| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| xequte |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 22:06:11
Hi
Last month we invited recent purchasers to participate in a survey on existing and potential features.
We are currently reviewing the results of the survey and will use the information to decide what features to add to coming releases.
There were a number of requests for features that already exist, so I'd like to list those here and invite further clarification if I have missed the point.
Requested Features that already Exist
ability to create additional entries for different staff of same company by simply duplicating the record and changing name/email address/job title etc.
If you select a member you can click Ctrl+Alt+N to clone their details
Ability to do boolean compilation
Please explain in more detail
Ability to edit after sending test email and scheduling for sending
You can do this by selecting the task in the main window and clicking Task>Edit Message
Ability to edit text version from html to make more sense
Select Edit>Edit Text Body on the message sending toolbar
Ability to enter names into more than one group at a time
Separate them with commas, e.g. Group1,Group2
Ability to have a "never" send list that would not allow duplicates of this list; duplicate names in other lists would be desired
On the to-do list
Ability to imbed graphics and hyperlinks into the email in a way that the messages are less likely to get bounced back
MLK already does this in the most standard way. We can't change the internet ;-)
Ability to insert tables in message creator
Supported in v7.15
ability to keep all deleted and removed addresses for easy longterm reference of removed even if imported again
Available under View>History and Errors, Removals
Ability to mark an address as a single send (Personalised) always even when doing Bulk sending. Some corporates block BCC mails. However I don't want to send all email as single personalised. Too slow.
On the message sending toolbar select Edit>Sending Options and change the send count
Ability to specify more than one email address for back-ups, error messages, sent reports etc.
On the to-do list
Ability to use previous mailing to different group later
You can do this by selecting the groups, clicking Send Email and selecting the Previous mailing from File>Recent on the message toolbar
absolute Italian language
French language
Support of Greek Language
We hope to do localized versions before too long
Add Nationality field to list profile. So, we can customize campaigns based on nationality and country (of residence).
You could add it as a Custom Field
Address Reports
Please explain in more detail
Allow find all (e.g. every email with .mil in it)
Select Search mode in the main window, choose the email field and specify ".mil "
Allow recipients to update their profiles automatically
You can do this with web forms
Allow text editing to include change/replace
Will consider in future
Allow unsubscribe where name matches and email similar or subset
I think that would be problematic, please explain in more detail
an expandable "display the following groups" window that is of user defined size
You can expand it by hovering below the group box until it changes into a "splitter" then dragging
Auto send email x number of days after joining
Already possible using Delayed messages
automatic database backup to the net
Email backup is already supported. There are plenty of tools to do other automated online backup
Automatic name reversal and alphetization
When sending???
Automatically add signatures to forwards
Already supported under View>Options
Be able to import my Approach db into List
Export to CSV and then import
Be able to tab from Subject area to Content area
Should already work. What version are you using?
being able to send scheduled with an option to not stop on errors (save all errors to end of sending)
Disable the send error dialog under View>Options, Sending, Other Sending Settings
Better sync with Outlook
See v7.30 :-)
Better compilation for sending with multiple criteria
You can do this by performing subsequent searches and choosing "Search within Results" However we will improve this for a future version
Better control over active sending tasks like pausing editing and resuming easily or changing SMTP during sending
You can do this by selecting the task in the main window and clicking Task>Edit Message
Better cut and paste from outlook, retaining all formatting
Outlook does not expose some details (such as embedded images) so it is not really possible
better direct sending options bypassing ISPs
Already supported with the Internal SMTP Server
better explanation on creating messages to make sure images are embedded etc...
Sure, what problems are you encountering?
Better HTML editor: more format options and pure HTML generation.
We use Microsoft's own HTML editor which is good because your message should look the same as if it were created in Outlook or Outlook Express
better integration with thunderbird
If only Thunderbird offered better integration options ;-)
contact custom fields
Already supported under List>Edit Member, Custom Fields
correct processing of the "on behalf of" unsubscribes
Should already work as expected. What version are you using?
Direct updating from website request
Can already do with web forms
easier to import and update the list from a database without causing duplicates or adding those that have been removed before
Duplicates are never added when importing. You can block unsubscribed addresses using the option under View>Options, Blocking
Easy exporting of selected members from a group to excel
Select the groups in Groups mode and select File>Export
Easy way to import from excel the fields e-mail and full name
Already supported under File>Import
Grouping is clunky:
In what way?
Grouping of address by domains for sending.
This would increase the likelihood of that server flagging the message as Spam
Have delayed send be able to send to all users on the list at the time the message is sent, not when the message was created.
