Sandbox Organization 8001 - Forum Topics

Multiple HTML Content Tags in a Template

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:46:01 -0500

Is it possible to use multiple html content tags in a single template? I'd like to use two or three of these:

Updating elected official photos for auto-targeting campaigns

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:59:47 -0500

Is there a way to submit elected official photos to Democracy In Action for use in auto-targeting campaigns? We are starting a campaign in New Jersey using Salsa's awesome system, but Governor Chris Christie doesn't yet have a picture (plus his title is "Mr. Chris Christie" and not "Hon." or "Gov."). His official photo is at http://www.state.nj.us/governor/about/

Server Includes in a Salsa Template (shtml)

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:29:12 -0500

Is it possible to use server includes in a salsa template? I'd like to do something like this, but it won't work:

Household update

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:57:27 -0500

Is there a way to query if members are part of households and then update them? I am dreading having to go into several thousand individual records to check and update this.

A better way to search for organizations?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:02:56 -0500

Are there other ways to search for organizations? I find the fields returned from the "Supporter management" "search for supporters" insufficient to identify the record I am looking for or if it is in the database at all.

Manual entry of donations

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:52:22 -0500

What is a "private donation"? When I click on that link when editing a supporter's donations it does not show entries I have made manually to log donations made through sources other than DIA. This fact makes me fearful that I have been entering these non-DIA-processed donations wrong. I've been clicking on Add a Donation and choosing Other. questions: 1. Is there a better way I should be entering donations received, for example, by check, or via Network For Good (the only option on Facebook and on Guidestar)? 2. What is a Private Donation? A search on Salsa Commons for "private donation" turns up nothing useful. 3. How do I get a report showing the total of all a supporter's donations, not just the ones they pay through DIA? (I remember reading somewhere that only donations actually made by credit card through DIA are included in the supporter's total ... do I remember that correctly?)

How can I determine page conversion rates?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:36:09 -0500

How can I determine the page conversion for a petition? I can see the number of actions taken but not the total number of page views.

why don't we have a Subsets of Data box on eblast reports?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:47:35 -0500

I have read the Salsa Scoop post about reporting email statistics by Group. (see http://salsacommons.org/o/8001/p/salsa/web/blog/public/entries?blog_entry_KEY=1567). But the "subsets of data" box does not exist when I go into Salsa. I am staring at the email summary page for a recent blast. The Scoop post says "Just select any Salsa group from the picklist at the very top of the page" but when we click on the Details link at the far right of a row in the "summary reports" page, we get the very same page as we get when clicking "Report" from the eblast list. And the items available at the very top of the page are, left to right, email statistics, unsubscribes, and domain breakdown. No "subsets of data" box anywhere on the page. ???

Setting up an email trigger that lets me know when someone donates

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:59:32 -0500

How can I set up a trigger that emails myself every time someone donates with all the donation information?

Using custom merge fields in autoresponse emails

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:37:08 -0500

I have to create a bunch of different events, but do not want to have to create separate autoresponse emails for each event. How do I insert custom merge fields into an autoresponse email? I've tried adding something like: to the source of the event page I have created,but it does not seem to work. Any suggestions?

Trouble accessing supporters through fields other than "email"

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:28:47 -0500

Anybody else getting booted off the site when they try to search for supporters via anything other than email address?

Customizing Sign Up Forms

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:15:47 -0500

This is a question about customization in creating a sign-up form. Generally, is there some happy medium between the tool that's provided in Salsa and creating a form from scratch (or the code provided) on our own domain? Specifically, I'd like users to have the option to opt into some groups but want them to be automatically enrolled in others. Also, I'd like to be able to play around a bit with formatting. BUT I don't want to do a separate page in HTML because I want non-techie staff to be able to easily edit group fields, etc. from the Salsa interface. Any help appreciated.

Made an Action, but your fields aren't showing up?

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:00:50 -0500

So you have that shiny new action all ready to go, but when you preview it, you don't see any of the fields where your supporter would put their information? It may not be as big of a problem as you think. Remember to check that you have defined at least one target on the "Targets" tab. If there are no targets defined, Salsa will not show the supporter information fields on your action page because it does not know where to send any actions your supporter might take.

Event Attendess -> Email Database?

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:21:40 -0500

When people sign up for events are they auto-added to your email database? I assume not. How I can let them opt-in to receive emails from us?

Here's how to include a "View As HTML" link easily in your messages

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:49:08 -0500

Have you ever been looking for an easy way to put in a VIEW AS HTML link in the top of your messages? I had been putting in a link manually to each message (blast archive), but that required pulling the message key # from the workflow and remembering to paste it into the link each time we built a newsletter. So just use this link instead, and when people click on it, it'll take them to the HTML online version of whatever message they were on when they clicked it. http://your-dia-domain-name/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=[[email_blast_KEY]] For example, here's what mine looks like: http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=[[email_blast_KEY]] Blam, no updating of link required each time you make a message. Just put the link in your message template, best above the header image, and then it's set. This answer may be buried in the documentation somewhere, but I had a hard time finding it and got the answer via support and am sharing it here.

