Releasenotes

In the SOAP API the PdfExport object always contained the data known so far. There was no way to check the status of a PdfExport without downloading the data. This is of course not desirable.

In version 2.12 we converted the property data to an method. So instead of retrieving the data together with the rest of the properties of a PdfExport a second call is now needed. The call PdfExport_data will retrieve the data in a base64 encoded binary format.

For an EmailingTemplate en EmailingDocument it is possible to convert the stylesheet to inline styles or to keep the style blocks. This setting is useful for compatibility of the layout in several e-mail clients. This setting was only available in the user interface.

Since version 2.12 it is possible to change the setting for converting the stylesheet. This is a property is called useinlinestyles and is available in the objects EmailingTemplate and EmailingDocument. You can update the setting with the methods EmailingTemplate_update and EmailingDocument_update.

In the previous releases using the SOAP API it was only possible the create an import using an remote http or ftp location. starting with this release it is possible to add data to the import using the Import_addData method. Make sure your total SOAP request isn't larger then 128Mb because the server won't accept that.

Abuses and unsubscribes are important results for an e-mailing. Of course you want to have an indication whether this occurred and for how many destinations this occurred. Unfortunately there was not yet a clear indication how many unsubscribes you had and how many abuses.

To make this all much more clear we lifted the unsubscribes and abuses to the same level as clicks and impressions. This makes the overview easier to understand. To complete this we replaced the waterfall such that the abuses and unsubscribes are also visible in that overview.

If you load a content feed into your https website, you might have problems because https and http content are mixed. This will result in a warning in your internet browser.

In version 2.12 of the application we will serve the images in your content feed via an https connection, to make sure that you do not run in trouble when using the data on your website.

Some big e-mail providers like Hotmail have the possibility to register abuses. When you are registered with the feedback loop program, the application is able to process these abuses automatically. You are able to view the abuses from a single (bulk)mailing, but it was not possible to create a selection with abuses, thus you are not able to export them.

Since version 2.12 it is possible to make selection based on abuses. Now you have the possibility to select the (sub)profiles that have registered an abuse. You can export the data and use it for example to unsubscribe those e-mail addresses from another system.

It was already possible to set the properties of a email/pdf/web document using the *_setProperty method. If multiple properties had to be set multiple calls to this function had to be made. Now there's a new function *_setProperties() where you can set all the properties of a document using one call.When the SOAP server detects that the client supports gzip compression, the server will send the response compressed to the client. This will reduce the response size thus reducing the time needed to transfer the data to the client.

In the application you can use directories to store files in the profile. When one of profiles has the right directory structure, it is possible to copy this to all profiles of the database or selection. This was working correctly, but it was not very fast. Since version 2.12 we have improved the speed of copying the directory structure.

In the past the Profile_updateSubprofiles, Database_updateProfiles, View_updateProfiles, Collection_updateSubProfiles and MiniView_updateSubProfiles methods only returned the number of created or updated (sub)profiles. Quite often a search had to be done to get the updated/created (sub)profiles. To fix this these functions now return a Collection object with the ID's of the changed or created (sub)profiles. 

 

Because of the way the result is returned this change is backwards compatible and doen't need any changes to the client side code.

A database (and the same holds for collections and (mini)selections) has a setting for permitting the sending of bulk mailings, in the software known as intensions. It is a protection mechanism to make sure that you cannot send a bulk mailing to selection that holds the unsubscribers.

If for example you want to set the intension to permit e-mailings for a selection, a field in the database must be set to the type e-mail. When no field in the database is marked as e-mail field, the option bulk e-mailing is not clickable. This raised a lot of questions, because it was not explained why it is not clickable.

Since version 2.12 the dialog has been improved. When an option is not clickable, you will get a warning that explains the reason and you can click on a hyperlink to change the type of the field.

In the software it is possible to create or edit follow ups in a database or an e-mailing document. One of the possible follow up actions is to change the data of a (sub)profile. E.g. an interest can be changed as a result of an e-mailing. However it was not clear which value should entered to enable (or disable) a specific interest.

Since version 2.12 dropdown fields are used in the case of interests or multiple choice fields. For the multiple choice fields you can select any of the options and for an interest you have to choose "yes" or "no". In this way it is much easier to build a correct followup.

In the software it is possible to see or modify the delivery settings. The application contains a dialog with information about the IP-address used to send e-mailings and other delivery settings e.g., how many times we try to deliver a message. It is also possible to view and change the picserver (domain used for serving images) and envelope domain. All these functions were placed in the Extra menu of the E-mailings section of the software.

Since version 2.12 we moved those delivery settings to the Admin section of the software. We combined the settings in one dialog. Besides that it is now also possible to set a picserver domain or envelope domain per account instead of configuring it for a complete environment. Using this new settings, you can optimize your deliverability. Because you can use a subdomain of your own domain for the envelope and picserver domain. This make your message (headers) more consistent and it will help your e-mail to reach the inbox of the receiver.

In the software it is possible to add a DKIM key for your domain. When the key is added, you were redirected to the tab for editing the key. It was unclear what had to be done with this information.

