Parameters & Configuration

Parameters & Configuration:

Clicking on the   button will open the parameters window:

Install, Uninstall & Upgrade

Install, Uninstall & Upgrade

Install

Emails manager pro is installed via Joomla normal installation. During the installation process, Some plugins will be installed as well and enabled.

Once Emails Manager Pro is installed, the following configuration parameters (Click the "parameters" button under components->interamind VMEM Pro) need to be set, to ensure proper work:

• Download ID  - enter the download ID as received in the download mail.
• Test parameters - enter email address, order ID, user and product (only for VM2 version)
• Select the final order statuses and the pending order status in your store.
• Select the store administrators groups.

hit "save" and refresh. The invalid license message should disappear.

Note: If you are upgrading from older version of Email Manager Pro, and you have customized tpl files, please back them up before the installation, and merge your modifications again after the installation.

Uninstall

Uninstall is done via Joomla components uninstall.

The uninstall process will remove the related plugins, but will leave the data, so if you wish to re-install the Emails Manager Pro, you will not lose templates and rules.

Upgrade

Emails Manager Pro installation packages are from type "upgrade", meaning you do not have to uninstall the old component before installing the new one. Simply install the latest version and let Emails Manager Pro do the upgrade for you.

Manual

Manual

VM Emails manager pro has 3 top menu buttons:

1. Email templates - Create, edit and manage email templates
2. Rule list - Create, edit, manage and test campaign rules
3. Maintenance - Perform maintenance tasks

Email Templates

Here you can create, edit and manage email templates and personalize them by adding them smart tags.

Toolbar buttons

New - Create new template

Edit - Edit the selected template

Cancel - Cancel action

Delete - Delete the selected templates

Parameters - Open configuration page - see below

Help - Open the support and help page - see below

Create new email template

Clicking on the "new" button will open the "New template" form. This page has 2 fields:

Name - Enter the template's name

Rule's trigger - Select the trigger for the rule that will use this template, e.g. "Order followup", "Shopping cart abandonment" etc. It is important to select the proper trigger, became it controls which smart tags will be available for this template in the next page. For example, shopping cart related template can use different smart tags than order related, or user related templates.

Clicking on "Apply" will create the new template. The user is then redirected to the edit page.

Clicking on "Cancel" will cancel the action and redirect the user to the main templates page.

Edit email template

The edit page id divided into 2 sections, On the right there is the template edit zone, while on the left side you can find the smart tags lists, to select from.

Editing an email template is pretty intuitive. Use the editor to edit the template layout, text and style. Copy/paste from the tags list smart tags to personalize your email. Once finished, click on "Save" to save your template and go back to the main templates page. Clicking on "Cancel" will go back without saving.

Now that the template is created, it can be used in a rule.

Rules

A rule is an entity combined of trigger, parameters, conditions and email template, for sending targeted emails to customers when an event is fired. For example, a rule can send an email (template) to customers that their order is stuck in pending status (Trigger) for more than 2 hours (parameter). Moreover. the emil can be sent only to those customers that ordered product from category X or that the order total is more than Y (conditions).

The main rules list page will show the a of existing rules.

Create new rule

Clicking on the "New" button will opent the new rule page

Name - Enter the rule's name

Rule's trigger - Select what will be the event that will trigger this rule

Template - Select the email template that will be send by this rule

Clicking on "Apply" will create the new rule. The user is then redirected to the rule edit page.

Clicking on "Cancel" will cancel the action and redirect the user to the main rules list page.

Edit rule

In the rule's edit page, you can change the rule's parameters and conditions in order to control exactly if, when and to whom this email will be sent to.

The rule's edit screen is divided into 3 main areas:

Rule Name - Contains, beside the rule's name, the rule's basic parameters, including:

• Template - select the html template that the emails will be based on. Click on "edit template" in order to open the template edit page in a new window/tab.
• To, CC, Bcc - Enter lists of email addresses that will receive a copy of this email, same like any other email software. Note that these fields are optional. Unless set differently, the email will be sent automatically to the rule's default user, for example, order confirmation emails will be always sent to the customer that placed the order.
• Enabled - Show/set the rule state. Disabled rules will not be triggered and no emails will be sent.
• Email to Joomla administrators - Send a copy of the email to all users that belong to the administrator and super administrator groups.
• Email to VM store administrators - Send a copy of the email to all users that belong to user groups as configured in the component configuration.
• From email - The email address that the recipient will see as the sender. If you leave this empty, it will take the email address from the store configuration.
• From name - The name that the recipient will see as the sender. If you leave this field empty, it will take the store name.

