While we are still working on 1-2-All 5.0 – we would like to share a couple of the changes and improvements that will be delivered in this next version.  This is our largest product update to date (across our entire product line) so there is a lot of information to cover.  This post is just a preview of some of the exciting new features & changes that will soon be available…

Multi-List Management

Prior to 1-2-All 5.0 every action was typically specific to a list.  With 5.0 we are dramatically switching the process so that all options can affect multiple lists (if you should choose to do so.)  When you log in you will no longer be forced to select a list before starting to import, send, etc..  This sounds like a minor change, however after using the new version you will find a lot of time saved and an increase in general usability from this adjustment.

Subscriber Filtering

1-2-All has had decent subscriber filtering (allows you to segment your list into specific conditional groups) but with 5.0 you will be able to take filtering to an entirely new level.  In addition to filtering based off subscriber data you will be able to filter off nearly any action the subscriber has taken.  Thus you can filter your list down to users who unsubscribed from one list, subscribed to another, read a specific campaign, and clicked on a specific link on a specific day.  Combine that with our advanced and/or grouping options along with being able to apply filters (as always) to any type of campaign and mailing that is being sent out – including auto responders.

Subscriber & List Actions

An existing feature that you may have overlooked in the past are subscriber & list actions.  Currently you can set specific things to happen based on certain actions the subscriber takes.  For instance when a subscriber unsubscribes from one list you may want to automatically remove them from other lists as well.  We are building this existing feature into something much more comprehensive.  Currently actions are based on subscriptions/unsubscriptions.  With 5.0 you will be able to set specific changes/actions based on any action the subscriber takes.  This includes subscribe/unsubscribe, reads/link tracking, forwarding mailings to friends, and more!

Advanced Message Options

Personalizing each mailing you send has always been an important feature.  We are taking this to a new level by offering dynamic variables and conditional content.

Dynamic variables mean that you can take a current personalization tag (such as %TODAY%) and alter it dynamically (such as %TODAY+2%.)

Conditional content will allow you to show certain parts of the message depending on the subscribers details.  Much like sending filters but for content.  You can think of this as if you were able to add if/else statements throughout the content of your mailings.

Reporting

I am quite excited about the new reporting options that will be available in version 5.0.  We have an extensive list of new reports along with individual report options.   These are significant enhancements in the way that you can analyze campaigns, past mailings, list reports, user reports, and more…  This is a major section to discuss so we will be releasing more information about this soon.

In addition to the large number of new internal reports you will also find many options to export data (for external analysis) along with Google Analytics integration.

User Management

New user management options will simplify the way permissions are set along with making it much easier to resell 1-2-All as a hosted solution.  The basic ideas of “accounts” and “users” remain the same but we will be introducing new user group options along with a number of new user/account limits/settings

Integration & Public Options

Subscription forms are getting a make over with new style options along with new “completion” options.  You will now be able to redirect to different URL’s, show a custom message, or let it go to the defaults.  You will also have multiple integration options for each subscription form.  Such as embedding it into your current site, popup, link to it, etc..

Database sync (for bringing in subscribers from external databases) now supports MySQL, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL.  We have added a number of new options for each sync and you can even write custom SQL queries.

The public section of 1-2-All has always been an odd issue for many clients.  While they would like the public section, many users want to restrict it down to a list or user account.  We have solved this dilemma.  There is now a general public section, list specific public section,  and an account/user specific section.  Each type of section can be enabled or disabled and everything is SEO friendly.

Sending Methods

You will find new sending settings.  We are doing away with some of the more complex settings and replacing them with easier to use options.  Functionality will not be lost by doing this.  You will now be able to set a specific number of emails to send per hour without having to specify how many messages to send before doing pauses.

1-2-All currently supports multiple sending methods – such as rotating through multiple SMTP servers when sending.   1-2-All 5.0 will also let you choose which sending methods/SMTP servers are used for each account.  That allows you to have different sending methods for each account/user if needed.

Templates

We are including a large number of free email templates that will be pre-loaded into 1-2-All 5.0.  New options will include highly requested features such as system wide templates, easier options to add purchased templates, and more.

Our new template system along with our new editing and message creation options will allow you to lock parts of the template.  Ensuring that your client does not accidentally disrupt the general design and only changes what is needed to be changed.

Add-Ons

As we extended and updated every other section of the software – we have done the same with the 1-2-All add-ons.

