CourseBot Quick Start
Contents
1. Don t send welcome message box Don t send the welcome message to these subscribers www virtualSync com au Page 8 24 April 2008 The reason you tick this is that these are existing subscribers so they don t require another welcome message e Click the Enrol button This will add all the people to the list CourseBot will check for duplicates warn you about them and ignore them However if it finds a mistake in the format of the names and addresses it informs you and doesn t process any names at all In that case fix the mistake and submit them all again Preparing course messages In the following section we ll look at the process for sending a newsletter to your subscribers Before we do that though let s look at some hints on preparing the text CourseBot uses a system called Smart Text which allows you to type text easily and have it formatted nicely without having to understand HTML coding The full documentation for Smart Text is at www vsplugins com smart_text In this guide we ll just show you the most common features Line wrapping and paragraphs Write your text as normal with a blank line between each paragraph It doesn t matter whether you hit the Enter key at the end of each line or not CourseBot will wrap the lines correctly to fit the user s screen width Bold and italics To make some text bold put two asterisks before it and two asterisks after it like this If you cont2. ac_ course _enrol gt v Highlight all this code right click your mouse and copy it Start Coursebot enrolment form gt A lt form action http www eservice com au cgqi bin allegro pl ethod gqet onSubmit this Re true gt lt input type hidden name Ref lt po lt table border gt lt tro gt ctd gt lt bsFirst Name lt b gt names first taketh ieee eat lt tr gt lt td gt lt b gt Last Name lt b gt lt t Delete name last name gt lt td gt lt tr lt tr gt lt td gt lt h gt E Mail iddress lt names email s td gt sf nie lt tr gt lt td gt lt bh gt E Mail Format lt b gt lt td gt lt td gt lt select names format gt lt option gt HTML lt option gt Text lt select gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tre lt td colspan 2 aligqn Center gt lt input type hidden name action alue search gt sinput type hidden name dhb value ac course enrol gt document referrer return t type text type text Select All input type text Then paste it into your Web page or ask your Webmaster to do so www virtualSync com au Page 7 24 April 2008 Enrolling existing subscribers If you already have a list of subscribers stored in some other form for example in Outlook or Excel you can transfer them en masse to CourseBot Note One of the conditions of using CourseBot Is that all subscribers have given explicit permission to be on your mailing list So please make s
3. newsletter go to that course s page of commands from the administration page click View courses then click that course title scroll down to Enrolment form and click Paste into your Web page Enrolment form Paste into your Web page a 7esr o a sant This gives you a page full of HTML code Enrolment Form ADMIN To add an enrolment form for this course copy everything from the box below and paste it into your Web site lt Start CourseBot enrolment form gt lt form action http www eservice com au cgi bin allegro pl ethod get onSubmit this Referrer value document referrer return true gt lt input type hidden name Referrer gt lt p gt lt table border gt lt tr gt lt td gt lt b gt First Name lt b gt lt td gt lt td gt lt input type text name f first_name gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td gt lt b gt Last Name lt b gt lt td gt lt td gt lt input type text name f last name gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td gt lt b gt E Mail Address lt b gt lt td gt lt td gt lt input type text name f email gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td gt lt b gt E Mail Format lt b gt lt td gt lt td gt lt select name f format gt lt option gt HTML lt option gt Text lt select gt lt td gt lt tr gt lt tr gt lt td colspan 2 align center gt lt input type hidden name action alue search gt lt input type hidden name db value
4. 24 April 2008 _ Web Site Mini Guide CourseBot Quick Start This guide is a quick start to using the CourseBot software which you can use for sending newsletters and on line courses To find out more about the full features available in CourseBot download the CourseBot User Manual which you can do by clicking the HELP button next to CourseBot in the administration page E Service Commands The full User Manual is quite detailed and will take you some time to read and understand That s why we also have this guide which will help you to get started Initial Setup The CourseBot installation comes with two courses already set up for you e A newsletter with a welcome message You can add to this to construct your own e mail newsletter e A tip of the week course that sends an inspirational quotation each week You are welcome to offer this to your subscribers or simply use it as an example when creating new courses Note CourseBot doesn t make any distinction between a newsletter and a course As far as it s concerned everything is a course so you will see the term course used throughout CourseBot in the User Manual and in this guide To see the courses log in to your administration page and go to View courses Courses View courses Cd new course iew passwoeds Add new password Template files Hi Click this and you ll see all of your cours