Since version 2.12 we have improved the dialog. When the key is added, you will get a confirmation that the DKIM key has been created. We have added some instructions to explain what you have to do with this key. It is now also possible to send an e-mail with these instructions to someone who has to perform the necessary changes.

Until version 2.12 it is not possible to retrieve a personalized PDF document via the SOAP API. One of the properties of a PdfDocument object which was returned by the SOAP API is the source of the document.

Because the EmailingDocument_source and WebDocument_source functions already existed, we decided to include the function PdfDocument_source. With this change, the property source of the PdfDocument object is not available from version 2.12 and it is replaced by the method PdfDocument_source.

In the past some users accidentally entered a complete HTML document in their textversion, this was most likely not what the user tried to achieve.

In version 2.11 of the application we added a warning for this problem. Now when you try to store a text version which contains HTML tags a warning is given and the text version is not saved.

Phishing (see wikipedia) becomes a bigger problem everyday, because of that spamfilters and even e-mail clients get more strict about validation of hyperlinks. One of the problems that occurs is that links in an e-mail have a label which contains the link to which it points eg:

<a href="http://www.mastercard.com/">www.mastercard.com</a>

However to measure clicks the underlying links are replaced by our system, this tranforms the link in for example.

<a href="http://www.example.org/892035820398/register">www.mastercard.com</a>

To a spamfilter the above example looks like a phishing attempt so this mail is likely to be moved to the junk-email or a warning might be given will the links remain disabled.

To help our users to get their e-mail delivered we added a check for this to version 2.12 of the software. This problem will be reported in our normal spam report, so please review your e-mailing and its spam report.

The PxWidgets library will now use a HTML5 header instead of a XHTML strict header. XHTML is not developed any further and the HTML5 header is more compliant with our software.

When you are an application admin, you can change the envelope address which is used as the underlying sender of the e-mails. This address is used to receive bounces, process abuses and unsubscribes. So its very important that you setup this domain correctly.

To aid our users in settings this up correctly we now (from version 2.12) check the envelope address before storing it. This to make sure that e-mail which are sent by you are always sent from a correct envelope address. A correct envelope address has a MX record pointing to one of our servers.

Sometimes users make mistakes will configuring their account, their e-mailing, their dns or they accidently added content which is not supported by e-mail clients or gets a high spam score. Problems like this influence the deliverability and thus the chance that your e-mail reaches the inbox of the receiver becomes smaller.

You want your e-mail to arrive in the inbox, so we added some extra steps to help you to improve your e-mail and your settings. We warn you when you use unsupported techniques, or when you have an incorrect SPF record set-up. If there are errors which will damage your reputation too much, we do not allow you to send this message this to make sure that you do not send mails directly to the spamfolders.

Sometimes it is desirable to use the parameter from the URL. For example: if you want to display a specific image based on a parameter. However this was only possible when you had extensive knowledge of JavaScript.

From version 2.12 it is possible to use the parameters from the URL within smarty. This can be done with {$smarty.get.<parametername>}. In this way it is much easier to use the parameters from the URL in your webdocuments.

In the past some customers had problems with e-mailings not arriving. Unfortunately most of the time this is caused by the receiving side. Most of the time extra information was available at our servers but could not be viewed by our users.

In this version (2.12) we already included the time at which the e-mailing was delivered, we decided to give our users all the information we have. We now also show attempts to deliver an e-mailing and much more details about errors that occurred.

In some cases we perform multiple attempts to deliver an e-mailing, these attempt are now visible in the application and can be used to find the reason for certain delays or other potential problems.

Besides that we also show as much information as possible whenever an error occurs. We show the address to which the e-mail was sent, the current e-mail address (if it changed). And if the domain contains a certain misspelling which we have seen before we suggest a correction of the e-mail address. And of course the message we got back from the receiving, the error code and its meaning.

We hope this helps our users to enjoy and use the software.

Up to version 2.11 of the software the language in which the software is displayed is based on a list of priorities in our application. However this is not always the desired solution.

Starting from version 2.12 we always pick the language which is supported by our platform and has the preference of the user. We hope that this will the make application more user friendly.

Added emailing setting “Cache external images”. When checked all externally hosted images are stored and hosted by Copernica. Also when the cache option is enabled you can even use it in combination with the embed option, then the images will be embedded in the email, previously externally hosted images where not embedded.

The advantage of caching the images are that the image will always be available, because they are stored by Copernica. In other words when the server which hosts the external images is not available or the images gets removed from the server, they will still display in the emails when the cache option is enabled. 

Until version 2.12, it was possible to see when the e-mail was sent to the profile. This was not the timestamp that the message was really sent, but this was the timestamp that the message was compiled.

In version 2.12 we added the timestamp of delivery. This is the timestamp when the message is really delivered. In the user interface, it is also possible to see the response of the server when holding your mouse cursor on the delivery timestamp. When it is not the first attempt, the attempt will be displayed.

When editing the content of a text block, two different text editors can be used: the Rich Text Editor (which has a MS Word look and feel), and the plain HTML editor (more similar to good old Notepad). However when the HTML editor was used to edit the content under E-mailings and then stored, the editor view would always switch to the Rich Text Editor. We considered this as unwanted behaviour.