On the to-do list
Import and export of list to Excel so as to rearrange names
Already possible
improvements to member sending
Such as?
Let's say I have group A and group B. There are members in group A, members in group B and members are in both group A and group B. I would love to create a sending list of members that are in group A but are not in group B.
Under the Search tab choose "Group" field and select Group A. Click Search
Then Select "Not Equal to" Group B and click Search within results
Maintain a list of bounced email addresses as text
Currently you need to export it as text
make primary key something other than email address
It's not, it's Member ID
Multi SMTP Sender
Already supported. Select View>Options, Sending and enable the multiple connections option
Multimedia tutor on how to configure/use software - esp. configuration of using MLK internal server
We've improved the Quick Start Guide in v7.30 if other areas need better explanation let us know
never add unsubscribed contacts to list again
Once a member has unsubscribed, it should be remembered when importing a completely new address list
Enable the relevant option under View>Options, Blocking
One click mass mailing NOT using my isp to send.
Use the mail server of your web host, MLK's internal mail server or sign up with a service such as AuthSMTP
OPT IN to be set differently PER GROUP
You can disable Opt-In per group under View>Options, Groups
option no email address needed for importing from forms
This is possible if you enable support for members without email addresses (View>Options, Other, Advanced)
Outlook Express contacts synchronization
In Vista OE (aka Windows Mail) uses a global address book, so OE Contacts are on the way out
paper report of members
What version are you using? This has been much improved in a recent release
please fix file/open recent list which doesn't work in Vista, Business Edition
The recent message lists, displays recently sent messages, rather than recently saved messages
Put in one group to delete all e-mail addresses that are failed
You can do this by display the failed addresses (select Other Filters in Main window and choose the relevant filter)
Resizable window for making corrections in an HTML email already being sent out
It should already be resizable!?
Scheduled email sending (triggered by sign up)
You can use Delayed Message for this
send a personalised email by addressing member by first name
Select Personalize > First Name on the message sending toolbar
Send from website. My Service Provider limits me.I have no website of my own
You can send via Gmail using MLK
Server based sign up to email lists product for companies to have employees easily setup mailing lists inside a company
You can do this with web forms or a service such as Joomla
Stop the software from crashing. We run MLK 24/7 and it sometimes freezes
Please email me and I will provide some debug logging info so we can get to the bottom of it
Support for Mac OS X (ie running under Leopard)
Currently only possible using BootCamp or emulator
Take away feature that puts everything in Japanese
Select Edit>Encoding on the message editing toolbar and choose "Automatic" or "Western European"
telephone technical support
Available with the Corporate version
Template options for e-mails
HTML Templates can already be used with the "Stationery" functionality
there should be an function to exclude some mail addresses just for this mailing. Example if I want to send a reminder for a event, I would like to exclude the people already signed up for the event
Click the "To" button in the message editor and specify your excluded addresses
To much dependent on OUTLOOK
This is due to the limitation in the integration library most email software offers. Only Outlook offers full access to external programs
Read Receipt tracking
Tracking/reporting of email open
Tracking facility to see mail is received and opened
There is no practical way to see if an email has been opened (by any means, not just with MailList King). In the good old days there were two ways:
- Read Receipts: You could request that the recipients email software returns a read receipt when the message is opened. MLK has an option to do this, and a special report that shows who read the message. HOWEVER Gmail, Hotmail and other email systems IGNORE read receipts messages, also Outlook and Outlook Express display a confirmation to the user before sending the read receipt. So essentially using Read Receipts gives a very unreliable result
- Embedded images (or files): You can put an image in your message that is located on your web site. You can then track who opens the message (by seeing who requested the linked image. HOWEVER all major email software (Outlook, Outlook Express, Gmail, etc) now warns the user if a message contains linked images and disables them by default. Also, using linked images is likely to increase the risk of your messages being blocked as Spam. So this method is both unreliably and risky
Tracking Actions after the email was send. Do they go to webpage presented in the email etc.
Tracking/reporting of click-through
MLK does not have any automated way of doing this at present. However you can do it either by analyzing your web logs or settings up a web form that records (or sends notification) whenever someone clicks through (and then it would redirect them to their desired page).
When sending from MLK you use personalization fields to embed the member ID or email address in the link so that you can track the user.