5. ding window Fill it in as follows e Fill in the e mail subject e Then fill in the message body by pasting it directly into the Message box e Then scroll down to the Preview Your Message section E Mlail Check message for spam e The first time fill in your e mail address and don t tick the checkbox Then click the Send Message button to send the message to yourself Make any changes required and repeat this step until you re happy with the message e Then keep your e mail address there and do tick the checkbox Click the Send Message button again and this time it will send off your message to a spam checking service which e mails you a report If there are too many spam like words and phrases re word the message and repeat this step until you re happy e Finally clear out your e mail address un tick the box and click Send Message This pops up a confirmation window and then sends your message to the list The software that distributes the e mail to the mailing list checks for new messages every 10 minutes so wait 10 15 minutes for it to arrive in your mailbox Creating a course Most of this guide has been about managing your newsletter and that s because it will almost certainly be one of your most important marketing tools However CourseBot can work with on line courses as well which are scheduled to be sent out at pre defined intervals whenever somebody subscribes If you re planning to creat
6. e from the previous field Note that the subscriber will also receive a welcome message by e mail which we ll look at next If you have a specific message for them it s better to put it in that message than on the thank you page However you might like to modify the wording of the thank you message slightly For example it might read better as signing up for Joe s Thoughts rather than signing up for the Joe s Thoughts mailing list Leave the rest of the fields on this page unchanged and click the Change button at the bottom of the page Peset You will see that the title has now changed Joe s Thoughts DU Code NEWSLETTER www virtualSync com au Page 3 24 April 2008 Welcome message Now let s change the welcome message that a new subscriber receives Start by clicking the View change the units Summary link Joe s Thoughts Code NEWSLETTER You ll see the list of messages Known as units here Immediately Welcome FIRST NAME In this case there s only one but if you had more messages they would be listed here as well see the weekly quotations course for example To look at the current welcome message click the preview icon a and it will open in a new window g entente 6 July 2005 Joe s Thoughts Hello Jane Thank you for signing up to the newsletter I value your privacy and you can unsubscribe at any time If you have any comments questi
7. e your own on line courses it really is worth reading the CourseBot User Manual in detail because it covers them in depth For the purposes www virtualSync com au Page 11 24 April 2008 of this guide let s take a brief look at the inspirational quotations weekly course that is included for you From the administration page click the number in the Units column for this course This is identical to clicking the course title and then clicking View change the units Summary which we used earlier Title Flags Uni ist Delete Create The Future Weekly Inspiration J LETS Newsletter P 2 o This shows you a list of units for this course Immediately Welcome FIRST NAME 1 Day AARRE UILL 1 Week COURSE TITLE 2 Weeks COURSE TITLE 3 Weeks COURSE TITLE 4 Weeks COURSE TITLE As you can see this has one unit going out immediately the welcome message just like the newsletter the next on the day after they sign up the next a week after they sign up the next 2 weeks after and so on The individual units are written in Smart Text as described earlier The course has an enrolment form just like the newsletter The main difference with enrolments though is that when somebody signs up for the course they will start receiving the messages in sequence whereas when they sign up for the newsletter they will receive the welcome message but they won t receive any messages that you sent before they signed up You can also a
8. ert a line like this into your text lt img src http www example com pics falcon jpg gt where of course you replace the Web address above with your own You can align the picture to the left or right of text like this lt img src http www example com pics falcon jpg align right gt lt img src http www example com pics falcon jpg align left gt Sending a newsletter Now let s look at the process of sending a newsletter to your mailing list If you ve got a brand new list with very few subscribers it might be worth waiting a while until you have enough subscribers to make it worthwhile writing to them However don t wait too long or the first subscribers will forget about you Make sure that you are on the newsletter mailing list yourself so that you can verify that the message has been sent to the list Prepare the text of the newsletter in say Microsoft Word or Windows Notepad Remember to use the Smart Text features described above for formatting www virtualSync com au Page 10 24 April 2008 Then go to the newsletter course page from the administration page click View courses then click the newsletter title and click Send e mail to subscribers under Current Enrolments Current enrolments ee send e mail Manage the subscriber list Be careful because there is also a section for Past Enrolments further down the page with a similar set of options This now opens the sen