From version 2.12 this has changed. You will stay in the editor view where you already were. This has been changed in both the E-mailings and Websites section. We wish you happy editing. 

Since the first version of the software it is possible to set the access right 'style admin'. This right allows the user to send mailings, or give permission to send a mailing to a user that is not a style admin.

When a regular user without style admin rights created a new document, he or she was allowed to set the access rights of mailings and overruled the function of not being a style admin. This is undesirable behavior.

From version 2.12, only style admins are allowed to set access rights for mailings. When the user is not a style admin, the options are not clickable. By default, newly created users are style admins, so most users are still able to set the access rights just like now.

The database statistics have a new design within the profiles section and are accessible as a tab within the main view of the database. The statistics displays the historical data about the amount of added, removed and total profiles within the database. Also the combined e-mailing, fax mailing and sms mailing statistics for the selected database are viewable for the user.Smarty 3 has been released with the latest PxFramework release. The new version of the software has been updated to use Smarty 3 and also adds the possibility to use Smarty 3 for a new E-mailing or Web template. Some of the best points of Smarty 3 are that it is not necessary anymore to use {ldelim} {rdelim} and you are able to define functions so that templates will be less complex to write. For more information I would like to refer you to the website.

Added the copy survey question functionality. It is now possible to copy questions within the same survey, between surveys and between accounts.

If there are images included in the question description the survey images or media libraries will be added to the target survey according to the user input.

It is possible to export a database, selection, collection or miniselection and send the file to an e-mail address. With setting the export, you are able to set a name. The name of the export was only avaiable in the software.

Since version 2.11, the name of the export is also included in the message that is sent to the given e-mail address.

In the marketing software we have a lot of lists which are ordered by time. On almost all places the newest items are on top, like for example the most recent e-mailing.

However in the overview of changes to a (sub)profile the most recent change was displayed at the bottom of the page. This was inconsistent and less usable. So in version 2.11 of the software we changed the order such that the most recent changes are on top.

In version 2.11 we added the loadfile and linkfile function, which can be used in e-mail and website documents. The functions enables you to load or link a file from the files section under Profiles. The loadfile tag has two parameters: file and fallback. File is the input HTML or text file which should be loaded in the e-mailing or web page. Fallback is the text or HTML code that should be displayed if the file could not be located.

{loadfile file='path/to/profile/file.html' fallback='if not found display this'}

If the input file is an image with no fallback parameter and the file can't be linked or loaded, then only filename will be displayed, in case the emailing or website contains a file with the same name this file will be displayed instead.

So for example: {linkfile =”/this/path/is/not/valid/logo.png”} will display only “logo.png”.

Many users of the software use spread sheet software like Microsoft Excel to create a data file that can be imported into the marketing software.  A recurring problem with Excel is that it always tends to remove the leading zero from numeric values (e.g., 01 will become 1). This applies to Excel date fields as well. Consequently Excel changes 01-01-1999 to 1-1-1999.

This is however not how we store dates in the software. We use the MySQL date notation which has a more strict syntax and it requires the leading zero. This caused some problems when dates from Excel files were imported. The software did not recognize those dates and the database field remained blank after the import.

In version 2.11 this has been improved. From this version the software will also recognize dates without leading zeros and convert them to the appopriate system format. Hence 1-1-2000 9:30:23 will be imported normally and stored in your database as 2000-01-01 09:20:23. 

In version 2.11 we added a functionality to copy a web form or a survey from one account to another. If the logged on user is an account administrator, he or she will have an extra option to choose for a different account as destination.

So there is no need any more to rebuild a web form or a survey from scratch if the web form or survey was first created in a different account. Just click-select-copy. This seriously can save some time!

When resizing an image in an image block, there was an option to keep the aspect ratio. This setting used to be off by default. Since in most cases it is desired to keep the aspect ratio, we have changed this default so that images will now keep their aspect ratio when being resized.

In a smarty foreach loop, it is possible to use extra parameters such as iteration, index, first and last to retrieve information about the item(s) from the array that is being looped.

• .index contains the current array index, starting with zero
• .iteration contains the current loop iteration, starting with zero*
• .first returns true if the current foreach iteration is the initial one
• .last returns true if the iteration is the final one

Since we have a loop function in the marketing software as well, we also made these functions available for loop blocks.

So, from version 2.11 of the software, you can use these functions to manipulate the content and/or appearance of a looped item in a loop block.

* In the original smarty implementation the iteration starts with one, however in our implementation this has changed to zero.

Some examples

Suppose you have a loop block [loop name=row] with 3 iterations, you can now retrieve the current iteration as follows

[$loop.row.iteration]

And for example capture the first iteration

[loop name="row"]
 {capture assign="thisrow"}
[if $loop.row.first]first, [else]other, [/if]
 {/capture}

  {$thisrow}

[/loop]

Will output with 3 loop iterations

First, other, other,

Nested loops

If you have nested loops (loop A and loop B) in your template, you can access the child loop as follows: [$loop.loopA.loopB.parameter]

The interests are now also included in the data of a profile when using Database_Profile or Database_searchProfiles with the allproperties set to true.In the past when a new domain was added to a website a background script took care of creating the domain on the servers. We've made some improvements so that the domain is activated immediately when the domain is linked to a website in the marketing software. 

