings

What is RSS? • • •

RSS is a Web content syndication format. Its name is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a dialect of XML. All RSS files must conform to the XML 1.0 specification, as published on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website. Autoresponder365 used RSS 2.0 format to publish messages line.

What is personalized RSS? • •

Each prospect in Autoresponder365 account has own unique link to RSS feed. If you will use special tag [RSS_LINK] it will be replaced by URL to RSS feed. If you set your message that must be published in RSS feed short message description will be added to personalized RSS feed when current message is sent to prospect.

RSS chanel settings Required fields Here's a list of the required channel elements, each with a brief description, an example, and a pointer to a more complete description where available. •

• •

Title- The name of the channel. It's how people refer to your service. If you have an HTML website that contains the same information as your RSS file, the title of your channel should be the same as the title of your website. Link - The URL to the HTML website corresponding to the channel. Description - Phrase or sentence describing the channel.

Optional channel elements

•

•

Channel language - The language the channel is written in. This allows aggregators to group all Italian language sites, for example, on a single page. A list of allowable values for this element, as provided by Netscape, is here. You may also use values defined by the W3C. Copyright text - copyright notice for content in the channel

Text input settings A channel may optionally contain a textInput sub-element, which contains four required sub-elements. • • • •

Title - The label of the Submit button in the text input area. Description - Explains the text input area. Input script URL -- The URL of the CGI script that processes text input requests. Input script parameter name - The name of the text object in the text input area.

The purpose of the textInput element is something of a mystery. You can use it to specify a search engine box. Or to allow a reader to provide feedback. Most aggregators ignore it. Adding messages to RSS line Not all messages will be published in RSS feed and web-based archive. This option can be enabled for each message in your account. If RSS publishing enabled you will see RSS icon near message in Edit messages area To activate RSS publishing in message you need select checkbox Save current message into personalized RSS-feed and set RSS-feed description text below.

Publishing links to RSS and web archive Finally you need to inform your prospect about links to RSS and web based archive in your messages. You just need to add text with special tags that will be replaced by links to RSS feed and Web based archive. For example you can add following text in your "Thank you for subscribing" message: Hello [FIRSTNAME]! Thank you for subscribing on demo account RSS! -----You can find your web based messages archive at [HTML_LINK] Your personal RSS feed: [RSS_LINK] ------

Why I need to use RSS? • •

If for some reason message was not delivered to subscriber, he can always open copy of current message from web. Many people use RSS Readers.

Link Tracker Link Tracker allows you to create tags for link tracking purposes i.e., clicking of links in your email messages. Here you define a tag like [LINK22] with its forwarding URL. You then insert the tag into the body of your messages. You can view the statistics and perform task like: • • •

No of clicks No of prospects Clean i.e., reset the stats

10. Main Menu Options On the top left corner of the Admin panel, there some menu options: • • • • • •

Languages- Select the languages in: English, Portugese, Russian, German, French and Spanish. Global Settings- Explained in Section 3 above. Statistics- Activity log and broadcast log. XML Import- A tool for XML import. Read instruction. XML Export- A tool for XML export. Read instruction. Bounced emails- bounced email handling. Add your bounced email account and blacklist here.

Online HTML Editor

Bounced Emails Sending options to collect bounced emails At first you need make sure that bounced messages come back to your POP3 mailbox If you can already receive bounce messages you can skip this step Go to the Global settings -> Send Options If you are going to process bounced messages you can define bounce sending options there.

SMTP sending If you are using SMTP to send messages you will see the screen below.

If you are using SMTP system for sending your messages you can specify an email address that's different from your 'From' or 'Reply-To' headers. You have to check 'Use following email address as SMTP sender' checkbox and specify the email address.

Setup using the Sendmail Command Your results will be mixed with this method, but it's worth a shot: Note: I advise you to use sendmail with -f flag because it is most easy way to receive bounced messages

•

Technique 1: The -f flag.

You have to check 'Use sendmail -f flag' and specify email address there This should set the Return-Path header. •

•

Technique 2: Return-Path header. If that doesn't work, you can try to set the Return-Path header explicitly. This is not the best idea, however Qmail allows you to do this. Technique 3: Errors-To header. The Errors-To header seems to have been created just for this task, but it's actually a deprecated header, so you should use it with caution. You have configure Sendmail to see the Errors-To header. I don't

recommend using this header, but if all other ways fail you can specify Errors header.

Testing To test out any of these configurations, send yourself a test message and view the source of the message itself, in your mail reader. In the mail headers, you should see the ReturnPath header like: Return-Path: [email protected] Delivered-To: [email protected] Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 2.117 (F2.71) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:26:41 UT From: AR365 Registration To: AR365 administrator Subject: User [email protected] registered at the test account

Working with accounts Here you can edit your bounce POP3 accounts to collect bounced messages and define rules/actions with prospects (remove or inactivate prospects). To create a new account you need click on Add new account>>> link. Now you should set new account properties:

• • • • •

POP3 server - your POP3 server to collect messages POP3 port - default POP3 port is 110 POP3 user - username to access to mailbox POP3 password - password to access to mailbox Remove prospects after: o hard bounces: count of hard bounced messages before prospects will be removed or inactivated (Hard bounces are messages telling you about permanent errors like host or user not found, spam reject, and it means that your message will not be delivered to the recipient). By default prospects will be removed/inactivated after 1 hard bounced message, but you can change this option. o soft bounces: count of soft bounced messages before prospects will be removed or inactivated (Soft bounces messages are about transient temporary errors like user mailbox over quota, their server down, etc ). By default prospects will be removed/inactivated after 3 soft bounced message, but you can change this rule.