9. es Title Flags Units List Delete Create The Future Weekly Inspiratian J ie 57 D Newsletter i i D www vVvirtualsync com au Page 1 24 April 2008 You can return to this list whenever you see this link lt lt Back to course fist Here s a brief summary of what each column means e Clicking the course title takes you to details of that particular course This is the usual way of working on a particular course e The Flags column shows various settings for that course There is a key at the bottom of the page showing what each flag means In the example courses gt Both use Smart Text which allows you to format your messages easily gt The weekly quotations loop forever E gt The newsletter is permanent ES so that subscribers remain enrolled even when there are no scheduled messages to send them gt The newsletter is double opt in E so that subscribers have to verify their subscription by clicking a link in an e mail message This ensures that they have subscribed themselves rather than somebody else subscribing them without their permission e The Units column shows the number of scheduled messages for that course The weekly quotations course has 57 messages about a year s worth and the newsletter has only one the welcome message Clicking this number is a quick way of listing the messages e The List column shows the number of subscribers currently zero for both courses When there are subscr
10. ght like to improve it by editing it At the least it s a good idea to add your name to the welcome message To do this click the edit icon E which opens up the edit page Count lo Count Period Days w Subject ve 1come FIRST NAME Details Hello FIRST MAME Thank you for signing up to the newsletter I value your privacy and you can unsubscribe at any tirme If you have any comments questions ideas or SUR eShIgn fee Ehi Nevsletees please feel freee irm Send them to me Change the subject and or message Again note the use of FIRST NAME to personalise the message After making the changes click the Change button which takes you back to the list of units Preview the message again to make sure you re happy with the new message www virtualSync com au Page 5 24 April 2008 Enrol in a course It s a good idea to enrol in all of your own courses so that you can be sure that you see them exactly the way your subscribers see them So let s enrol in the newsletter course as an example Go back to the course page scroll down to the Enrolment form section and click Test an enrolment now Enrolment form OS bate le meepteptielainliail tat O Test an enrolment now This opens an enrolment window which you should fill in Enrolment Form You can use this enrolment form ta test your course First Name cinan Last Name Perera E Mail Address yihan f
11. ibers for a course you can click the number which is a quick way of listing the subscribers e The Delete column allows you to delete a course Configuring the newsletter Let s change the newsletter configuration slightly to make it match your requirements We ll change the title thank you message and welcome message To start click the newsletter course title Title Flags Units List Delete pate The Future Weekly Inspiration J n P ud 1 O pelete This takes you to a list of commands for this course You can return to this page any time you see this link lt lt Back to course page Click the Change the general course information link www virtualSync com au Page 2 24 April 2008 Newsletter D 2 Code NEWSLETTER View schange the units detailed Add new units one at a time Add new units in bulk Make a copy af this course Title Change the newsletter title to something more appropriate for you Title Joe s Thoughts Thank you message The next field is the thank you message which appears on the Web page after somebody signs up This ts the default message Thank You Message Thank you FIRST NA amp AWME for signing up for the COURSE TITLE wailing list Look out in your e mail in box for a welcome message Note the use of FIRST NAME which is replaced by the subscriber s first name and COURSE TITLE which is replaced by the titl
