Method Community

Is it possible to improve on the contents and appearance of a follow up email message? For example, we'd like to include more info from the customer record - email, city, etc. - to make the email more self-contained, and prevent the recipient from having to log in to get enough detail to act on the follow up.

Thanks.

Lee Taylor

 Hey Lee,

All you need to do is edit the template that is being used on that screen. I'll start you off, under the customize tab, in the screen list tablink, you will find "EmailTemplate". The "Follow up Activity" template can be edited from this screen. In order to get the information specific to each user, you will need to use merged fields. Look through the Save & Complete button (on the activity screen) to see examples of using merged fields with the character function.

This should help!

Ryan -- I can get as far as the EmailTemplate, but there doesn't appear to be any way to specify the Follow Up Activity template - I'm offered the opportunity to replace the link to the generic "EmailTemplate" with the new one, but that doesn't seem like the way to go. Am I to create a new template without any links, and then customize the Activites/Follow Up screen, somehow?

 Hey Lee,

From what you are saying it sounds like you have copied the EmailTemplate screen. That's not what I had in mind for editing this email. Instead of editing the screen, click on View, this will allow you to use the screen. Once you have it shown, you can select the email template from the grid, at this point you can edit the email template.

Keep me updated!

Okay, I got to the right message template. I've experimented with typing in a new field header and field name, but the formatting seems pretty haphazard, and those little <X> control gizmos are downright dangerous - I've had to quit the edit half-dozen times because I inadvertantly wiped something out. What's the trick to adding

Contact Email    Activity.ContactEmail

...underneath the Contact Phone lookup field?

And what image format does this template accept? I put in a small jpg logo, and it said the format was unacceptable. (Edit: Never mind that part, I had a bad URL; my jpg uploaded fine, once I was pointing to it correctly.)

 Hey Lee,

I am trying to find out the exact list of formats, I will update this thread as soon as I get it. How large is the file you tried to upload? I am also working to find out if we have a size limit for this plug-in.

Try changing the file type as this may decrease the file size, I will keep you up to date!

Ryan -- File format is no longer an issue; as noted in my edit to previous post, I had a bad path to the image. The image is now showing up when I create a follow up, but when the email arrives at its destination the image is missing. In the source code of a follow up email, I see the following, which looks like an incomplete path to the image:

 o:allowoverlap="f">
 <v:imagedata src="/METHOD/AccountPages/TemplateCRMEditionOnline/Images/TTI_logo_DVDMenu.jpeg" />
 <w:wrap type="square"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><![if !vml]><img width=32 height=32
src="/METH

I'll pull the images out of the template for now, but it would be nice to know when/if this is fixed, or if there's another cause.

Lee

 Hey Lee,

I am looking into this, I will post shortly.

[Topic bump]

Ryan, just checking in - any news on the image thing?

 Hey Lee,

Give it a try again today and let me know, I've tested this again today and it's now working fine.

When did you create the template that you're having problems with?

Was it on the same day you tested it out? Or did  you create it and go back a few days later and try to use it?

Well, I don't know where February went, exactly, but let's pick up where we left off, from a slightly different angle.  I've created a new email template *today* called "Welcome Providers" that we want to send out to new dealers when they join our "network." (So this is a garden-variety email template, not a 'system' email like the follow-up message.)

1. Email merge fields. I would like to include in the email template a series of merge fields that pull in SalesRep.SalesRepName, SalesRep.Phone, SalesRep.RepEmail. (So I can say "Your Account Manager contact info is listed below..." in my message to my new dealer.)

I'm guessing that these are the correct merge names, based on looking at the Sales Rep table/fields - but there's no direct correlation to the SalesRep fields available in QuickBooks, so far as I can tell. That is, when I get it to work somewhat, I get the

As you suggested, I 'looked through' the Save & New button to its actions and properties (by making a copy of the Activity screen, so that I could get down into the actions and properties of the various parts). I saved screen shots, but since I'm no programmer, it's not intuitive to me: I'm guessing that I have to add actions to the Save & New button on the 'live' Activity screen such that I Retrieve Value(s) from the SaleRep table and then Replace Email Template Fields to pull in those values? (I searched the blog but didn't find any videos on this, so if you have an explanation in the library somewhere, please point me to it.)

2. Embedded Images. I embedded an image in the template, stored it on your server and pointed to it -- but it isn't coming through. (Template was created this afternoon.) I don't know if there's a time delay on that working, or what -- but I've sent you a copy of the latest version, so you can look at the source code. When I get it in my Outlook, the image is missing, and the code points to a relative location (<img src="/METHOD/AccountPages/TemplateCRMEditionOnline/Images/TTI_logo_rounded_email.jpg" alt="" align="left">) that of course won't resolve on anyone's system.

3. Email attachments? Lastly, a simple one - I don't see any way to attach PDFs or other files to a Method-generated email. Why is that?

Thanks...

Lee

 Hey Lee, 

Sorry for the delay I wanted to do some testing on my end so I had up to date answers for you.

 We do not have anything written to help out with merged fields at the moment. I will look into getting a webinar created that will include this topic. You are on the right track, you do need to add an action to replace the values you entered into the template. The action is called “Character function”, you will need a character function for each table you need to pull from. A great example of this is on the New Activity screen, if you look on that screen you can see how we designed our merged field section.

How do you add the image to the template? When I inserted the image into the template and saved it. I went to an activity and sent an email. I see the picture fine. Outline your steps and I may be able to help figure out what went wrong.

 Currently you can attach files to an email sent from Method. You will need to customize the page to include a field for “File Attachment”. Once this field is on the table, you can upload your file and save it as an action result. When you use the action “Generate Email”, you will see a section for “File Attachment” with some dropdown options. Take a look and you should be able to figure it out.

 If you want to get consulting time to get help with all of this, please contact me and we can book something.

Hope this help you out

Thanks, Ryan...

I'll keep digging on the Character Function, and let you know if I need help.

Do you want me to email you directly with my image-embedding process, or post it here?

Thanks for the file attachment guidance. I'll give it a try.

Lee

 Hey Lee,

You can post it here, I'll reply when I see you post.

New questions & issues:

I created a new Activity(2) screen and customized the Complete, Save & Close button to include two new Character Function calls for the Contacts and SalesRep tables, so that I can use their fields for merging. (Copied them from the CF call for the Customer table, and inserted just after it in the If/Then sequence.) I want to use this screen and its functions from the Edit / All Contacts (sub)screen - so that we can use our customized email templates with new activities.

1) How do I invoke Activity(2) from the Add/Edit all Contacts screen? (Or otherwise make the same edits to the New Activities... button there?)

2) I created a new email template that successfully merges Customer and Contact data - but I can't get the Sales Rep data to merge in. Is there some syntax other than "SalesRep.SalesRepName" that I should use?

3) Is there a way to replicate the Complete, Save & Close button/function on either the Send Email or Follow Up screens (or both), so that I don't have to train the staff they have to remember to return to the Activity screen to record the full activity?

Other points:

+ The editing interface for creating an email template was very flaky. For example, the Add Link function locked up most of the time, and when it didn't, it made no changes to the template. I had to add the link HTML by hand in HTML mode. Why is that?

+ I could not store an image on your server; every attempt failed, so I ended up linking to an image URL for now. I got the message:

Could not find a part of the path 'C:\MethodData\MethodIntegrationWeb\AccountPages\TemplateOnline\Images\GripRepositionRetrain.gif'.

Thanks. I'll post more questions later.

Lee