Bulk delete target recipients?

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:38:35 -0500

Is there a way to bulk delete target recipients by type - for example, all media contacts?

I love the salsa API

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:26:41 -0500

We recently put up a flash quiz on our homepage (http://www.humanrightsfirst.org) to collect additional list members. Submitting the form through actionscript would have taken thousands of lines of code but using the API I was able to push in new subscribers, give them a tricking code I wanted, assign them to groups, and set an autoresponder all in under 20 lines of code. We came over from Convio primarily for the price but they never would have allowed us this much flexibility in using the system. Thanks

How do I figure out who has signed my petition?

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:20:32 -0500

People have started signing our on-line petition, according to the "report" under advocacy campaigns. How do I access the names of the signers?

Supporters matched to incorrect legislative district

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:06:35 -0500

If a supporter is matched to the incorrect state legislative district when taking an action is there any way to make sure they are matched to the correct district the next time they take action? I saw that you can update the congressional district field in the supporters profile, but does it pull from that information when that supporter sends and email? And, what about state legislative districts? Do other people have this problem? Any ideas?

Why is my online action/petition "no longer active?"

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:13:55 -0500

I'm creating a new online action, but when I click "view page" the content doesn't show, just a message saying "This action is no longer active. To view the current list of our active campaigns click here." This is the link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1266/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2410 Also, all of my previous online actions are missing from the list. Can someone help? Thanks!

Is it possible to CC a target?

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:49:11 -0500

Sometimes we'd like action letters to go to Person A, and be CC'd to Person B. However, it seems the only way to do it is to have letters go equally to A and B, with neither person aware that A is the main recipient. Is CCing possible?

soft/hard bounces, need clarification

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:24:08 -0500

I've read the documentation, but am still unclear on the difference b/w soft and hard bounces and how can we get around them so that our supporters receive our emails? One supporter recently complained that she isn't receiving our emails. After reviewing her profile, it looks like she's had soft bounces all along. Please help!!

Already have domain name

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:17:27 -0500

I have already registered my domain name with GoDaddy. How do I repoint it to Salsa's nameserver? (Or do I have to reregister with Salsa?)

Font size on Action Letter

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:56:11 -0500

The letter on my action alert page is barely readable. It hardly encourages people to personalize if they can't read it. There is no option to change font-size specifically for letter content. Has anyone else run into this and what was your solution?

Distributed Event Template quirk

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:17:20 -0500

I've created a distributed event with a different web template than our default template. It all works well, except when an event leader wants to edit their event, it reverts back to the default template to edit the event. Any ideas of how to fix this?

Opt-In Subscribe Option for Donation Pages

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:21:45 -0500

Silly question, but is there a way to add an "opt-in to receive emails" check box to the donation pages? I know there's a way to auto-add them to a group, but we normally provide our donors with the option to be added to our email lists. How do other organizations work around this?

How do you set up a scoring algorithm?

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:21:35 -0500

How do you set up a scoring algorithm, I would like to start segmenting my list by activity and scoring seems the best way to do this but I don't see how in the interface any way to set up my scoring algorithm.

Donation email followup

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:59:50 -0500

Does salsa send an email to a supporter after they donate online or I manually enter a credit card donation?

Custom Events Page? Let me see it - PLEASE!

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:36:17 -0500

Does anyone have a detailed events page that they have custom designed that they like? We have our national convention coming up and I would like to create a more integrated events page with several different registration levels and an option to purchase a t-shirt. If someone has one they have created that I could look at - that would be terrific! Thanks -betsy (or if you have a custom donation page, that could give me some ideas too!)

Better advocacy campaign targets

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:13:14 -0500

Create advocacy campaign targets for Congressional committees and subcommittees. We used to be able to accomplish this by selecting multiple targets. New Actions doesn't allow that, and it really diminishes advocacy campaigns' utility.

auto populate congress persons first name, last name in an email blast

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:39:23 -0500

I'd like to have dynamic content that can auto populate congress persons first name, last name in an email blast. I had this option in another system (overall I like Salsa better). This would work when you target by district.

Dynamic content for web template Title field

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:09:53 -0500

Is it possible for the title tag in a web template to grab the public Action Name field from an advocacy campaign? So for instance I want to automatically have each advocacy page title be "Surfrider Foundation: Action Name" Is there a dynamic field code I can plug into my html to make this work? Thanks.

Text Spacing is Crazy

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:08:06 -0500

When I enter text into my web pages the spacing between lines gets messed up (i.e. very big). How can I fix this?

Pulling List of Active Members

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:22:08 -0500

How do I pull a list of people with phone numbers who have taken at least five actions in the last year in a given Congressional district.