Rule parameters - This section can be different from rule to rule, and can have the following fields:

• Disable default recipient - Check this to prevent the default recipient from receiving the email. This is useful in cases where you want to the email to be triggered by a real event, for example like "order changed status to confirm", but you do not want the customer, e.g. Email to drop shipper.
• Days after order placed - Usually in timer based rules, like "order followup", "user registration followup", "inactive customers", "abandoned cart recovery" and so on. Set the time, in which after it the email will be sent.
• Do not send an email if the customer already received an email in the past week - Check this, in order to prevent over loading your customers with emails from you. Notice that carefully built targeted campaigns, will lower the risk for that.
• Do not send an email if customer placed an order during the followup period - Sometimes you may want to prevent order followup email to customer if he placed another order in that time. Think about a case of an email that is sent to customers 2 weeks after the purchase, with coupon to complementary product. You probably want to hold that email if the customer already placed an order in that time.
• Email language - Select the language that Virtuemart text will be translated to. Options are: User default language, Front default language, Back default language, and names of each of the languages installed.

Rules conditions (Add new condition)

Here you can add conditions that will control if and to whom the email will be sent. Normally, you would select a condition, operator and value. The list of available conditions can be different from rule to rule. Available conditions are:

• Orders count - Returns the total number of orders (regardless of order status), that this customer has placed.
• Complete orders count -Returns the total number of orders that reached final status.
• Product category - Returns the categories of products that this order contains.
• Order total - Returns the total amount of this order.
• Customer - Returns the default customer of this rule.
• Customer total - Returns the total amount this customer spent in your store.
• Shopper group - Returns the shopper group that this customer belongs to.
• Order status - Returns the status of this order
• Order ID - returns the current order ID.
• Vendor - Returns the vendors that products in this order belongs to - this is useful for emails to drop shippers.
• Manufacturer -Returns the manufacturers that products in this order belongs to.
• Product - Returns the products of this order.
• Payment method - Returns the payment method name (VM2)/code (VM1) that was used in this order.
• Cart product - Returns the products in the current cart - useful for abandoned cart recovery emails. 
• Cart total -Returns the total amount of this cart.
• Cart product category -Returns the categories of products that this cart contains.

Test your rules

Once rule is configured, you would probably want to test it. There are 3 ways to test rules:

1. Test mode - Clicking on the will save the rule and then will send it, according to the test parameters in the component's configuration. Sending test email is different if the rule is for one of Virtuemart standard emails, or some other trigger based email. For standard emails rule, a single email will be rendered and sent, while for trigger based rules, the test process will look for the first 3 matches to rule conditions (orders, users or carts) and will send an email to them. No email will be sent to the rule's "real" recipient.
2. Semi-live mode - With this technique you simply enable the rule and allow Virtuemart Emails Manager pro to execute it as normal. In order to put the rule in "test mode", you should check the box saying: "Disable default recipient" and put your email address in the "To" box instead. This way, emails will be generated and sent as normal, but instead to be sent to your customer, they will be sent to you, so you can detect problems quickly. Once you are happy with the emails, remove yourself from the "To" box, and uncheck "Disable default recipient". Note that you probably do not want to use this technique for Virtuemart standard emails, like order confirmation emails etc.
3. Live mode - You may want, in some of the rules at least, to add your email address in the BCC box. This will help you detect problems with emails, as well as to be more aware of which email your customers receive from you.

For testing rules that have time interval parameter, such as order followup, abandoned cart or registration followup, you may want to put very small interval that will save you the need to wait long time before the rule will be executed. For example, you can put 0.01 hours (36 seconds) in the abandoned cart rule when you test it.
Note that you may have to wait few minutes, because VMEM Pro scheduler is being triggered approximately every 5 minutes.

Maintenance

Clicking on the "Maintenance" button will open the following screen:

Note: If you do not have Emails manager (light version) installed, the "Import templates" part will not be displayed.

Re-fetch license file from server - In case of license issues, you can click on this button to reset the license file.

