Just bought UE - can't figure out the setup

Hi,

I just bought Universal Email for purposes of bulk emailing a membership list in a mySQL database. I can't follow the documentation on how to get this up and running.

It says to build a form on a PHP page. So I inserted a table with To:, BCC:, From:, and Subject text fields, and a Message text box, correct? Also a Submit button at the bottom. I also defined a Recordset called bulkEmail that pulls the email field from my database table.

Then what? I want a static email address in the From field, which I can set in the Properties manager Init Value. I want the BCC: field to pull from the email field in my database. The instructions say to go to Insert>WebAssist>Create Email Message, which I have done. I have following the instructions to set the various field properties (BCC is set to Recordset loop), I have defined a file with the email message area, but when I click Finish, I see nothing on my page. Nothing seems to be tied to the text fields in the initial form I built, and when I preview in a browser I get one empty text field, that's it. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Applying Universal Email to your page will not change any of the form fields or their values. When you click finish it puts the php code onto your page that will send the email. When you configure UE you specify all of the properties of the email including the to, cc, bcc and other aspects. What you set in the wizard are the values that will be used to send the message.

If you are setting the to address in a text field in your form then you will need to edit your UE server behavior and update the to address, use the lightning bolt icon to selet the to text field in your form. With it setup like this when the server behavior is triggered it will send a message to the address specified in the to field, then it will also send emails to each entry in bcc that is coming directly from the db. Is this how you would like it to work? If not please describe how it should be working.

Yes, to me the documentation is confusing because it doesn't show or say what we should see once we hit Finish. I can follow the dialog boxes easily enough and make the choices, but then it looks like nothing happens.

Yes, the way it should work is that I'll send the email to someone, probably myself, since it seems to want an entry in the To field. All the others will be a BCC that loops through the recordset. I also have the file set up and linked to for the Body of the message. But when I hit Finish, I see nothing in the To field or the Body text area, either in DW or in the browser. In the browser I'm getting a single blank text field...no message, no to/bcc, and no Submit button.

What I expected to see - and maybe I'm wrong about this - is the form I created, filled in with a static email in the To field, a dynamic BCC field, the body message I created, and a Submit button to actually send the message. If this is not the case, tell me what it is I should see. This is something that I hoped my client would be able to use to periodically email his membership, in addition to myself, the web master.

When UE finishes it will not do anything to the display of the page that you have applied it to, the server behavior creates the pages and server side code to make it work, it does not do anything visually to the pages.

Any form that you have will be just as it looks to you in design view in DW. If you only want to send to people in your recordset you can set the to address to be the value from the recordset and loop once per entry in the recordset.

You could have a form with whatever info you would like to show and have a submit button. If the action of the form goes to the same page you can use this submit button as the trigger for the UE server behavior.

So if the form doesn't change at all, and we don't enter anything into it manually, then I don't understand the requirement of having the form in the first place. What I mean is: I can understand creating a blank form, but do I need the table with text fields for To, CC, BCC, Submit, etc.?

I don't want all recipients to see all the "To's" - so I want the bulk of the emails sent to BCC. This is the field I have looping through the recordset. I assume this is acceptable?

Another question: do I need to recreate this page and reupload it to the server with each new message I want to mail to the membership? Is there a way to create a blank form where I or my client can write new messages, hit Submit, and then the UE server behavior happens in the background? I can envision him wanting to send monthly newsletters via UE, for example.

After messing around for a few hours this morning, I finally got it to work. All I have on the page is a Submit button, the To: field loops through the recordset. I understand that the file to update for any new message is contained in one of the email templates.

I must say, the documentation for this (and other WebAssist) products is extremely poor. You guys really need to write a step-by-step for all your products so people know what to expect, every step of the way. You say you don't need any coding or php experience, but it's just not true.

I agree great products!!!!!!!!! Horrible Documentation!

I agree, the documentation and information supplied with the products is a total waste of time. I feel like I'm constantly playing hit and miss when I try to set something up. Major waste of time!

And while I'm complaining, who else thinks some sort of free support, other than waiting for an answer in the forum, should be expected with a new purchase? I know WA have gone through some changes with regard to offering support to their clients but honestly, it's good customer support and in their best interest to keep their loyal customers happy and wanting more, not frustrated and feeling like we are being nickel and dimed to death!