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Managing Mail Preferences

Mail preferences for individuals can be set in NetForum using iWeb and eWeb. Details on each method are listed below.

iWeb

Mail preferences for individuals can be set in NetForum based on the mailing type. These preferences can be set on the Individual Communications Preference Setup page that is accessed from an individual profile.

Setting Up the Mailing List Types

The Mailing List Types in NetForum serve as a way to categorize mailings that individuals may get from their organization. Individuals will now have the ability to opt-out of all mailings for a certain Mailing List Type (category.) These Mailing List Types will display as categories on the Individual Communications Preference Setup page found on the individual profile.

To set up a Mailing List Type, complete the following steps:

Expand the Module Menu and click the Marketing link. This will open the Marketing module.
Click the Marketing Setup Page link found near the bottom of the Marketing | Overview page.
Expand the mailing list type child form. This will display a list of all of the Mailing List Types that have already been created.
Click the Add icon located on the right side of the mailing list type child form.
This will open the Add - Mailing List Type pop-up window.
Enter the name of the new Mailing List Type in the code field.
Enter a short description of the new Mailing List Type in the description field.
Enter the order in which the new Mailing List Type should display in the order field.
Click the Save button.
The newly added Mailing List Type will now be displayed on the mailing list type child form.

Assign a Mailing List Type to a Promotional Mailing Type

Once the Mailing List Types are created, you can assign them to a Promotional Mailing Type. Assigning Promotional Mailing Types to Mailing List Types will list all of the mailings of the Promotional Mailing Type under the heading (Mailing List Type) on the Individual Communications Preference Setup page. You will then be able to opt a user out of an entire category of mailings on the Individual Communications Preference Setup Page.

For example, assigning the Promotional Mailing Type named Fundraising to the Mailing List Type of Fundraising will categorize all fundraising mailings under a "Fundraising" heading on the Individual Communications Preference Setup page. You will be able to visit this page and either decide to opt-out of individual fundraising mailings, or opt-out of all mailings contained in the entire Fundraising Mailing List Type.

To assign a Mailing List Type to a Promotional Mailing Type, complete the following steps:

From the Marketing | Overview page, click the Marketing Setup Page link.
Expand the promotional mailing type (opt out categories) child form.
This will display a list of all of the previously created Promotional Mailing Types.
Click the Edit icon next to the Promotional Mailing Type to which you would like to assign the Mailing List Type.
This will open the Edit - Mailing Type pop-up window.
Expand the mailing list type drop-down menu.
Select the mailing list type you would like to assign to the Mailing Type you are currently editing.
Click the Save button.
The promotional mailing type (opt out categories) child form will update and display the newly assigned Mailing List Type next to the Mailing Type that was just modified.

Setting the Mailing Preferences for Newsletters and Promotional Mailings

Once the Promotional Mailing Types and newsletters have been mapped to a Mailing List Type, you can open the Individual Communications Preference Setup page and set up preferences for individual mailings or an entire category (Mailing List Type.)

To set the mailing preferences for promotional mailings and newsletters, complete the following steps:

Open a user's individual profile.
Click the comm. preferences icon located on the right side of the individual profile.
This will open the Individual Communications Preference Setup form.
This form is a listing of every mailing that the user is scheduled to receive, broken down by Mailing Type (category). The mailings that have their checkbox selected (checked) are those the user is scheduled to receive.
Check (or leave checked) those checkboxes next to the mailings the user wishes to receive. Uncheck the checkbox next to the mailing the user wishes to opt-out of.
In the example below, you will see several mailings that the user is set to receive as well as those he has opted out of.
After you have made all of the desired opt-in/opt-out selections, click the Save button.

Note: Clicking the Check All checkbox for the Mailing Type will toggle the checkmarks "on" or "off" for all mailings in that category. If they are toggled "on", the user will receive all of those mailings. If they are toggled "off", the user will be opted out of all the mailings in that category.

Setting the Email Address for a Mailing

You may also wish to have certain mailings or messages from a certain Mailing Type sent to a specific address other than your Primary address.

To adjust your email address preferences for the mailings you are scheduled to receive, complete the following steps:

Go to the Individual Communications Preference Setup page.
Expand the email preferences drop-down menu next to the mailing whose settings you wish to modify.
Click the email in the list you wish that specific mailing to be sent to.
Note: Expanding the Email Address drop-down menu next to a Mailing Type (category) and clicking the Distribute Email icon will update all of the email addresses in that category to the selected email address.
Click the Save button.

Assign a Mailing List Type to a Participation Mailing Type

Participation Mailing Types are slightly different than Promotional Mailing Types. Anybody affiliated with the organization is eligible to receive Promotional Mailing Type mailings, however only those individuals who participate in the organization (such as on a committee) will be eligible to receive Participation Mailing Type messages. For that reason, the only way to opt-out of a Participation Mailing Type mailing is to end your participation with the organization (i.e. resign from the committee.)