Since version 2.8 we use https for webversions, this is the default option and http is only used when no https connection is available. However if your e-mail does not use any target attributes in the hyperlink errors might be shown in Internet Explorer. You can easily solve this by adding a target="_blank" part to each link, in this way the hyperlink is always opened in a new window even in old webmail clients and of course at the webversion.

In version 2.11 of the software we will automaticly add a target to every link to make sure that no warnings are given. However the hyperlinks are not automaticly opened in a new window, if you want to do that you can (still) use <a href="http://example.org" target="_blank">test</a>.

The marketing software registers the IP address of users at certain times. For example, when users open an e-mail or when they click on a link in an e-mail, their IP address is stored in the database. The IP addresses are then used to show the estimated locations of the users on a map in the statistics. Unfortunately, the rules and regulations for storing this private data are not the same in every country. In some countries it is not allowed to store this data at all or it is only allowed to store this data for a short period of time, after which it should be removed.

To prevent possible privacy issues regarding these rules and regulations, we made it possible to specify how the application should handle this private data. In version 2.11 the following settings can be specified for the application and accounts:

• The Ip address and estimated location can be stored and never removed (like it is now and this is the default setting)
• it can be removed immediately and not stored anymore for new user events
• it can be stored, but removed after a short period of time (a week or a month, for example)

This setting can be changed at application level and at account level in the admin section. By default, the accounts inherit the application setting, which in turn has a default setting to never remove the data.

When selecting to remove the data after a specific period, the data older than this period will be removed instantly! When the data is removed it can not be recovered!

In version 2.11 we added an extra block with information to the e-mailing statistics. It is named 'Key Figures' and it shows data that is important to many customers. Some parts of the information were already available in the marketing software, but these were not always easy to find (like the clickthrough rate, for example). Hence, we made this data more accessible in the statistics.Until version version 2.11 it was possible to create a template with example code. This was only available in Dutch. From version 2.11 it is possible to select the languages Dutch, German, English and French.

In the marketing software the statistics of clicks on hyperlinks in emailings are tracked and reported. However, there can also be hyperlinks from image maps. (An image map is basically a list of coordinates that define areas inside an image and these areas act as a hyperlink.) These hyperlinks were not tracked and reported yet and several customers have requested this feature.

In version 2.11 the hyperlinks from image maps are supported. In the interface they work the same way as normal hyperlinks do. In an emailing document the hyperlink information is shown and in an emailing snapshot the number of clicks on a link is shown.

Until version 2.11 the subject of an e-mailing document and the hyperlink of an image block were limited at 255 characters. However our customers wanted to use more and more advanced personalization code in their documents, so the space limitations became a problem for some of them.

In version 2.11 of the software we raised the limits such that you can use larger blocks of personalization code in your hyperlinks and subjects.

When editing documents and web pages, attached stylesheets can be used to manipulate the lay-out. However when using the Rich text editor it was not possible to apply custom style classes to HTML elements inside a text block.

From version 2.11 of the software, CSS classes can be easily applied to the content of a text block. Just select the HTML element that should be affected by the CSS rule and then select the prefered class from the Styles menu in the rich text editor.

For instance to increase the font-size of one paragraph

1. Select the paragraph
2. Choose the class largerfont from the styles dropdown

The class in the CSS 

.largerfont

{ font-size: 120%; }

The HTML source code will look something like this.

<p class="largerfont">This paragraph has a larger font</p>

And after conversion to inline attributes: 

<p class="largerfont" style="font-size: 120%;">This paragraph has a larger font</p>

In the marketing software there are various locations where files can be downloaded, like images from an email template for example. However, when files were downloaded, the window with the download button froze. The only way to continue was to close the frozen window.

In version 2.11, this problem has been fixed. A user can download files and continue to use the window without the problem of the window freezing.

In the marketing software it is possible to automatically import new data. When the import fails, because of missing fields for example, the problem is logged and the import will be rescheduled to try again. When imports are failing successively, they cause a lot of traffic for the customers and block other processes.

In version 2.11, the attempts to start a previously failed import will gradually slow down, based on the number of successive failed attempts. The slowest rate for a failing import is now set to once per day. After an import is successfully started again, the rate of attempts will be restored to normal.

Users that request notification about the import, will now also get a notification when the import fails. This message is only sent for the first failed attempt.

One of the reasons an import might fail is a problem with the import download location. To aid the user in correctly setting this location, the validation has been improved by making it more strict.

In the marketing software it is possible to create selections in a database and store these in a tree structure. When creating a new selection it's possible to select the location in the tree, but it was not possible to change this location when editing the selection.

In version 2.11, we added the possibility to copy or move a selection to another location in the tree. Copying was already possible, but now it's located in a more suitable place in the interface. It is now located in the "Edit Selections" dialog in the newly added tab "Copy or Move".

Also, the tab "Rebuild status" has been updated. There is no need to refresh the rebuild status manually anymore. When a selection is scheduled for a rebuild or a rebuild is currently active, the status will automatically be refreshed every five seconds until the rebuilding is done.

