Sandbox Organization 8001 - Forum Topics

can someone direct me to documentation on inserting images into emails/ newsletters/ working with text next to images?

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:50:08 -0400

question about inserting images

Forbid anonymous donations?

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:06:41 -0400

We have a donation page that directly follows a petition-signing, in which we're specifically collecting people's names. In this context, it doesn't make sense to offer people the opportunity to donate anonymously since there wouldn't be much anonymous about it. So we'd like to turn that option off. Both donation-page guides... http://www.salsacommons.org/o/8001/p/salsa/web/wiki/public/?reference=Creating%20a%20Donations%20Page http://www.salsacommons.org/o/8001/p/salsa/web/wiki/public/?reference=How%20to%20create%20a%20donation%20page ...imply that allowing anonymous donations is an option. But all we see on the options page are in-honor-of, designation code and in-memory-of -- no checkbox for allowing/not allowing anonymous donations. Did this change? If so, is there a way to disallow anonymous donations?

Chapter Listservs

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:57:56 -0400

Is there a way to create listservs for each chapter? (without using groups)

Hacking and formatting Signup pages - almost there!

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:42:42 -0400

I'm unhappy with how signup pages get formatted. See http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/38/signup_page/ICareSignUp for an example. I viewed that page, went in firefox to "pagesource" and copied the HTML. I then created a Content page, extracted the body and certain other coding from the copied HTML, pasted it into the content page, and proceeded to play with the HTML a little. Here's the much nicer looking result: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/38/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=7650. The problem is that I can't figure out on the new page how to modify the Thank You or Tell A Friend page I'd like to have follow it, since it now appears as a plan vanilla content page. Any thoughts?

Unsubscribe from Listserves

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:12:33 -0400

I want to add the unsubscribe link to the footer of a Listserve. When I paste the URL (even with a href="http://..." ) the part after /public/?Email=[[Email]]&email_blast_KEY=[[email_blast_KEY]] gets mangled. How can I keep the URL intact in the Append Footer?

Authentication and API URL

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:26:16 -0400

I am attempting to write a script to pull a list of public events from Salsa. The script I wrote wasn't working, so I decided to try simply using the example script found here http://salsalabs.com/o/8001/p/salsa/website/public2/commons/dev/docs/api/cookbook/php.sjs. I modified only the URL, Email, and Password variables. The URL I set to https://hq-org2.democracyinaction.org/. When I run this I get a PHP error saying an invalid argument was supplied when it hits the foreach loop at the end. This is because there was no response from my request. I haven't been able to figure out if my authentication request is even working as I'm getting no response from that either. My first question is if the URL I'm using is the correct one. The documentation makes it pretty clear that I need to use the right one, but I'm still a little unsure if I picked the right one. (I got it from the subdomain and domain when logged into Salsa) My second question is: If I have the URL correct, what is the problem with the script that's keeping me from receiving any response or authenticating?

new subscriptions from a petition

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:14:44 -0400

Am I correct that by simply adding their name to a petition, a person is added to the supporter list? The way my client uses their supporter list, they would then be sending that person emails (i.e., without opt-in) because they frequently use the Target Entire List option. I'm curious how people handle this and whether there is an accepted Best Practice. Which is preferable ... (1) Add text to the petition page that advises the person they will begin receiving emails and can unsubscribe at any time (2) Create an overall "Mailing List" group and provide a checkbox on the petition to allow folks to deliberately sign up, and retrain users so that emails are *never* sent to the entire list? (3) something else I'm not contemplating ~~~ If #2 is the best way to go, how does one trigger the sign-up auto-response from a petition page? In the follow-up tab for the action, I only see a way to send one email to everyone who signs the petition. I do not see a way to create a conditional autoresponse for folks who are also signing up to receive emails. I ran a test where I signed the petition (and checked a box to join a Mailing List group) and received only the auto-response for signing the petition but not the usual auto-response that is set up for new sign-ups. Nor did the triggered individual email go out that is set up for new sign-ups. I guess the crux of this question is, how to handle getting new supporters properly subscribed, complete with autoresponse and notification, when the come into the list via a petition?

