Dear HarmonySite Administrator,
Welcome to the latest edition of "Here's what's new in your HarmonySite". Today we have the following new features...
Assessment Recordings (Riser Tapes)
Many of you have asked for the ability to upload "riser tapes" (usually MP3 files) to the website, for storage alongside the "assessment" record of a member being assessed on a particular song (whether they passed or failed their assessment of that song). Up until now I have always resisted implementing this feature, simply because of the huge amount of space that such files take up on the server. There would soon be hundreds of such files, your HarmonySite account space is limited, and the files would only ever get listened to once, by the assessor (usually the section leader), and then never listened to again. In other words, the files would be a waste of valuable space.
But now HarmonySite has a new "Unlimited Storage Space" option (please refer to my recent announcement email about this - the cost is $50 per year). So now, if you wish to use this new Riser Tapes feature, and you find that your HarmonySite account then rapidly starts to fill up, you can solve that problem for a small annual fee.
The new option is available immediately - there's nothing you need to "switch on". When any member is logged into the main Members page, they will see a set of new buttons in the "My Assessments" section of that page. Each button is called "Submit Recording", and allows the member to submit a recording (upload a file) to the website for that song. During the process they nominate who is to be notified about their newly uploaded recording. That nominated person will receive an email about the recording, with a link to view all the submitted details on the website. They can then listen to the recording and determine whether the member passed or failed (or whatever).
Photo Galleries from Other Websites
Many groups store their photos on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, etc, and find it an unnecessary hassle to have to upload copies of the files onto their HarmonySite website as well. Now you don't have to.
Now, when you create a photo gallery on your HarmonySite, you can simply enter the URL (web address) of the gallery on the external website (Facebook, etc). That's all there is to it. The new gallery is complete. It will appear on your "Photos" page just like all your other galleries, and when someone clicks on it, they are taken to the photo gallery on the external website.
One more step may be necessary: The gallery will be shown on your HarmonySite's Photos page without a cover image. The cover image will instead show "No image available". You can remedy this by clicking the gallery's "update" link and uploading one single photo into the spot at the bottom of the page.
Shopping Cart Discount Codes
It is now possible to offer "discount codes" (coupon codes, etc) to visitors purchasing items through your website's shopping cart. This applies to all purchased items: Merchandise, event tickets, Singing Valentines bookings, etc. The code are entered during the checkout process, and can be for a DOLLAR amount (e.g. $10 off) or a PERCENTAGE amount (e.g. 15% off). Each code would be something like "PROMO15". You would advertise that code to your site visitors by whatever means you choose. They simply enter the code during checkout to receive the corresponding discount.
Codes are created by logging into the main Members page as an administrator, then selecting "Discount codes" from the drop-down list in the "Administration" box. Codes can be deactivated when they are no longer needed. Don't delete codes after they've been used, simply deactivate them (mark then as no longer "available to the public").
Check Email Blocks
HarmonySite uses an industry-leading email-delivery service (called Mandrill, www.mandrill.com). It's a useful and powerful service, and solves many of the issues of email delivery. However, one of their annoying features is that recipient email addresses can get themselves "blocked", for no very good reason. Once an email address is blocked, Mandrill will simply not deliver any emails sent to that email address. This is sometimes (but not always) the cause of the instances where your members complain that they have not received emails lately. I often receive emails from you guys saying that member X has not received emails for a while, and sometimes Mandrill's blocks are the culprit. Such blocks are easily remedied, by me, and now by you!
There's a new link in the "Administration" box of the main Members page, called "Check email blocks". Click that link and you be prompted to check the email address of every member in your database. The ones that are blocked can be unblocked with one click, which will actually add them to a "whitelist" meaning that they will never be blocked again. Note that this does not guarantee delivery of all future emails to that person.
Having said all that, we are soon going to be switching to a new email-delivery service. Mandrill have just announced that their service is changing, and the changes are not compatible with HarmonySite's needs. The change will happen within the next month, once we've researched and chosen a new provider, and integrated their service into our infrastructure. Hopefully the new provider won't have this silly "blockages" system.
That's it for now. As usual, please let me know if you have any questions, issues or suggestions regarding these new features (or anything else).
Cheers,
Mark Virtue
HarmonySite
Australia
+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)
In North America, call: 1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)
Skype name: mvirtue
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