Another improvement for selections (also the mini ones) is that after creating or editing a rule condition, it's not needed to manually trigger a rebuild of the selection anymore to update the selection data. This is now done automatically after storing the changes for a rule condition.

The marketing software can be used to host a campaign website, survey or another kind of website for you. When configuring the domain on which that website should be available, a lot of questions were raised.

In version 2.11, we changed the description text. It now shows the domain to which a CNAME has to be made, instead of an explanation which domain should be used.

Sometimes an e-mail has to be personalized for different companies and / or different senders. In that case you might want to personalize the e-mail address contained in a mailto link. eg

<a href=mailto:{$loadedProfile.mailaddress}>e-mail us</a>

Unfortunately this was not working properly up-to version 2.10, because the code expected an @ sign. A workaround for this is appending the personalization code with '?@'.

In version 2.11 it will be easy and straightforward again. A personalized mailto link will be recognized as long as it starts with 'mailto:'.

The software has been improved to combine the ajax calls that are sent to the server within a very short period. For example: when accessing the grid, every time the user scrolls down to an empty space, the extra profile data is loaded through ajax calls. The framework now collects ajax calls and combines them into one big ajax call. This reduces the waiting time because only one connection is made to the server and creating a connection costs time.

In version 2.9 we implemented a feature to convert date time fields in an import according to a specific layout. A user can choose to parse the dates as native (eg. 2011-04-22 15:48:23), European (eg. 22-04-2011 15:48:23) or USA (eg. 04/22/2011 15:48:23). This feature sometimes accepted dates which it should not accept and a date time field did not accept a date without time.

In the new version datetime fields are accepted when they have one of the following formats:

• date with a complete time, e.g. 22-04-2011 15:48:23)
• date with hours and minutes, e.g. 22-04-2011 15:48)
• date without time, e.g. 22-04-2011

If the field does not have a valid layout two things might happen. If you configured your date(time) field to support empty values, an empty value is stored. If empty values are not supported the value 0000-00-00 00:00:00 is stored.

The medialibraries are now linked to the copied template or document when copying within the software.When the new version of the software and the new version of PxFramework is released, then the personalization error messages will be improved. The new messages will include a (english) message about what kind of error has occured and on what line the problem is found.Until version 2.10 it was not possible to export the date when the profile or subprofile was created. From now on, it is possible to select that date.

When a field is not linked correctly, always the same message was displayed that the field cannot be searched or prefilled. When the field is not a key field or is not prefilled, the message was not correct.

Now the check is made specific, it only says that it cannot be searched when it is a key field, it only says that it cannot be prefilled when that option is used and when both options are not used, there is a new message.

Since several releases ago, the application has the functionality to give all users all rights. This was a setting only for an account. From version 2.10 you can also set per user to have always all rights.

In the application it is possible to export a document, personalized for all the (sub)profiles of a certain database, collection or (mini)selection. This document can be exported as a zip file containing multiple PDF documents or as one big PDF document. The pages in the document were not sorted as expected and this order could not be modified.

This update ensures that the pages are sorted in the right manner, and also adds the possibility to influence the order in which the pages are sorted inside of the exported PDF. You can set the field you wish to use to sort the profiles by, at "profiles" to accomplish this.

For almost two years the software contains two methods for personalization called 'loadprofile' and 'loadsubprofile'. These can be used to load the properties of a single (sub)profile or the first (sub)profile of a database, collection or (mini)selection.

The existing parameters are:

• assign* to what variable should the result be assigned
• id** id of the (sub)profile to be loaded
• source** What is the source to load the profile from, i.e. a database (source=Databasename), a selection (source=Databasename.Selectionname) or for loadsubprofile a collection (source=Databasename:Collectionname), a miniselection (source=Databasename:Collectionname.Miniselectionname) or even a combination (source=Databasename.Selectionname:Collectionname.Miniselectionname)
• ... by adding extra parameters eg. (newsletter=yes) those name/value combination are added as filters for the (sub)profile which will be retrieved

In version 2.10 the 'load(sub)profile' function has been extended by adding two optional parameters to 'loadprofile' and three optional parameters to 'loadsubprofile'.

• multiple by setting the option multiple to true, an array of profiles is returned instead of a single profile
• limit when the option multiple is used a limit can be supplied, which limits the number of profiles which are returned
• profile (only for loadsubprofile) By supplying the parameter profile (with a profile id), only subprofiles of the profile with that id are returned.

* The assign parameter is required
** The id or source parameter is required

When importing an empty file some problems occured on the server. But the error was not registered and the import was not retried later on. This input is not valid because the file should at least contain an header row.

In the new version of the software the empty file is not accepted. An error is registerd in the account errors log and in the import status. The import is also retried some time later. The account errors can be found in Admin > Accounts > Your account > Account errors.  

When a database was created and there were no fields in the database, you were able to add a profile without any (field) information. From now on, you will see a warning that no fields are available and you also see a link to the dialog for adding a field.

When no fields are available and you open the dialog for editing the database fields, you will also see the same warning that no fields are available.

A new feature has been introduced! You can now share the statistics for processed mailings, emailing documents, emailing templates, and account emailing statistics.