Sending Email blast to certain congressional districts...

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:14:22 -0400

I'm trying to send an email blast to residents of certain congressional districts. When I select 'Legislative District > Federal House' it only shows about 10 districts to choose from. How do I add/edit/manage this? There should be hundreds of districts but only a random few are showing.

Recurring Donor CC Info Update

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:59:18 -0400

Our recurring donors would like to be able to update their credit card information through their profile online rather than have to phone it in. I think it would be a great idea to make that possible.

Query by donation records

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:46:49 -0400

I'd really like to see donation querying capabilities expand. Namely, I'd like to easily be able to query people based on the number of donations they've made in the past and based on when their first donation was made. One way of getting around this second one would be if there was an option for "Donor who has NOT made a gift before..." and "Donor who has NOT made a gift after..."

Custom v Standard Fields

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:09:34 -0400

I created some custom fields for a signup sheet but they appear below the standard fields, I can't get them to mix, not even with the drag/drop function or assigning them to priorities.

Recurring P2P Donation Campaigns

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:09:57 -0400

Can a recurring donation option be added to P2P Fundraising campaigns? It would be helpful to a recurring donation drive if supporters could also help bring in recurrings through a P2P campaign. Right now it seems that a P2P campaign is a one-time donation only. Thanks!

Facebook App development

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:58:13 -0400

Is there any plans in the words to develop Facebook apps that can be placed on organizations' Facebook pages? A donation app and a general signup app would be particularly useful. Can this happen?

How do I create a query of everyone except one group!

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:19:14 -0400

I am writing because I would like to make a query of everyone in my database except those that I have marked in a specific group and those people that have asked to unsubscribe. How do I do this? I only see an option for creating a query based on people in groups, or with tags etc. for some of our constituents I only have their email address entered, and I would like them to be a part of this query. Thank you!

Storefront tracking code and running reports

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:02:56 -0400

Could someone point me into the right direction? I have a storefront set up and want to append the url with different tracking codes for different organizations that will be referring people to the store so that we can see where each is coming from. Example: If someone referred by "Organization A" purchases an item; or if someone referred by "Organizations B" purchases an item. I included "&tag=org1" at the end of the URL for the store item and tested this out, but didn't see this tag show up in the "tracking code" field. How do I go about running reports based on this correctly?

Send test emails to multiple addresses

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:39:10 -0400

I would love it if I could send test email blasts to multiple addresses at once. I think it used to work that way. I'd like to enter comma-separated email addresses and send to five or six people at once, instead of having to repeat that process for each one.

Email Blast Sending Time Best Practices

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:11:54 -0400

What is best practices for time of day to send email blasts? I receive many emails first thing in the morning however, some are sent later in the afternoon. What has been your experience with sending email blasts?

Trouble sending emails?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:25:45 -0400

Is anyone else out there having trouble sending email blasts or test messages? We've been unable to do either for the past few days. We're working with Support to figure out the problem, but I'm curious to know if this is happening to any other organizations.

Maintaining Line Breaks in MEDIUMTEXT

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:44:41 -0400

Is there a way to maintain line breaks in a MEDIUMTEXT custom field? We want to use the variable to email a series of items to our supporters (each supporter gets a slightly different list). When we use the [[MEDIUMTEXT1] script, it translates the following: Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 into this: Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Separating items by commas is always an option, but its much less attractive. Thanks.

Personalizin e-mail helps get message across..

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:43:53 -0400

How do I insert first name into e-mail subject line and as salutation in body of message?

Salsa doesn't fill in my State Senate and House fields.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 07:21:27 -0400

When a supporter signs up online all the information they enter is there, plus their US House District is generated automatically, but their State Senate and House fields are empty!