•

Actions: o remove prospect from database: your prospect will be removed from database o set status to inactive: your prospect will be inactivated o add prospect to BlackList emails database: you can set this option to automatically add prospects to the BlackList when they are removed or inactivated.

When you press "Save account" button you will see bounce accounts list like:

Testing your account Just click "Test" in the accounts list. The script will try to connect to your mailbox and receive first 30 messages. Script will show you a bounced description if some of these messages are bounced.

Bounced messages statistics You can find daily bounced report by clicking "Totals" link. Here is the sample of this report

Bounced messages list Here you can look at your bounced messages and error codes description You can classify this list by Account, Email, Bounce code, Hard/soft type, Processing status, Bounce reason.

Online HTML Editor In addtion you can also install an Online HTML editor: Download Xinha online html editor from developers website: http://xinha.python-hosting.com/ Upload 'xinha' directory to your server document ROOT. HTML editor URL must be like http://www.yourhost.com/xinha/ and you can not change directory name.

11. FAQ How to change database connection settings If you database connection settings was changed you need follow these steps: 1. Upload install.cgi script to server by FTP in TEXT mode 2. Change permissions to 755 on install.cgi 3. Open install.cgi in your browser like http://yoursite.com/cgi-bin/install.cgi

4. Enter your license key 5. Enter new database connection settings 6. Skip database installation step. Otherwise your existing database will be deleted 7. Delete install.cgi script from server.

How to transfer database Scenario 1 1. Transfer database to new server by using phpMyAdmin tool. 2. You need upload install.cgi script to server and set new database settings there. 3. Change permissions to 755 on install.cgi 4. Enter your license key 5. Enter new database connection settings 6. Skip database installation step. Otherwise your existing database will be deleted 7. Delete install.cgi script from server.

Scenario 2 1. Create your database in site control panel 2. Backup old by using Global settings -> Backup/Restore 3. Install clean Autoresponder365 follow instructions in Installation of Autoresponder365 with new database settings 4. Restore your database by using Global settings -> Backup/Restore

Transferring installation of Autoresponder365 To transfer installation to new domain have to do the following: 1. You have to backup your existing database. You can backup database in your built-in site Control Panel PHP My Admin toll or you can use Backup/Restore function in Global settings. 2. You have to copy files to the new server (please look at Installation of Autoresponder365) 3. If you have no free hosts in your license you need to login to your members area and delete your old domain from your license 4. Now you can run installation script (please look through Installation of Autoresponder365) 5. Now you have to restore your saved database

* If you use PHP My Admin you have to execute your backuped dump of your databadase * If you use built in Backup/Restore tool you have to 1. Download your backup from backup folder of Autoresponder365 in your old server 2. Upload file to the same location of new server 3. Run Backup/Restore, select your file and restore database

How can I import subscribers from CSV files Autoresponder365 cannot import information from CSV files. You need to use import from tab demitted files 1. You need open Subscriber Manager -> Import list -> Import from tab-delimited file 2. There you can "Download example tab-delimited file" 3. You can edit this file with MS Excel 4. You need open your CSV file in MS excel too 5. You need copy past your columns from your file to downloaded example 6. Save Excel file as tab delimited 7. Upload file to Autoresponder365 by using Subscriber Manager -> Import list -> Import from tab-delimited file

How many Lead import custom fields can I use? You can add so much custom fields as you want in Account -> HTML Form -> Custom fields

How messages sequence works? Probably to clarify all questions how to sequence works I have to explain in what way script sends messages. Each prospect in the database has 2 fields – Sequential message ID and Sequential message last sending date. Every time these fields updated automatically. So, you have 5 messages #1,#2,#3,#4,#5 which equal with sending dates.

Prospect registered at 05/01/2006. First message will be sent in one day after registration. And then “Sequential message ID” will be updated to 1 and date will be updated to 05/02/2006 Every time when broadcasting starts script tryes to calculate: "Do I need to send next sequential message to prospect?". So if script will be executed next day it will notice that next message to send is "#2" and it must be sent after 1 (2-1) day after sending message #1. So if prospect has received message #5 and you will add message #7 all prospects that received message #5 more then 2 days ago will receive message #7 after you will add it to sequence. If message #5 was sent less then 2 days – message #7 will be sent after 2 days after sending message #5. But if you have messages #1,#5,#10,#20 and trying to add message with days 15 all prospects that received message #10 but not #20 will receive #15 but is they are already received #20 they will not receive #20 because #15 sequence already done.

Autoresponder365 did not send messages There are few reasons why Autoresponder365 did not sending messages and you need follow instructions to find it. 1. Try to send test message 1. If you've not revived your message you need to look at Send Options and and ask your hosting provider about sending messages settings 2. You can try to send message from your server from other software to make sure that problem happened bacause of the server 2. If test message was received correctly first you need to visit Category:Statistics-> Current Broadcast Log 1. If your broadcast process was not executed long time you need to check your broadcaster activator options: Web activator or CRON jobs activator. 1. Make sure that activator URL or CRON settings is OK. 2. Try to start broadcaster by opening URL http://yourhost.com/cgibin/Autoresponder365/starter.cgi (yourhost.com - your domain name and /cgibin/Autoresponder365/ path to your Autoresponder365 directory)

How to send test message To send test message from Autoresponder365 you should open Edit messages area in your account and click "Test send" link near your message. If your message has Multiple

(text and HTML) format you will need to select format of test send message on the next step.

What difference between sequence FINISHED and DISABLED status? "Sequence Finished" means that in prospect profile will be saved information hat last sequential message was already send. "Sequence Disabled" means that any sequential messages will not be sent to current subscriber.

Insert image in HTML You can use 2 ways to insert images in HTML messages: 1) Internal image: You can attach image into message. If image filename is foto.jpg you can insert HTML tag like 2) External image. You just need to publish image on your site and use URL for image like