Located on the bottom left of the screen, you will find a 'share statistics' button. This will open up a new dialog, where you can add some information for the shared document. This information includes an expiration date, and title. You may also optionally email the link. This can be done by simply checking the 'Email the shared link' checkbox. When submitting the form, a new, temporary link will be created. You can share this link with anyone you'd like to see your statistics.

In the software it is possible to view a combination of a selection and a collection or mini selection. But when you wanted to export that combination, the software did not respond as you might expect. Because the selection was selected and not the currently selected combination.

In version 2.10 of the software the right combination is automatically selected so you can immediately export the data that you see on the screen.

When a screenshot is pending in the system, such as with pdf documents, email documents etc, it used to simply return a blank image. It now returns a 'no image' image, which makes it possible to see which screenshots are just empty pages, and which screenshots are actually pending.

A 'copy to clipboard' button has been added to the last step of the website form wizzard. This makes sure that the form you've copied has the right format, and you don't forget copying parts of the actual form.

Previously, when managing DKIM records under E-mailings, the DNS section revealed little to no information inaccurately. It just told you if the DKIM record was valid or not without actually checking if the record's structure was valid.

We've improved the DNS section a lot, and made validation a lot stricter. Now when checking if the DKIM record is valid, it actually supplies you with a lot more information, presented user friendly. It also helps you detect other problems, and offers solutions for them as well.

Previously when adding or editing contacts, the list of "contact types" was sorted in a very odd manner. This has been updated to sort the list alphabetically, making it easier for the user to find the corresponding contact type.

Up to version 2.9 generated forms from inactive accounts could still be submitted and the input was processed as if the account was active.

In version 2.10 it is no longer possible to submit forms for inactive accounts. Instead of processing the form it just gives an error stating that the account is no longer active. The warning 'This account is not ACTIVE, the data can not be processed!' will be displayed.

The overview of 'Campaigns' in a profile now has different default values. The default is now to show:

The individual and mass mailings.
The manually started and followup mailings.

The archived and testmailings are not in the overview by default. You can choose to view them from the dropdown menus.

Sometimes there were problems in handling images when editing articles of a content feed. Now the images are selectable again from the image list in the editor. 

In our application there are two different ways to use images. You can use image blocks to show images or you can add them by using an html image tag in the source code.

In these image blocks you can use dynamic images by defining multiple options for that image block in combination with some conditions. However it was not yet possible to use a personalized image name when using an html image tag. In version 2.10 of the application this functionality has been added.

One of the ways to use this, is for example when a certain logo should be above the message depending on the company division to which a customer is linked. With the new functionality you can solve this by uploading images with the name: 'logo_division1.png', 'logo_division2.png', etc. In the document you can than use an image url: 'logo_{$profile.division|escape}.png'.

To improve the support for the browsers and operating systems that are used to access our software, the software will store the information on what type of browser and operating system is used during login.

In the overview of the statistics of an e-mailing, the document name was already displayed. This screen also displays the template name, if the template was not removed. This template and document name are both click able so you easily navigate back to the document or template.

In version 2.8 we added the statistics tab to the e-mailing documents and templates. However test groups of a splitrun e-mailing were only displayed at the document which was used for the final group. We also made some other improvements.

We changed the e-mailing statistics tab such that test groups of a split run mailing are also shown. This means that the final document displays two mailings, the test group and the final group. You can easily see which one is the test group because it is displayed differently.

In the new version a user can also apply a filter (based on dates) on the mailing statistics. And we we added a bar chart which shows the different results for the destinations of an e-mail.

When sending a mass mailing, the option 'do not send double to the same e-mail address' is checked by default. So make it standard to filter out double addresses, unless the user says otherwise.

In version 2.6 of the application we extended the possibilities of the image blocks which can be used in the application. Image blocks can contain multiple options and can thus be used as an extra dimension for personalization.

However with this added functionality we also lost some features, last week we discovered that it was not possible to link from an image block to a file or pdf document. In this version we made some changes so that the image block does again have all power which it should have. Users can create links from an image block to a normal url, a filename, a personalized pdf document (using linkpdf) or even to an(other) image (by using the image name).

There are some places in the software were an editor with syntax highlighting is used. This editor is used when editing XSLT 'files', stylesheets or html templates. In the past there were some problems with the editor, ghosting appeared sometimes when switching from line to line or pasting new pieces of code.

Starting with version 2.9 of the software we use a new editor with syntax highlighting, this editor does not have the ghosting problems and is more responsive. We hope you will enjoy using the new editor.

In a document you can use the tag in_selection to check whether a profile is in a certain selection. You can for example use:

{in_selection profile=$profile.id selection="Database:selection"}
    the current profile is in the selection
{/in_selection}

But it is also possible to add additional personalization code to the in_selection. However some problems could occur in that case. For example if you assigned / changed a variable inside the mini_selection tag, that was executed even if the profile was not in the selection.

Since this behavior was not desirable, we changed it such that the content is only executed and displayed if the profile is in the selection.

Almost everything a user can create in the Marketing Software can be given a name. For a long time we already forbid those names (for example the name of an e-mailing document) with a space. Spaces at the end of name have been allowed till now, however since this caused confusion we decided to forbid this.