To assign a Mailing List Type to a Participation Mailing Type, complete the following steps:

From the Marketing | Overview page, click the Marketing Setup Page link.
Expand the participation mailing type child form.
This will display a list of all of the previously created Participation Mailing Types.
Click the Edit icon next to the Participation Mailing Type to which you would like to assign the Mailing List Type.
This will open the Edit - Mailing Type pop-up window.
Expand the mailing list type drop-down menu.
Select the mailing list type you would like to assign to the Mailing Type you are currently editing.
Click the Save button.

Additional Participation Mailing Type Settings

When setting up a Participation Mailing Type, you must specify where NetForum should look in the system for individual participation.

To specify where NetForum should look in the system for individual participation expand the object drop-down menu and select the appropriate object name where this information is stored. Only objects that support correspondence are available for usage; see Call to Action List Type for more information.

Specifying an object will return all values from that object. This means that if the object is set to return committee participation, it will return all committee participation for an individual; regardless of whether it reflects current participation or not.

If you would like to filter those results to only include current committees (or some other criteria), click the contact info in object? checkbox. Clicking this checkbox will display several fields in the Participation Mailing List Attributes section of the form.

The Participation Mailing List Attributes section of the form allows you to create a query that will filter the results to those that are desired.

Enter the list attribute name in the participation field.

Expand the column name drop-down menu and select which column to use to return the results.

The value in the column selected here will be shown as the name of the preference on the preferences page. By choosing Committee Name, the name of the committee will be shown on the preferences page.

Click the Edit icon to open the query window that will allow you to build a query to return only those results you desire.

From the query window, you can generate the appropriate SQL statement that can be copy/pasted into the where sql field.

Individual Communications Preference Setup Page Functionality

The Individual Communications Preference Setup page is where you can set your opt-out and email address preferences for the various types of mailings an individual receives.

The Individual Communications Preference Setup page is accessed by clicking the comm. preferences icon on an individual profile.

The Individual Communications Preference Setup page displays a listing of all of the mailings that the selected user currently is set to receive. Newsletter and Promotional mailings can be opted-out of by unchecking the checkbox next to the mailing name or the checkbox next to a Mailing Type (to opt-out of all mailings of that type.) Participation mailings can only be opted-out of by the individual ending their participation on the group/committee that is generating the mailing. However, you can modify the email settings for Participation mailings.

Form Controls

The Individual Communications Preference Setup page has several user interface controls to assist you in working on this page. Most of these controls are listed across the top of the page.

Check All - Clicking the Check All checkbox at the top of the form will select every checkbox on the form and opt the user in to all messages. Clicking the Check All checkbox in a Mailing Type section of the form will opt the user out in to all mailings of that specific Mailing Type. Clicking Check All when all checkboxes are already selected, will uncheck all of the checkboxes and opt the user out of all messages.
Expand All - Clicking the Expand All control will expand every Mailing Type on the form and display the mailings contained within it.
Collapse All - Clicking the Collapse All control will collapse every Mailing Type on the form and hide all of the mailings contained within it.
Each Mailing Type has its own Expand and Collapse control that will perform those actions only on the specific Mailing Type they are tied to.
Find and Replace - The Find and Replace function allows you to make a mass change to multiple emails listed on the Individual Communications Preference Setup page.
For example, if you wish to no longer receive any mailings at your Primary email address, you can find all mailings that use that address, and replace that address with another.
Both the Find this and Replace by drop-down menus contain all of the email addresses associated with the individual profile you are working with.
After you have made your selections, click the Replace button to make the desired changes to the mailing preferences.
Distribute Email - The Distribute Email icon is located next to the email drop-down for each Mailing Type. Choosing an email at the Mailing Type level and clicking the Distribute Email icon, will use the selected email for all mailings of that Mailing Type.
Add Email - Clicking the Add Email icon will allow you to add another email address to the individual profile. This email address can immediately be used on the Individual Communications Preference Setup form.
As you can see, you can specify whether this new email address should serve as the primary email address, or if it should be flagged as invalid. Once you have entered all of the information for the new email address, click the Save button.
The newly added email address will now be available in all email drop-downs on the Individual Communications Preference Setup form.

eWeb

Communication preferences can also be modified in eWeb. Unlike the iWeb variation of this form, the eWeb version works only with email addresses and not mail, phone or fax.