The process has been discussed on various occasions on this forum. So you might want to search that and let me know if you need more detail
Training video on some of the advanced features (YouTube style thing)
webinars or other online training guides to get the best out of the program
I'm open to this. What areas would people like to see?
validate e-mail address by sending a test message (now only extension for example .com is checked and not if the email address exist)
If you use the full validation option it will commence sending of a test message (though not actually send it for obvious reasons). However I personally believe validation of email addresses is a waste of time! It's not very reliable and it is not a good use of your resources. The reliable way to validate your addresses is just to send to your mailing list and then let MLK process the bounces and automatically remove the addresses that bounce too often.
When adding a new email address I would like it to open a new member record rather than just the add e-mail dialog. This would currently have to find the new email address then select edit on the new email address to add the rest of the customer contact details.
Select List>Add New Contact or Ctrl+N
Your bounce back feature is still not working right. My embedded email gets marked as bounced
Unfortunately there is no standard format for undeliverable message reports so MLK processes all addresses found in the bounce message (with some exceptions such as the Admin's address)
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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| 12 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| xequte |
Posted - Jul 24 2009 : 01:27:51
Hi NOD32user
Member sending is intended for discussion lists, rather than admin forwarding to their list (for which Remote Admin Commands are available) so what would be the benefit of personalization fields there?
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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| NOD32user |
Posted - Jul 23 2009 : 11:41:09
quote:
improvements to member sending
I think it would be beneficial to make use of personalisations in member sending.
Matrix-List.com |
| xequte |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 14:30:37
Hi
> tab from Subject area to Content area
Try v7.30 and let me know if you still have problems.
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
|
| xequte |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 14:29:54
Hi Sam
Tell me more about your Group reports suggestion. In what way would you use it?
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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| jbfrommv |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 09:40:08
Be able to tab from Subject area to Content area
Should already work. What version are you using?
Current version is 7.12r. The tabbing worked until the patch was applied. |
| samgallo |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 06:49:45
MLK has mailing address (snail), telephone, etc. broken in pieces...perfect. Why not Avery labels, group reports (telephone, etc) kicked out from MLK? Yes, exporting can do it, but... |
| peterphelan |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 03:12:30
No probs; someone in programming once told me they reckoned whatever software you were developing, the cost-work involved came out at about 30% development 70% bug fixing  ..... although in that context this included refining products in the light of experience, user feedback etc.
Having started developing my own audio video software - using MLK for our marketing and Newsletters of course!  I reckon it's about right!
Keep up the good work! Does not matter how many times I proof read my mailshots before sending, I always seems to find something to change for the better.
Peter
Peter Phelan
Prophoto Ltd |
| xequte |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 02:44:24
Sorry Peter, i may have missed the point on that one.
I'll address that for the next link.
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
|
| peterphelan |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 02:21:58
Ability to edit text version from html to make more sense
Select Edit>Edit Text Body on the message sending toolbar
See my reply to the above issue. Yes you can amend the text in the initial message composition, but having posted to the outbox, any amendment here is not possible for the reasons stated.
I suggest the editing options should remain the same as originally offered, even when the message has been scheduled for later sending. Otherwise, if you want to change things at the last moment - such as after the test message has been proof read by someone and you wish to correct errors or amend, you have no option but to cancel the message and start all over again.
Peter
Peter Phelan
Prophoto Ltd |
| peterphelan |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 02:06:38
Ability to edit after sending test email and scheduling for sending
You can do this by selecting the task in the main window and clicking Task>Edit Message
Nigel you have quoted this selectively and does not address the point. Once the message is in the outbox the options available when doing this are NOT the same as when compiling the message initially. None of the top line options such as personalise, insert image, add link are available.
It therefore means you have to abandon the message and start all over again if you later wish to add any of these items to the mailshot.
Peter
Peter Phelan
Prophoto Ltd |
| xequte |
Posted - Jul 22 2009 : 01:17:42
Existing Feature Comments that Require Response:
Personalizing messages: This was unsuccessful when I tried it!
Please let me know the details
1) Contacts from public folder synchronization 2) A solution to avoid consecutive e-mails to same domain 3) Reorganize options and provide a search box in options because of numbers of parameters.
1. v7.30 supports this
2. Using the stagger option should assist in this area
3. Much improved in v7.30
I need easy functions of stationeries creations
You can create stationery in the message editor and use File>Save as Stationery. There are also many good HTML stationery sites on the web
1. Insert of images can be improved. It does not OPEN the image-file, but Save it. That is strange. It also ask you if you want to replace the existing file. Furthermore, I would appreciate if the Image Properties could be extended with more options. 2. When you want to import from an excel file that is open on that moment, you get the message that the file is empty. I have to restart MLK to import the data after closing the excel-file
1. Sorry I'm not following you there. Can you give me more detail
1B. What other options are you after
2. This message has been improved in v7.30
1. Need to be able to create unique fields.
You can add custom fields to your members and use these
Processing mailing list messages: The feature has a tendency to crash my email client while checking (Thunderbird, always latest version, not beta.