Mobile Text Messaging Service

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:59:10 -0500

Does DIA have any plans to introduce a mobile messaging platform into DIA? We are very interested in being able to send text messages to our members for advocacy and fundraising purposes. Ideally, this service would work much like the email system currently does, were DIA would manage the subscribe/unsubscribes and track users activity. Thanks much! Jenn

A puzzle - how to remove a tagged group in a query

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:08:17 -0500

I'm trying to delete a group of tagged supporters from my email list, ie I don't want to send an email to supporters who have already signed a petition. Every time I click the (-) in the add/remove condition, the whole window/field disappears. Help!

send failed status?

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:10:59 -0500

How does the email status "send failed" relate to hard bounces, soft bounces, etc? I don't know whether or not I should remove these emails from the database.

Year-end Tax Summary Letters

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:52:03 -0500

Can the Salsa development team create a report that pulls individuals' donation histories so they can be made into letters for year-end tax reports? It would need to show: First and last name, mailing address, amounts and dates donated, and total amount. And it would need to be exportable into something that could be manipulated--RTF file or something--put on letterhead, corrected if there are errors, and then mailed. Or does something like that already exist?

Group additions

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:23:33 -0500

If I run a query for Group A in order to add Group A to Group B, is the only thing that will happen: Group B will now be listed in the group listing for supporters in Group A. My main concern: Will any other information update occur besides adding Group B to Group A's supporter group listings? Many thanks!

One Click Subscription

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:16:17 -0500

We recently ran a campaign that reached out to people who are not traditionally our supporters. The result is a large pool of people that do not fit in our traditional blast groups. I would like to make our newsletter, action alerts, etc available to them. Is there a a way to embed a link in an email that allows them to sign up for these groups in one click? Kind of like an unsubscribe button but a subscribe button instead. Sorry if this is an obvious one, the guy who normally does this stuff is on paternity leave.

smooth out profile editing, do not bump us out to the overview

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:07:34 -0500

Please allow us to save the information in the various sections of the lengthy supporter Profile, without bumping us back to the overview each time. When we need to edit fields in several sections of the profile, every time we click the Save button for that section, the Overview page loads and we need to re-load the Profile page and figure out where we had left off with the edits. thanks.

How do I search for supporters with email addresses containing a specific string AND export the results?

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:24:08 -0500

On the "list supporters" page, I can add a filter of Email (starts with) %@gmail.com, or Email (starts with) %@%.edu, where % is a wild card, and I get a list of results, which is great. But there doesn't seem to be any way to export those results. Meanwhile, using the query/export page, there don't seem to be any options for the Supporter Fields->Email field besides Boolean operators like equals, greater than, less than, null, etc. There doesn't seem to be anything like "contains" or the ability to use wild cards (trying equals with the % wild cards doesn't seem to do anything). So, how do I query for that field containing a particular string AND export those results?

Email Blast is Blank

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:25:15 -0500

Why is my email blast blank when sent to test email addresses?

Getting a count of supporters who have ever taken any action?

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:28:21 -0500

Is there a way of getting a count of all supporters who have taken any action ever? I thought I might be able to do this via Scoring, but although it is described in detail in the documentation, I cannot find anywhere the screen where a scoring alogrithm can be created. Any advice would be appreciated.

Donation amount minus DIA fees

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:34:01 -0500

I remember seeing a field in the database that recorded the donation amount minus the fees charged by Democracy In Action. Does this field exist?

Search for Suporters Easier

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:59:09 -0500

Can we have another default search field for supporters than email? I never have a person's email address handy, and searching by name seems much more useful

need link to donation-import instructions

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:45:28 -0500

Where are instructions for importing donations? I see overview type of text saying it's possible but cannot find the instructions. Thanks

More Address Type flexibility please

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:25:03 -0500

Please give us the ability to edit the list of Address Types, and to change the default legacy address (addresses that pre-date the supporter package upgrade) to something other than Home. We also need a checkbox to indicate at which of several addresses a supporter is registered to vote. Some people may have multiple "Home" addresses, and until and unless the above request to allow us to change legacy addresses from Home to Work (or to whatever), we cannot depend on the Home label actually indicating the person's residence where they are registered to vote. (In our case, we actually have many Work addresses that Salsa has now tagged as Home. What can we do?!)

How do I create a "sign up" button?

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:30:10 -0500

How can I create a form to stick on my site to allow visitors to enter their info and add themselves to a supporter group/email list? I want to allow people to add themselves, and then get included automatically. Possible?

How do you list everyone who has purchased a particular storefront item?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:51:49 -0500

Several of our storefront items are for things like tickets, in which we want to get a list of the people who have purchased that item. How do we view all the people or transactions for a particular storefront item? I tried going through the donation search (since donations and storefronts seem somewhat related, e.g. there's no topic checkbox for "Storefront") but filtering by Donation Page ID and using the Storefront Page ID didn't seem to work. Is there a way to filter by Storefront Page ID? Surely we shouldn't have to set up a custom report or query for each and every storefront item we want a list of purchases, right?