To set communication preferences in eWeb, complete the following steps:

Launch your eWeb page.
Hover over the My Account hyperlink located in the upper-right corner of the eWeb page. This will expand the My Account fly-out menu.
Click the Communication Preferences hyperlink to open the Communication Preferences page
You may also click the My Account hyperlink located on the page navigation bar to view your My Account page and click the Communication Preferences hyperlink from that page to view the Communication Preferences page.
Note: Regardless of the method chosen, you must be logged into the eWeb site in order to view your account options or the My Account page.
Click the Communication Preferences hyperlink to open the Communication Preferences page.
The Communication Preferences page lists the various types of communications for which you are eligible.
Click the checkbox next to each communication type that you wish to receive.
Clicking the Check All check box will select all of the check boxes for each of the communications listed. Clicking the Check All check box again will deselect all of the check boxes.
Expand the corresponding drop-down menu and select the communication method by which you wish to receive the selected communication.
Click the Save button.
The Communication Preferences page will update with a message informing you that your communication preferences have been updated.

xWeb

xWeb is the NetForum API. An integrator can manage communicate preferences described above via API.

Note: netFORUM releases have evolved significantly from netFORUM 2010.01 to 2011.01 to 2013.01 (there was not a 2012 release between 2011 and 2013). As a result, any integration that could interact with netFORUM sites on any of these builds MUST account for the particular build being accessed and act accordingly.

Here is a high level summary of what changed from build to build:

2010.01 and earlier - netFORUM approaches communication preferences from an "opt-out" perspective and not an opt-in perspective.
2011.01 - in this release, netFORUM considers communication preferences from an opt-out and and opt-in perspective. Integrators accessing sites on this build must account for this. See linked page.
2013.01 - netFORUM adds web methods explicitly for managing communication preferences. While the underlying logic does not change since 2011, it will be easier for an integration to work with the new methods. That being said, the instructions provided for 2011.01 will continue to work. Later versions of Enterprise have not made any changes to this area, so what works for 2013.01 will work for 2014.1 and 2015.1.

Ideally, your integration should have three distinct code branches, for each of the three scenarios.

FAQ

Database Structure

Q. iWeb during saving of Communication Preferences records for all Promotional mailing types is added to co_email_optout table with emo_optout_flag 0 or 1 according to user's changes.

eWeb saving of Communication Preferences inserts records only for opted-out mailing types and updates existing opted-out records to emo_optout_flag of 0 when a user unchecks a mailing type. But there is no data insertion for opted-in records.

Could someone explain what is the purpose of the different logic?

Is it necessary to have records in co_email_optout table for all customers and all promotional mailing types (opted-out and opted-in)?

A. Prior to 2011.01, the co_email_optout table contained a row for each email address that wants to opt out of a particular mailing type.

Beginning with 2011.01, this table now contains both opt-in and opt-out preferences for emails. (In the 2012.01 release, it will also manage mailing address preference as well.)

For any customers who were opted out in 2010 or earlier, in 2011, their opt-out records will automatically have the emo_optout_flag set to 1, which means they are opted-out.

As you have observed, if a user manages the mail preferences of a customer in iWeb and saves, then any mailing types that currently are opted-out will be un-checked on that form. When saved, then a row will be inserted into the co_email_optout table for every single mailing type, for that customer. For any mailing types that are checked when saved, that row's opt-out flag will be 0 (meaning opt-in). For any mailing types that are un-checked when saved, that row's opt-out flag will be 1 (meaning opt-out).

For example, suppose you have mailing types A, B, C, D and E. Prior to being on 2011, a particular customer has opted out of B and C. This means that in 2010, that customer will have two rows in the email opt-out table, one for each mailing type that has been opted-out (B and C).

Right after upgrading to 2011, the new emo_opt_out_flag column will be set to 1, meaning "opt-out".

Next, if an iWeb user manages this customer's mail preferences, the form will default by showing A, D and E checked (that is, opt-in) and B and C un-checked (that is, opt-out). Suppose the user resubscribes to B, and then opts out of A. NetForum would do the following:

A - new row inserted with emo_optout_flag = 1
B - update existing row to set emo_optout_flag = 0 (opt-in)
C - no update as no change
D - new row inserted with emo_optout_flag = 0
E - new row inserted with emo_optout_flag = 0

Q. How do I know who's opted out versus opted-in?

A. There really are three conditions, not two.

Explicit opt-out - these are records where emo_optout_flag is 1. This means someone explicitly opted-out.
Explicit opt-in these are records where emo_optout_flag is 0. This means someone explicitly opted-in.
Neither - this means there is no row in the table at all, meaning the user hasn't opted out (unless they opted out and then un-opted out in 2010 or prior) or opted in.

When sending a communication in NetForum, when you specify the mailing type, NetForum will exclude anyone who has an explicit opt-out. It is not necessary for every customer to have a row for every mailing type.