Email Categories

Email categories are used to group emails according to subject and to allow members to opt-out of specific categories, so they only receive the emails they want.  General Information is the default Email Category.

• Create an Email Category
• Edit a Category
• De-activate / Re-activate a Category
• Opt-Out Report
• Spam Reporting and Email Subscriptions
  • Business Rules
• Import Opt-Out Preferences
• Managing Email Preferences for a user

Accessing

From the Email Menu, choose Categories.

Create an Email Category

1.  Click Create New Category.
2.  Enter the Category name and description.
3.  Click Create Category.
4.  The category will now be available in the Email Category dropdown when creating an email and in the Email Categories section on the Profile form.

Edit a Category

1.  Click the to edit a category.  
2.  Make the necessary changes.
3.  Click to save changes.

De-activate / Re-activate a Category

• Click to de-activate a category. The category will be moved to the Inactive Email Categories grid.
  
  • The category will no longer be available in the Email Category dropdown when creating an email or in the Email Categories section on the Profile form.
• Click  to re-activate a category.

Opt-Out Report

Generate a report for all members who have chosen to opt-out of specific email categories. The report appears as a Many-to-One ratio – instead of there being a column header for each e-mail category with 1’s and 0’s underneath based upon the opt-out preferences, the spreadsheet contains the constituent information and then a single column  for the Category Name containing the category/categories they have opted out of, and a single column for the External Database Value containing that value. The report will show the name of the email that caused the user to opt-out.(the email in which the user clicked on the "unsubscribe"  link).  The report will NOT show an email name if the user opted out by going to the subscription tab on their profile or if the opt-out was done in an import.

Select the date range and categories for your report.

• Show Opt-Out activity from:  Enter the date range for your report.  Leave the date range blank if you want to see all opt-out activity regardless of date for the selected categories.
• Available Categories in this Community:  Select the category or categories for your report.  Use Ctrl or Shift keys to multi-select.

Click Get Report.  You'll receive the requested data in a .csv file which you can view and/or save.

• The report appears as a Many-to-One ratio – instead of there being a column header for each e-mail category with 1’s and 0’s underneath based upon the opt-out preferences, the spreadsheet contains the constituent information and then a single column  for the Category Name containing the category/categories they have opted out of, and a single column for the External Database Value containing that value.

Also see Email Exception Report for information on who didn't receive an email and why they didn't receive an email (including emails marked as spam).

Spam Reporting and Email Subscriptions

Email service providers degrade the sender reputation of IPs that have a large number of spam reports. The iModules spam report is a sender reputation protection mechanism.  Emails marked as spam will appear in the Exception reports in Email Marketing.

Now, if a constituent marks an email message as spam, the spam flag is activated for that constituent's record in the community (GID) of the sender and the constituent will not receive email from the GID where a spam flag is active.  The email subscription tab of the constituent profile will show "I have opted out by marking community email as spam."  The spam report checkbox is editable by the individual whose record is associated with the spam flag, but is not editable by any type of client administrator.

Business Rules

• Google does not provide spam reporting on individuals, so no Gmail address will ever have a spam flag set to true.
• Spam flag functionality matches that of a community level opt-out field.
• The spam flag displays on the subscription management tab of the profile as the bottom most option.
• If the spam flag is checked, all other subscription check boxes are grayed out and are not editable.
• A spam report flag is not editable by any type of client administrator.
• iModules employees can edit spam flags. 
  • iModules employees can clear a spam flag if a customer admin provides dated proof of opt-in.
• Administrators can export a list of spam flagged members from Email Opt-out reporting.

Import Opt-Out Preferences

  Import a .csv file of members who have chosen to opt-out of specific email categories in your community.

• File:  Click Browse to find your opt-out file and select the file to upload it.
• This import process is set to run at :40 minutes after the hour.  Typical run-time will be less than 2 hours.

Import File Format Tips:

• The file must be a .csv file.
• File must include 2 columns named: "Constituent ID" and "External_Database_Value". Just place the Constituent IDs and the External Database Values (for the Email Categories they are opting out of) into the appropriate columns.
• The import file must be prefixed with "em_optouts_" to be processed correctly (e.g., em_optouts_20110701.csv). 
• Category columns should be named the same as your export header names for each category.
• To opt a member out of all emails, the external database value is Email_Category_Community.

Managing Email Preferences for a user

A user's email preferences can be managed on the Subscription Management tab on the Edit My Info profile form. 
Only the "Active" Email Categories will appear on the Subscription Management tab.

• Check the box to subscribe a user to an Email Category.
• Uncheck the box to unsubscribe a user from an Email Category.
  
  

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