Dear HarmonySite administrator,
Lots of significant new improvements to the HarmonySite software to announce today...
1. Sent emails can now be SAVED. Emails can also be saved as DRAFT
Many people have asked for this feature over the years, and we've finally decided to add it to the software. It was a significant job to complete - we had to rewrite the email-sending system from the ground up. But it's completed now, and released into your website. Now, when sending emails, instead of seeing a simple "Send" button...
...you now have the option of seeing a set of buttons like the following...
It works just like you would expect...
- Sent emails can be saved in a "Sent Emails" folder
- Unsent emails can be saved in a "Saved Draft Emails" folder
- Sent emails can be viewed at any time, and RE-sent if necessary, with one click
- Saved emails can be edited and sent at a later date
There are new links on your Admin Dashboard to access your "Sent Emails" and "Saved Draft Emails" folders. There's also a corresponding database table...
This new feature is NOT ENABLED BY DEFAULT! If you want this feature, you need to switch it on, as follows...
- Ensure you're logged in with Webmaster Access
- Click the little "cog" icon top-right
- Click the cog icon next to "HarmonySite"
- Click the "Configuration" tab, and scroll down to the "Emails" section, near the bottom. You'll see a new set of options...
Hopefully these options are self-explanatory. Note that if you choose the option "Never save emails", you will not be able to either save sent emails or save UN-sent emails as DRAFT.
Bug Fix
This new redesign is intended to also fix the problem of emails sometimes being randomly sent a second or third time, resulting in duplicates in the recipients' inboxes. I can't say for sure that the bug has been fixed, as I was never able to identify the cause in the first place. But I had a theory about why it was happening, and if I was correct, then that's fixed now.
Caution
If you enable this new system for saving sent emails, and you send lots of large attachments, and your group does NOT have our "Unlimited Space" option enabled, then the large attachments will definitely contribute to filling up your allocated disk space.
Small Access Change
If you have been accessing the Send Email page with Webmaster Access, or Regular Member Access, then the latest changes do not impact your ability to access this page.
However, if you have assigned only CERTAIN members to be able to access the Send Email page, by requiring such members to have "Data Administration Access", then you will need to slightly adjust the access of those members: Previously, if you elected to have this page accessible to people with "Data Administration Access", you needed to give them data-administration access over "Members". Now, that's changed. If you want people with "Data Administration Access" to be able to access the Send Email page, they now need to have data-administration access over "Emails Saved/Sent". See the screenshot for a member LOGIN record below...
Again, this does NOT apply if you allowed regular members to access the Send Email page, and anyone with Webmaster Access will always be able to access the page.
If the Send Email page in your HarmonySite is accessible to regular members, and you've enabled this new "save" feature, then those members will be able to save emails, and view them later, even if they don't have "Data Administration Access". They will only be able to view their OWN saved/sent emails - no-one else's. People with "Data Administration Access" (or higher) will be able to view ANYONE'S saved/sent emails.
2. Committees/Teams can now include POSITIONS
Up until now, committees/teams could only be comprised of MEMBERS. This meant, for example, that if your "Board of Directors" committee/team included your President, and there was a "President" POSITION in the system as well, then any time your group elected a new president, you would need to update not only the "President" position, but also the "Board of Directors" committee/team.
Now, the "Board of Directors" committee team does not need to explicitly include the president by name - instead you can simply include the "President" position. So whenever you update the "President" position, the "Board of Directors" committee/team will be automatically updated.
Naturally you can mix and match - a committee/team can hold BOTH members and positions...
So, to save yourself work in the future, you may now choose to redefine some of your committees/teams to include positions instead of members.
3. Member Audits - Send reminders to non-responders
Pretty self-explanatory, really. If a Member Audit (actually, a member audit GROUP) has not had responses from all members, you can now send a reminder email to JUST the members that have not responded. The button is right at the bottom of each audit group's page.
4. Member Audits - selecting a response type of "Comprehensive response" no longer breaks the page
Up until now, when creating a member audit (poll question, member details, etc), if you selected a response type of "Comprehensive response", then loading that audit's page would be extremely slow. It might take a couple of minutes just to load the page. If your group had a lot of members (more than 50-ish), the page might never fully load, and simply crash your browser. Not good.
So that's been reworked now. The redesign means that for a member to enter one such "comprehensive response", they actually need to click a button before they can enter it. So a bit of extra hassle, but at least it works now!
5. The list of email subscribers to a mailing list can now be exported to a CSV file
Again, pretty self-explanatory. If you're an administrator, and visit any mailing list's page, you'll see an "export to CSV" link...
Enjoy your new features!
In harmony,
Mark Virtue
HarmonySite
Australia
+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)
In North America, call: 1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)
Skype name: mvirtue