Please email me to debug this
1-selecting groups and filtering out emails from another group 3-controlling bandwidth used for sending
1. This is explained above
3. You can use the ISP Sending Limits function for this
ability to reload MailList King after a hard drive crash
Email sales@xequte.com if you have any problems with that.
Actually synchronizing with Outlook Contacts is vital! Most importantly is dealing with changes in e-mail addresses, both when they are changed and removed.
All supported in v7.30!
Allow different data in fields - eg Company name in Recipient name field, but %First_Name% in body. MLK edited templates end up with a lot of clutter in the html, making it nearly impossible to re-edit afterwards.
1. Please explain in more detail
2. Can you email me an example of this. MLK HTML should be quite clean as long as you have not loaded from Microsoft Word
allow to send to same email more than once record failures better templates
Better options for conditional personalisation (if then else for example)
If-Then-Else is already supported for personalization!?
Difficult to import graphics (word art, photos, clip art, entire Word document with word art and pictures.
Can you email me some examples of documents you are having problems with
Does not currently (actually never has) deleted out of office messages
Do you move your out of office messages into MLK's processing folder (at any rate, Outlook has a rule for this).
Fix problems with RAC. (Adds can't have to have two lines.).
Fixed in v7.30
Sending directly to recipients in an Excel spreadsheet: I have not yet figured out how I can do this. I generally copy and past from my Excel list
In V7.30 this is now much more obvious. Just select List>Send Email to Addresses in File
I import from excel spread sheet to MLK member list file
You can use File>Import to add contacts from an Excel file
I tried the e-mail address validation feature some time ago and it didn't seem to work, leaving me to search for a standalone solution.
If your ISP blocks port 25 you can't do normal validation. You can still use the Domain level validation available in v7.10
If a subscriber is already in the database, and tries to subscribe again, then send a detailed message to alert the user that he/she is already listed. Then delete/move the request from Outlook's inbox.
if someone subscribes and is already subscribing, they should get a message saying "you are already subscribed. Check your spam filters."
That should already happen as you describe.
import without adding someone who has previously been deleted
You can do this. Under View>Options, Blocking enable the Unsubscriber blocking option.
more flexibility in user customization to suit own needs in how data is displayed etc.
What sort of customization options are you after?
need to be able to process database editing simultaneously with the error processing
Please explain in more detail
Oft times my MLK hangs up in its find/search option. I also receive too many "Engine Error" messages. Thanks
That's odd. Have you tried repairing your database using the tool on our support page?
the birthday feature I don't know if this is possible in MLK 7, the 6 version didn't had any.
Yes, it was added in v7.
1. Most of the US .mil addresses in my database changed format over year. MLK doesn't seem to be able to try the same change on other addresses of the same format. 2. Some email addresses have bounced due to address format change; a few people have retired or moved jobs and some of the bounces are intermittent. the number of bounces is OK but more important is whether the bounces are sequential (i.e. the last 4 is a problem; 4 over year may not be)
1. You can use the update email address function to batch update a domain
2. To handle this use the option to reset the bounce count if no bounces are encountered within a certain period
Sometimes NDR or bounced mail gets stuck and this kills Mil List King. We have to manually remove the email which is causing the problem and then restart Mail List King. Consequently, we now to not bother processing bounced mail, instead we reject it at our SMTP server.
Please email me to debug this issue.
Sometimes removal requests don't get processed.
That would be very unusual. Please give me more detail
Sending messages - when there is something wrong with a specific address a window pops up. If you miss that at the moment it pops up and you don't click continue (or something like that) then the whole program freezes up and I have to start again.
You can disable that message under View>Options, Sending, Other Sending Options
When sending, I would like MailList King to warn me what exactly I'm mailing to which list. I once send a mail to the wrong MailList, without realising. Tanks
You can force a warning message to be displayed. See AdminSendingConfirmationMessage in Hidden_Options.txt
Would be nice to "link" Excel file instead of having to import each time.