Starting from version 2.9 all names with spaces at the beginning or the end have been adjusted and new names cannot end with a space anymore.

In versions before 2.7 users were able to load any kind of XML and to transform that using an xslt document. Because of additional security measures which we introduced in version 2.7, this was no longer possible and only atom or RSS feeds were supported.

In the newest version of the software we do support other valid xml documents just like we did before, however this will only work when you define your own xslt file.

When loading a internal feed with {loadfeed} and a custom XSLT, then the internal system will check if what kind of feed the XSLT supports. If the XSLT supports RSS feeds, then a RSS feed will be generated from the internal feed. If the XSLT supports Atom feeds, then a Atom feed will be generated from the internal feed.Pdf templates with a number as block name are now handled correctly.  

Selections in the marketing software can be based on a lot of different characteristics of the profile. One of the rules which can be used in a selection, is a rule checking for profiles which received an e-mailing. You match e-mailings based on a document or template name. However when the template was gone the old e-mailings could not be matched anymore.

We changed the functionality in such a way that we always match on the historical template or document name. This enables users to remove old templates will maintaining the possibility to use selections which match the receivers of e-mailings which are based on certain template or document.

When counting the profiles in a selection for a grid we've simplified some queries resulting in a faster initial loading of the grid.It was already possible to merge two profiles. Now it is also possible to merge two subprofiles.The callback system is a feature that will report any changes from a profile or subprofile to a url. The system will http-post the data in xml or json form. It is now possible to add a database or collection to the callback so only changes from that database or collection can trigger the callback. Also a Action filter has been added, this will give the option to only trigger the callback in the case of a create, update or delete action. These features will limit the number of calls made to the url.

To improve the handling of the languages within the application we've changed the names of the languages used with in application. Previously name of the language like 'dutch' or 'english' could be used. From now on names the languages are in the form of a locale name. The supported values are at the moment: nl_NL, en_US, en_GB, fr_FR, de_DE, es_ES, pt_PT, it_IT, el_GR, ru_RU and pl_PL. Theses new values has to be used in in all the calls where the language is set. 

In the current version of SOAP API there are a lot functions that can be supplied with more types than were documented. This is the case with, for example, an Image object. If you can supply an image, you can also supply an EmailingDocumentImage however this was not documented properly in the WSDL and thus not supported via the SOAP API.

In the new version all possible types have been added to the WSDL so you can supply these other types by simply using the correct parameter name. So if you supply an EmailingDocumentImage instead of a normal Image you must supply it given the parameter emailingdocumentimage.

Note: this is only an extension of current functionality so it is not necessary to change your scripts.

All headers can now be edited inline in emailing documents. This includes priority indicators and unsubscribe headers. The 'Sender, subject and language...' has become redundant and has been removed.

From now on the rebuilds of selections and miniselections is done on a separate section of our database server if possible. This way the master database server isn't stressed by the database queries needed for the rebuild. Therefore the application will be faster from the user point of view and primary processes such as e-mailings will not be delayed by selection rebuilds.It is now possible to modify all the properties of a periodic export. The export can only be modified while the export is not running, only between the runs. In the previous version it was only possible to add or remove fields from the export.

In the SOAP API there are a lot of methods. And since our WSDL is automatically generated inconsistencies can appear. After research it appeared that six of the approximately 3500 functions in the SOAP API were not completely compatible with our SOAP API.

To make those functions compatible we had to rename the parameters of the following functions:

• ChangeCondition_setField
  • field: object of the type field
  • identifier: string identifying a field
• ChangeCondition_setInterest
  • interest: object of the type interest
  • identifier: string identifying a field
• Export_createField
  • field: object of the type field
  • interest: object of the type interest
  • collectionfield: object of the type collectionfield
  • identifier: string identifying a field, eg. 'id', 'code' and 'collectionname.id', 'collectionname.code, a normal profile field or collection field
• FieldCondition_setOtherField
  • field: object of the type field
  • identifier: string identifying a field
• FieldMiniCondition_setOtherField
  • field: object of the type field
  • identifier: string identifying a field
• MiniRule_copy
  • Boolean parameter miniview can not be supplied anymore

In a html template a user can define text blocks, this is done by adding the code [text name="content"]. A text block has a name but has also (optional) begin and end parameters. The content of those parameters is added before and after the content of the text block at the document level.

Starting from version 2.8 the begin / end text will not be displayed if the content of the text block is empty. This behavior is consistent with the image and loop block. If you want to display a specific piece of HTML in all cases you must put it outside the text block.

Watch out! This new behavior may cause inconsistencies with existing templates. For example, you have a textblock in a document that looks like this: [text name="content" begin="<strong>" end="</strong>". In the old version of the application (before version 2.8), the <strong> and </strong> tags always ended up in the document - even when nothing was entered in the block. From version 2.8 on, those tags are left out of the document for empty blocks.

It is not possible to create multiple fax or mobile fields in the same database or collection. For this reason, when you are creating a new field of this type, or you are setting an existing field to this type, the database or collection is searched for pre-existing fields with this type. The found field (if any) was then changed to a text field. This has now been changed to a regular phone field.