Where are my missing emails?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:52:37 -0400

I am missing emails in blasts. When I query my database (24,500) for members (WITH EMAIL NOT EMPTY) I get 15,000. When I send an email to ALL MEMBERS I only send 12,000. Where can I look for the missing emails? Does this represent email fields that have bad or invalid emails?

Let us specify image alt text on postcard pages

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:07:41 -0400

Since most modern e-mail clients automatically block images, it would be great if we could specify alt text for postcard images. In addition to being good usability, it will increase deliverability on postcard messages by making them seem less spammy.

Sign up vs. petition to launch a campaign

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:17:42 -0400

I'm a Salsa novice. My organization is getting ready to launch its first advocacy campaign since our recent relaunch. I'm not sure whether to make the first action in the campaign be a sign up page or a petition (we're gathering support for a 5-point platform). What are the pros and cons of each? Is one better? I've seen campaigns that ask people to sign on to receive email alerts related to the campaign--but I'm worried that if I do that, very few will sign up and I won't be able to send email alerts to the others, so it could be a dead end. I guess that's why I'm leaning towards a petition. Thanks for any advice!

Supersizing Salsa Script VPIRG Package Question

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:00:10 -0400

In the "Supersizing Salsa Script" session at the Salsa Conference, we saw a custom VPIRG package for canvassers. I wanted to know if this was available to play around with in the Sandbox, or if ya'll could get me in touch with someone there to possibly access the package now that its been made. Thanks, Dave Kunes

Photo tags, captions, and dates

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:29:57 -0400

I'd love to see: - Tagging for photos and files - A field for photo captions that could be displayed in a photo gallery - a date field for photos

Social Media "Share" buttons on P2P Donation Pages

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:53:08 -0400

It would be great if the P2P donation pages had a Facebook/Social Media "Share" link. Is this something we can easily manually ad to the page? Or can Salsa give an option to add a share button on the pages?

Where did the template generator go?

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:26:47 -0400

What happened to the template generator? It used to be available on the first page of the create template interface and was awesome. Is it hiding somewhere where I can still use it?

Email delivery mystery

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:32:58 -0400

So... email receipt troubleshooting. Fun fun! I sent an email blast about 90 minutes ago, and my CEO hasn't received it. Her supporter record in Salsa says the email was sent to her, but message tracking on my Exchange server doesn't show that message ever showing up. She wants to know what she's not receiving our email blasts... lol. Any ideas what the catch might be?

Soft Bounce Error Messages?

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:07:45 -0400

Our emails are not delivering to a few of our members-- they are tagged as soft bounces. One of our members wants to pass the bounce back error message onto his email provider so they can investigate. Anyone know how I can view the soft-bounce error messages since they aren't delivered to our inbox directly? Thanks!

Consolidating Groups

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:53:08 -0400

Is there a quick and easy way to consolidate groups?

Groups vs. Chapters

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:13:04 -0400

What are the major differences between groups and chapters?

"Used In..." tab for auto-responses (triggers)

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:46:59 -0400

It would be great to be able to see what Actions and Events auto-responses are used for. This way, before editing an auto-response, or before deleting it to keep the list clean, we could see what other Actions or Events the change would affect. I'm visualizing a new tab "Used In...." on the autoresponse edit page.

Empty "dynamic content" drop-down

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:19:39 -0400

There's nothing in dynamic content drop-down even though I have both required packages. I'm working on an e-mail blast.

Use Google Moderator For Idea Submission

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:44:41 -0400

Use a Google Moderator type tool to allow people to submit ideas so the community can rank them.

Change the amount of a recurring donation?

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:58:48 -0400

Through our merchant gateway (payflowpro), I can change the amount of someone's recurring donation without creating a new profile for them. Is there a way to get Salsa to change the amount in their recurring profile as well?

Catalist? Congressional districts!? OH MY!