12. inue you will lose all your data immediately To put some text in italics use underscores instead of asterisks like this If you continue you will __ lose all your data__ immediately Bullet points Start each bullet point line with an asterisk like this First bullet point Second point which spills over more than one line Third point and whatever details you want to include Headings You could simply use bold text for headings and sub headings but a better option is to use the special heading formatting like this Top Level Heading www virtualSync com au Page 9 24 April 2008 text goes here Another Heading etc Note the spaces on either side of the text separating it from the dashes they are required Links to Web pages Here s an example of a line with a link to an external Web page Find out more at http www example com our Web site The link starts with a square bracket then the full Web address of the page then a space then the text you would like to appear for the link then a closing square bracket Pictures To insert a picture you first have to prepare it at the right size save it as a gif or jpg file upload it to your Web server and know its Web address If you re new to preparing graphics for the Web read our separate guide on Web Graphics To test that it s ready type its Web address in your browser and the picture should appear Then ins
13. irstetep CON E E Mail Format HTML Signu Up Because the newsletter is a double opt in list you ll get a message to that effect To protect your privacy this is a double opt in mailing list This means that we hawe sent you an e mail message asking you to confirm your subscription To complete your subscription please check your e mail in box for that message The message will remain valid for 48 hours and will then expire Follow these instructions to complete your enrolment Check that you get the welcome message correctly After enrolling go back to the course list and you ll see that there is now one subscriber on the newsletter list Title Flags Units List Delete Create The Future Weekly Inspiration J E Newsletter P g Adding an enrolment form to your Web site To make your newsletter available to the public you have to add an enrolment form to your Web site www virtualSync com au Page 6 24 April 2008 If Virtual Synchronicity designed your Web site for you we might have already added a newsletter subscription page Otherwise you will have to add it yourself CourseBot gives you the exact HTML code to paste into your Web site If you re managing your Web site yourself you will cut and paste this code into the appropriate page Alternatively you might send this code to your Web designer for them to insert into the page To find the code for a particular course for example the
14. ons ideas or suggestions for this newsletter please feel free to send them to me Manage Subscription entente Level 14 Lumley House 309 Kent St Sydney NSW 2000 Australia Phone 61 02 9290 8592 E mail vanessa hall entente com au a x A few things to note here e t has proper formatting and includes your branding The date is automatically inserted into the message e The course title you set Joe s Thoughts appears at the top of the message e The message can be personalised with the subscriber s name Whenever you re previewing messages it uses the name Jane Smith In a real message of course it would use the subscriber s name www virtualSync com au Page 4 24 April 2008 e There is a Manage Subscription link at the bottom which allows them to unsubscribe change their e mail address or switch to a text only version To see the text only version close this window and click the text preview icon be instead Again this opens a new window Hello Jane Thank you for signing up to the newsletter I value your privacy and you can unsubscribe at any time If you Have any comments questions ideas oar Suggestions for this newsletter please feel free to send them to me To manage your subscription please go ta http www eservice com au coursebot manage vanessahall 999 999 Close this window The default welcome message you see here is adequate but you mi
15. ssign passwords to courses so they are only accessible to people you choose This is described in the User Manual More Assistance As described at the start of this guide CourseBot is described in much more detail in the CourseBot User Manual which you can download from the administration page E Service Commands www virtualSync com au Page 12
16. ure that that is the case For instance if you have collected their business card but they didn t explicitly ask to be added to your mailing list you cannot include them ona CourseBot mailing list This is a strict requirement of our Web host To do this go to the administration page and click the Enrol lots of people link Enrolments Enrol one person Enrol lots of people saie Adress This takes you to a page with instructions on how exactly to prepare the names and addresses To enrol a block of people in a course enter their details in the bos below one line per person Each line must be in comma separated value CS5 format like this Firstname surname Email Depending on the format in which the names and addresses are currently stored you might require some assistance from your technical support staff for converting them into the required form for CourseBot Note You must specify a first name last name and e mail address for each subscriber If you only have their e mail address give them the dummy name Friend Subscriber This means that when they receive messages to Dear FIRST NAME it will read as Dear Friend which is acceptable After preparing the names e Select NEWSLETTER from the drop down menu of courses e Paste in the names and addresses or load the CSV file if your support staff has prepared them that way e Leave the other fields blank except for ticking the
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