The main menu of the application shows hyperlinks to all the modules of the application: profiles, e-mailings, websites, et cetera. But up to now, the menu did not highlight the currently selected module. We have changed this: the link to the module that is active now has a different (background) color than the other links.

If this feature does not work for you and you are a reseller, you should take the following actions to enable it. As you know, the top menu of the application is highly customizable, and can be customized via Admin > Layout > Application Top. We have added an extra CSS class to the hyperlink to the active module. The class name of the active hyperlink is 'selected' and can be used to highlight the currently active module. To reach this, you must add a new CSS rule to the layout, for example a rule like this:

a.selected {
background-color: black;
}

When editing an emailing document, the possible problems are now shown in the new "Warnings" menu in the bottom toolbar. Clicking an item in the menu will show you more information.

It is now also possible to see potential problems converting stylesheets to inline styles.

An extra menu item has been added to the Profiles module to edit callback URL's. Every time that a profile or subprofile is modified, the application sends a HTTP POST request to those URL's. This feature was already available, but could only be accessed via SOAP, and was thus unknown to many users. From version 2.8 onwards, the feature is also accessible via the user interface, making it easier to add and remove callback URL's.

Callback calls are invoiced according to the same rules as SOAP API calls.

In the previous version of the software we released a feature to check hyperlinks in your documents. The feature only checked your links when you requested it and did not display any extra information.

In the new version of the software we supply detailed information about an hyperlink when you move the mouse over it, anchor links are also supported. We show whether the link is valid and display some statistical data. Besides that we show information about the followups which are triggered by clicking the hyperlink and allow users to add new follow-ups in an easy way.

The {in_selection} personalisation tag now supports a profile attribute, and the {in_miniselection} tag supports a subprofile attribute. In the past, these tags compared if the target profile or subprofile was listed in the (mini)selection. The target profile/subprofile is the profile/subprofile for which the document or website is personalized.

With the newly supported attributes it is also possible to check if a different profile/subprofile is listed in a selection or miniselection. Example use:

{in_selection profile=$profileID selection=mySelection}

    This text is only visible if the profile is listed in the selection

{/in_selection}

When using a {linkemail} tag in a web document to link to the webversion of a document constructed in the e-mail module, the linked document was not yet personalized. This has been fixed. When clicking on such a link, the resulting document is shown personalized for the same use who was visiting the website.

The example class for PHP soap API calls - the script that can be downloaded from the documentation - has been extended by a new class, PomAsyncSoapClient. This new class supports running multiple SOAP calls at the same time.

The old soapclient.php script executed all SOAP calls one at a time: the second call was only executed after the first one was completed. And the third call in its turn was only executed after the second one. When you had to make multiple calls at a time - especially if you knew before what calls you had to make and the calls did not depend on each other - this was a huge waste of time. The new asyncsoapclient.php script contains a class that can be used to run multiple calls next to each other, without the need to wait for the result of an earlier call.

This new script can be downloaded from the documentation tool that can be found in the Help menu on the right top of the application. The old soapclient.php script can also still be downloaded and used.

In the past the Marketing Software always used a normal http-connection to link images from the e-mails we sent.

In the version 2.8, we will always use a https connection whenever it is available, in that way the data is securely transfered over the internet and it enables us to collect some extra statistics.

To support our customers in supplying secure and correct domains we changed the window were the domain can be configured: E-mailings > Extra > Picserver domain
In this window, a user can choose from a list of maximal two predefined domains or the user can manually add a domain.

In the past the Marketing Software only had some basic statistics when viewing them on a document or template level. These could display the ratio between the different results (an error was registered, a click was registered, an impression was registered).

In the new version of the software a user can view many different statistics in a blink of an eye, these statistics contain a lot of existing information but also new information. This tab has been added to every emailing document / template. The information about the results of destinations (have clicks, impressions or errors been registered) is still display and we can still view the e-mailings which were sent with the template or document.

We can now also see the how the different results are ordered, by displaying them as a pie and by displaying them as a tree. Besides that we also show click statistics of the hyperlinks in our document / template. And at the bottom of the page we see a list of e-mail clients (eg. Microsoft Outlook 2003, Thunderbird, Gmail) and we have list of receiving domains (eg. hotmail.com, planet.nl, ziggo.nl, gmail.com). And finally we also added a geographical overview of the users which clicked or viewed your e-mail messages.

In all field in the application where an e-mail address can be entered, an automatic test is performed to check if the e-mail address actually exists. When the address does not exist, a warning tooltip becomes active to notify the user that the e-mail address is wrong.

Internally, the system tries to send a dummy mail to the address. However, when the receving mail server reported that the e-mail could now not be delivered, but that resending it at a later time may succeed, the tooltip still showed an error. This has now been fixed: the tooltip shows a different error message when such a temporary error occured.

It is now possible to order sent and scheduled Fax-, SMS- and E-mailings on their document name by clicking on the 'document name' header in the overview.

The settings are now reset when a Send mass mailing dialog is opened. In the previous version the last used settings were loaded, this may cause some confusion and forces the user to check every setting. Now everytime the dialog is loaded then the same start settings are used, which is easier to understand.