A/B Split has been revamped and will prove to be quite exciting compared to the current version.  The update will allow truly advanced split testing and will be included for free as part of the 1-2-All product.

AutoRemind is more integrated then ever. EmailCheck has new integration areas and will soon have new reports shown when you run it. ActiveRSS will support easier custom templates.  We also have a couple of new add-ons (that have been requested by numerous clients) that will be announced during the beta.

Extendability

While we worked on planning and developing 5.0  we have kept extendability on our minds.  We will be doing this with multiple methods.  Firstly we will be releasing 1-2-All with 99% of the files unencoded. This will allow a great number of changes.

We are re-working how language files can be translated.  The changes will allow you quickly be able to translate a section (such as the public section) without having to sift through the text for the admin section.

With the release of 1-2-All 5.0 beta we will begin to release API documentation as well.

New Support Documentation

As the product advances we are committed to making sure everything is user friendly and easy to use.  There are always times where a little more assistance/help docs are required.  You will find in-line help documentation (that is unbranded) throughout the software.  We will also be releasing quick start guides (both branded and non-branded for the resellers) along with an extensive collection of articles and video walk-throughs.

More to come….

This post is only scratching at the surface of what is to come with 1-2-All 5.0. We will be posting more specifics on each area along with new screen shots in the near future.  There are a lot of new items and changes that we will be discussing in great detail.

Please note that while we are nearing a beta we do not have a set date at this time.  We choose not to specify an exact release date as we would much rather prefer to ensure the product is complete and stable before releasing.  We do however expect the beta to be released sometime in Quarter 1 of this year.  Please subscribe to our blog or newsletter to be kept up to date with this.

As we are developing the new versions of both Email Marketing and Help Desk we have put a great amount of detail into usability.  The term usability is often used to simply describe the user interface.  But, the term encompasses a much larger area of software development.

A specific case in our recent development is cron management.  A number of our applications require you to setup a cron job.  In some cases you may need to setup 3 or 4 cronjobs depending on the features you are using.This is something that can be a pain for our users.  Once you setup the application you should not have to do more work when you start using a feature or purchase an add-on.  Thus we are designing our new cron management feature.  Our new cron management feature serves 2 primary purposes:

1. Ability to have a single cron – yet have different timed events.  This means that while you will only have one cron that you have to setup, our software can choose to execute different actions at different time intervals.
2. Improve the process of expanding your application and upgrading.  With this new feature in place you will not need to manually add any crons or events if you wish to use extra features, new add-ons, etc..

Those 2 purposes are the primary objectives of this feature and a great example of improving usability.   This feature will debut in Email Marketing 5 and Help Desk 3.

It has been a while since the last major update of Knowledge Management. For the last couple of months we have been working on a major update.  A core part of this update is a complete rewrite of Knowledge Management’s backend.

We’ve optimized the database to handle much more data with greater speed, no more slow pages when there are a lot of articles and/or categories. Speaking of articles and categories, icons and tags can now be added as well as SEO urls: all categories and articles will have “search friendly” URLS that include article/category titles.

Knowledge Management will include better management features including simplified importing and syncing as well as improved content management. Ajax enabled features will eliminate the need to reload pages for minor actions, meaning increased page optimization and usability.

The admin side of Knowledge Management is almost done and we’re working to catch up on the public end. A major new feature on the public side is live edit, you can double click the article title/content (or category’s title/description) and edit it right there!

We are in the process of starting work for Email Marketing 5.0. This will be a major update to the ActiveCampaign Email Marketing product.

Many updates and new features have already been planned.  You can expect a great deal of improvement in managing the entire system (all users/lists), many usability updates, and many new features that will be announced at a later date.

While we have our plans for Email Marketing 5.0, we really want to know what YOU want. Please take a couple of minutes to let us know what you think.  Let us know what you would want changed, what you wish could be added, general feedback/comments, etc..    Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will be taken into consideration for Email Marketing 5.0.

• Click here to let us know what you would like to see in 1-2-All 5.0

If you should have any general concerns or questions please let us know at info@activecampaign.com. In the meantime, you can learn more about effective email marketing by reading our email marketing articles.

Thanks for your continual support of ActiveCampaign!

Jason F. VandeBoom

We have been working on a large structural and design change to the Email Marketing message archive page. We plan to eliminate a lot of the common annoyances with this page and introduce a number of time saving features. It has been a while since the archive page has seen any design update. We have added features throughout the years, however these new features have lost some value by being hard to find/utilize.