You can send directly to an Excel list select List>Send Email to Addresses in File (v7.30)
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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| xequte |
Posted - Jul 21 2009 : 22:31:30
We received hundreds of comments. Many were compliments about the software or our service. I won't list them all here, but the following capture the gist:
"For our company, this is a wonderful product - easy to use and great features. We had purchased and were disappointed in many mailing list products before we found MLK. I wish I was smart enough to recommend some great new features to you but, as it is, I am happy to use what YOU are talented enough to add! It is a software product that we continue to use - MLK does everything we need and more."
"Thanks for making a good product better and better. Bob"
"I just Love MLK. it is the best I have ever use. You are doing a great job. your upgrades are really great and the featured you add all the time are excellent. your services are the best ... I have only good things to say about you and your products !!!"
"I've always been very impressed with the technical support… And the continual review of features and desire to keep improving what is already a very valuable product... Keep it up."
"There is only one comment that springs to mind and that is: "Excellent!". Keep it up and all that."
"Great piece of really useful mailing software (and we tested a few). Well done !"
Thank you
Comments that Require Further Response
Many of the comments require my response. They follow:
An easier way to get more info from e-mail to create a database
The problem is that anything that is formatted/laid out in an unknown way, by nature cannot be easily comprehended by a computer. Only information that can be understood (e.g. by being located in a set location) can be reliably processed
Would be cool if mlking would try to get more info by matching contacts in Outlook e.g. to do a match of mlking db with a set of outlook folders to see if it could update (note not retrieve) email addresses and potentially address, phone etc. This way one would know it does not retrieve unwanted email addresses but updates the ones that are already there.
Please see v7.30
It's pretty user-friendly without having to spend a lot of time learning the software (i.e. it's intuitive). Sometimes we feel, though, that core functionality is a bit buried. We don't like having to hunt for functions that we feel like we should be able to get to quickly. Sorry I can't think of any examples at the moment. But I recall we've made this comment internally a couple of times to one another.
That may be true, we try not to overwhelm people initially. If you give me some example there may be shortcuts available
Tracking of click-through is the single biggest requirement for me - and a reason why I recommend a web app for some of my clients. MLK's subscribe/unsubscribe handling is excellent. however.
See feedback about this above
For some reason, I have embarrassing experiences when MailList King has sent email messages to people who had already (sometimes more than once) unsubscribed. I still can't figure out why, as even manual searches and deletes does not seem to rectify this problem.
This is invariably due to the use of forwarding addresses or mail aliases.
For example, the user may have signed up to your list using an e-mail address from an old ISP, and mail sent to the old address is being automatically forwarded to their new one.
Ask the user if they have any other addresses that you might check. Failing that you will need to have them check the header of the message to see what address was used to reach them. Instructions for this are at:
http://www.xequte.com/mailinglist/getaddress.html
A few of our people, mostly at work, receive my MailList King mailings in what seem to be oriental characters. I don't understand this.
See comments on this above.
MLK is a superb tool that is a main part of my business (newsletters) thanks for developing it, and it would be nice to have a web based plug-in that handles the double opt in/out suscribe/unsuscribe part, at least the confirmation of the email, the rest is 100% best off line.
You can use web forms for this. We will add a tool to make web form creation easier.
Yes - to flog the horse again - the step by step how to do - from creating messages in Word to sending them out personally addressed - for one time mailings not ongoing marketing. The core need is the opened / not opened / read / not read, deleted unread / deleted read stats - the bounces come back anyway.
This seems like a good idea for a online instructional video. I'll try to get onto that soon.
I'd like to be able to resend sent messages to a new address that I enter. (A message was sent, and then someone is added to the mailing list. I have the address, there's no way to send the messages to the new person. Once a message has been sent, I'd like to be able to re-send a previously sent message to selected group of members who already received the message.
Select the "Other Filters" mode in the main window and choose the option to show contacts that have never been emailed. Click Send Email and then on the message sending toolbar click File>Recent Messages and choose the message. Click Send.
-- creation of a blog to give users tips and tricks -- better organization of the MLK user forum entries (currently, not the easiest to find answers to some questions I have that others might have already asked and received answers from Nigel). Better organization could include a better layout of page (e.g. search criteria; most frequently asked questions; etc.) -- I must compliment Nigel for his awesome turnaround time with inquiries from users like me. Thanks, Nigel!
There's so much I'd like to do in this area, but unfortunately there just aren't enough hours in the day.
The program needs TEMPLATES. This is my ONLY complaint. If it worked more like the templates provided in other on-line mailing services, in my opinion, MLK would then be PERFECT.
MLK does include some style templates, plus uses Outlook/Outlook Expresses ones automatically. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you are after
Nigel
Xequte Software
www.xequte.com
nigel@xequte.com
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