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:51:50 -0400

I am wondering what ability do we have to automatically update Congressional Districts to our supporters? I remember there was once was a relationship with Catalist where we could get our supporters updated, and I was hoping that was one of the new options in the new Salsa Labs Marketplace, but I don't see anything that can do that. What do folks use to keep their districts updated for targeted campaigns? I really tried to find this in Salsa Labs, but honestly got completely overwhelmed with the amount of info and possibilities.

Tracking multiple sign-up submissions

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:00:03 -0400

Is there anyway to know if an individual has filled out a sign-up form twice? I imagine users are automatically deduplicated when they get into the system, but I'm hoping the second sign-up leaves a footprint somewhere in the database. Regardless, we've learned our lesson going forward.

How to remove availability of a blast as a web page?

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:41:02 -0400

Is there a way to "kill" the display of an email blast as a web page? If someone discovers an old link on a friend's Facebook wall, for example, we don't want certain older pages to remain accessible. I know we can uncheck the "Display to user" box on the Blast Archive page (which is the same field as the "Add to web page" checkbox in a blast's Send Options tab), but this only has the effect of removing blasts from the directory (which we don't use unless I can figure out how to customize it ... a separate post some day soon), not of making the page unavailable. This is important in the case of emails offering links to registrations and actions that have become obsolete. We do not wish to delete older blasts because we often copy it to recycle the content some time down the road, plus for foundation grant reporting purposes it is a good idea to keep an archive of blasts sent including target and success reporting. Have I missed a way to change the web page for a blast into a "no longer available" page?

make email blast reference name editable

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:00:50 -0400

There are times that users use very inconsistent reference names for blasts. The Reference Name field ought to be editable even if the blast has already been sent out.

adding new supporters to groups uring import process

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:17:25 -0400

Is it possible to add imported supporters to more than one group, or assign them more than one tag, at once (i.e. during the import process)? thanks

Cancel recurring donations NOT with default DiA processor

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:26:37 -0400

We do not use DiA's default processor (we were told to set up PayFlowPro for some reason) and I need to cancel some recurring donations. I am not having much luck getting an answer as to how I do that. Can someone help me? Thanks

Moving backwards on CSS customizability in Actions 3.0

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:57:59 -0400

One of my standing requests with forms and pages in DIA is to have more available CSS selectors and block level elements to have full control over styling the appearance of anything and everything in a DIA hosted page to make it match our visual style and branding. As anyone knows who has ever created their own styles for DIA pages and forms, it's always been sort of hit or miss — mostly hit, but there are always a few frustrating things that didn't get a block level element and can't be styled how one might like. Old petition sigs come to mind. This has been a pretty longstanding issue that doesn't appear to be getting better in Actions 3.0, it's actually getting worse. Or at least much more difficult to find the selectors that are there. It's a fairly. recurring. request. here on Salsa Commons. It seems every time someone mentions it, there are a bunch of "me toos!" that ring out in our lovely forum. The two recurring workarounds are 1) Create custom pages entirely (works well with donation pages 2) use the web developer toolbar to see the code being hidden inside the javascript (never tried, but Chrome's devtools won't show it.) These suggestions might be functional, but they're really workarounds for what should be a more obvious solution: 1) Add definable CSS IDs and classes for every element on any pages (Actions 3, forms, donation pages, etc.) 2) Provide a single documentation source that lists every definable CSS element in DiA's default stylesheet and where it's used. Like a full page with some images saying "this is the textarea and this is the #textarea.content" and so forth. At least with Actions 1.0 and other static pages, you could at least see the CSS selectors by simply viewing the source code of the page. Not everything had an class or id, but they weren't hidden in the javascript. I understand the move towards dynamic pages and content being served with JS or JSON elements, but it's making it significantly harder to find the CSS elements and find them to style them. In Actions 3.0, some elements are picking up something applicable in the 300 lines of CSS I've written for DIA for us over the last 3 years, but others are clearly not and have the ID or CLASS hidden in Java. So my great big recurring request is to a) add CSS elements for every piece of content on a page and b) provide a nice concise list of what they all are so we can see them. I'd be glad to help where I can. We've certainly found and defined our share of them. Thanks!