Below you will see how the basic structure of the page will appear. There is still work to be done (both code and design) however the end result will be an extensive update in terms of usability and general work-flow. Viewing, analyzing, and exporting any and all relevant statistics should be quick and easy.

OLD

NEW

Do you have any feedback regarding the message archive page? Features missing, email design problems, etc..? Let us know!

We are planning on making some changes and updating some areas visually for ActiveCampaign Email Marketing Software.

What section would you like to have looked into? Do you think a rework is needed for reports? Email template management? How about the sending process? Let us know any areas that you or your clients currently find confusing or that could be improved. Lets keep all suggestions to design/usability items at this time.

As always – your feedback will be taken into great consideration.

The SwiftTraction Beta got another new report today along the same lines as yesterday’s addition. This one displays a comparison of the times that each of your users has spent performing a particular action, and compares that time to any estimates you’ve alloted for the Action.

While our test data isn’t extremely comprehensive at the moment, this screenshot can give you a bit of an idea of what you’re working with. Each Project can have any number of Actions, and you can set a projected amount of time for each of the individual Actions. The time estimate for the whole project is just the sum of all of the actions within the project.

There been some discussion around here about how to the clarity of these labels in SwiftTraction. To break it down:

1. A Projectis a set of Actions & Activities
2. An Action is a general type of action you can take
3. An Activity is a specific instance of an Action

For those of you interested in SwiftTraction as a time management tool: how do these concepts and labels work for you? What do you like or dislike about them, and how would you like to see them evolve over the course of SwiftTraction’s development? Some of us have been thinking that “Action” & “Activity” should be switched, so that an “Activity” is the category of task and an “Action” is a single instance of performing it.

We’re thinking seriously about how to structure the workflow of SwiftTraction right now, centering mainly on the development of wizards for setting up users and user groups, as well as projects. We’d like to hear about your ideal workflow for setting up and managing your projects. So, if you haven’t already, grab a copy of the beta and let us know what you like and what you don’t in terms of workflow and usability.

Today we deployed our new site design.

This is the first phase of changes to our site. We aimed to improve the flow and structure of the site to make your browsing experience a happy and easy experience. Another significant change is in regards to our support center where we changed how the “support center” was presented and how you contact support. With the changes today we are now able to continue to work on some upcoming site changes that should improve your overall experience with ActiveCampaign web software.

While we did significant client/usability research we always wish to know what you think. Let us know if you are having problems, dislike something, or have something good to say! One good place to check for info is our new email marketing articles section, which we’ll build out with specific tips on how to improve your email marketing campaigns.

We also released a new version of 1-2-All recently that includes an option to use a new beta email sending engine.

Should you have any questions, comments, or feedback just let us know!

We just released Help Desk Software 2.63.2 and it introduces a rather handy new “feature.”  With the latest version the public side is entirely CSS based. That should help a lot with template customizations and upgrading Help Desk Software (with customizations kept). We also added an extended Reset Desk feature that now allows you to choose what part of the desk you wish to reset (so you can choose to keep CSS customizations, but to reset templates, for instance).

Also: Please note that there is no longer a limit on satellite desks!   Additionally, the restrictions for lite licenses have decreased allowing you more departments and email parsers than before.

Minor changes were made to the admin side as we slowly roll out some design and layout changes.  We are continuing to make minor changes to increase the usability and style.

If you should have any questions or feedback regarding our recent changes just let us know!

Email Marketing  4.52.7 has been released. While it is a minor release we have a number of design & interface updates that you should notice.

The largest change with the latest update would have to be the new style of navigation. No longer do we have the rollover navigation utilizing the horizontal sub-navigation. Many of you will be glad to see we have re-implemented the drop down style navigation and we now require a click for the sub-navigation to display. Other minor graphical and size/positioning changes can be seen throughout the app as we move to increase the usability and functionality of Email Marketing, allowing you to spend more time working on your email templates and email copywriting.

Design updates aside, we also included the following:

• Fixed installer problems
• Fixed a bug with textarea custom field
• Fixed PHP short-tags suppport in cpaint
• Added AJAX to queue page so it doesn’t refresh every time
• Added checks not to put 0 lists/subscriberss/messages per page
• New language strings

Let us know what you think of the new navigation. Prefer the old? Don’t like either? Let us know.