Import templates from Emails manager - If you used Emails manager in the past and you want to import the templates to Emails manager pro, select the templates you want to import and then click on "Import". The imported templates will be available in the templates list menu.

FAQ

FAQ

Q: Do I need to purchase also the targeted marketing plugin if I want to be able to add conditional content to my emails?
A: No, VMEM Pro already includes the targeted marketing plugin, as well as our dynamic coupons and AWO dynamic coupons plugins. These plugins will be installed and enabled automatically during the installation process.

Q: I installed VMEM Pro and I keep getting the "License is not valid" message.
A: Open the configuration window by clicking on "Parameters" button on the upper right corner. Enter the download ID you received in the download email into the download ID input box. Hit the "save" button and refresh once or twice. If the "Invalid License" message keeps showing, click on "Maintenance" and then on "Re-fetch license file from server". Refresh few times until you see that tne message is not showing anymore. If problem was not solve, please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Q: The VirtueMart standard (transactional) emails rules are enabled, but the emails that are sent are Virtuemart's default and not my templates.
A: When VMEM Pro is installed for the first time, these rules are disabled by configuration in order to avoid sending emails from templates and rules that are not tested yet. Once you tested these rules and happy with the results, open the configuration window by clicking on "Parameters" button on the upper right corner. Under "Control email sending" there are parameters for disabling the different rules. Enable them to allow VMEM Pro to send the emails. See more in the "Manual" tab.

Q:  How can I be sure that emails are getting sent OK?
A: Simply add your email address to the "BCC" field in the rules you want to check. This way you will get a copy of the emails.

Q: I'm getting the following message: "Please replace the test user id and order id in the configuration to valid values", what should I do?
A: Open the configuration window by clicking on "Parameters" button on the upper right corner. Enter valid order ID in the " Test order ID" field and select a user in the " Test user name" field. Click on save.

Q: I upgraded from VM Emails Manager, and I have real nice email templates. Is there a way to import them to VM Emails Manager Pro?
A: Impoting templates from Emails Manager to Emails Manager pro is easy. It is done from the "Maintenance" menu under the installed component. See the "Manual" tab for more information.

Q: The emails in my VirtueMart are customized to my needs. Is it possible to import them as templates in Virtuemart Emails Manager Pro?
A: Yes. In order to import an email, first send it to yourself. Once you have the email, go to "Email templates" under "InteraMind Vmem Pro" in your Joomla, and create new template (make sure to select the right trigger type). Now copy/paste the email to the editor. The last step is to replace the data with smart tags. That's it.

Q: I installed VritueMart Emails Manager Pro, but I don't know what rules should I create, and what emails should I send, without being pushy
A: Depending on your type of business and your website visits pattern, there are few things you can start with:

1. If your shop suffers from abandoned carts and pending orders that are not completed, you definitely want to send reminders to these (potential) customers. Mostly, cart/order is abandoned for very simple reasons like high shipping rates, difficulties in payment process and so on. Catching these customers at the right moment and solving the problem can recover the order. Statistics are very high in such cases.
2. Again, depending on your business, if you have registered customers that have not placed any order, you may want to build a rule that will send them an email few days after registration, asking about the problem and offering help.
3. Another option can be followup on your customers after the purchase to see how they use the product, if they need any assistance, asking for a review, recommend on complementary products and so on.
4. If, for example, you sell consumer products that your customers usually buy repeatedly, like printers toner or dog food, you can send an email to inactive customers, asking them why they stop buying and how can you assist them with their next buy.

 All these examples are not intrusive, like monthly newsletter that is sent to all customers, whether they want it or not. Here you send emails with the right message at the right time, and only to customers that can benefit from it. This brings up the odds that the email will be read and as a result the customer will be happier and eventually more loyal.

Q: Abandoned cart recovery rule doesn't work on my Virtuemart Email Manager Pro for VM2.
A: VM2 handles carts differently than how VM previous versions did. Now carts are saved only in the session, so for VMEM Pro to be able to work with abandoned carts, you need to make sure that in Joomla configuration:

1. Sessions are saved in database.
2. Session timeout is longer than the time you set in the abandoned cart rule, e.g. if you set the abandoned cart parameter to 1 hour, Joomla session timeout should be 60 minutes or more, preferably 90 minutes.

Change Log

Change Log