Which supporters signed up from a specific sign-up page?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:45:55 -0400

Is there a way to query which supporters signed up via a specific sign-up page?

Email sent but not opened?

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:06:33 -0400

I am having a lot of trouble trying to Query those supporters who received but did not open an email I sent out. Is there a way to do that that I am missing?

how to post to developer forum?

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:28:04 -0400

How do I post to the developer forum? I just started out on that page to ask a geeky question about customizing an Amount block to make recurring donations expire at the one-year point, but once I clicked to submit my post it went into the general forum. What am I missing? As an experiment, on this post I tried not choosing "question" (because when one starts from the Developer Forum page, the post-type choices do not exist until you get to the second screen), and instead I left the idea/question/solution/praise choice blank for developer forum posts. But that just generates an error that says the post type must be chosen. So I'm now clicking "question" again.

TERM field, how to kill recurring donations at the one-year point?

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:38:06 -0400

Can anyone explain the use and possible values of the TERM field in the recurring_donations table? (Or just point me to the page in the docs, I tried but could find no info) Here's what I need to do: My client has a membership program and offers members the choice to spread their payments out as recurring donations. HOWEVER, the membership does not auto-renew the next year as fees may change. Because the Membership package is not recommended for use, we are using a regular donation page for this purpose. I have created a custom html block for the Amounts section that removes the Yearly option for recurring payments ... however what I also need it to do is to STOP auto-charging after 364 days I'm hoping that if I use a hidden input to set the TERM field, I can achieve the needed result. If the TERM field is not the right way to go, then how can I set up a donation page that offers recurring payment options but stops auto-charging after a year is up?

Major Importing Oops

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:25:22 -0400

I just imported 6,367 corrupted supporter records into Salsa by mistake. They were all added under the same import, key #43076. Is there a way to delete all these records en masse?

View This Email as a Webpage!

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:49:01 -0400

Did you know that you can give your subscribers the option to view an email blast on a webpage? This is a great option for dealing with finicky email clients and it provides an extra option to subscribers who only receive text-only emails. First you’ll need to build the URL to put in your email template. The easiest way to do this is if you already have email blasts set to display as a webpage. To find out, go to the Email Blasts tab and click Blast Archives. If the Display to User option is checked for any of your blasts, you’re good to go. Click the link under “view your email blasts” and you’ll get a list of all the email blasts you’ve set to display as a webpage. Click one. Copy the URL from your browser. It will look something like this: http://yourbaseurl.org/o/1111/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=22222 where yourbaseurl.org is your base URL, 1111 is your ORG # and 22222 is the blast key of the one you’re viewing. You want to change the blast key (22222) to the API call for the blast key, which is: [[email_blast_KEY]] This will be replaced with the actual KEY of each email blast. So your URL would look something like this: http://yourbaseurl.org/o/1111/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=[[email_blast_KEY]] If you don’t have any email blasts already set to display as webpage, you can still figure out the URL. You’ll need your base URL and your organization number: http://YOURBASEYOURL/o/YOURORGNUMBER /t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=[[email_blast_KEY]] Next add some text to either your email template or to the email blast. The text can say something like “View this email in your web browser.” Be sure and paste the URL on the text only version as well! Keep in mind that in order for the link to work, you MUST click the box next to the option to “Add to web page” in Send Options in the email blast before you send the blast in order for the link to work. Otherwise, the link will point to the list of email blasts that you do have set to view as a web page.

Custom Reports - Donations that occured between two dates.

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:42:15 -0400

In a custom report, I want to pull donations that occurred between two dates. How do mark that in the conditions?