For working with unimailer, you must :
You needn't to save your last operations because all is stored automatically when leaving UniMailer. Note that you must terminate the application in a standard way for maintaining all your data (Like using the Quit action from the File menu or alt-F4 under Windows environments).
All your data are stored in the directory .unimailer directory inside your HOME directory. For sample for an account name alex your data directory should be under windows c:\users\alex\.unimailer.
Item | Meaning |
---|---|
New Campaign... | Create a new mailing campaign. Note that this name will be converted into a folder name for storage. |
Delete Campaign... | Delete the current campaign. All your data for this campaign will be lost. |
Import your data... | Import your campaign data from an excel file (*.xls,*.xlsx) or a CSV file. |
Export your data... | Export your campaign data to an excel file (*.xls, *.xlsx) or a CSV file. |
Quit | Quit UniMailer, the user will have to confirm the operation |
Item | Meaning |
---|---|
Enabled all | Activate all the rows |
Disabled all | Deactivate all the rows |
Check each email syntax | Check all your emails syntax. |
Add a column | Add a data column used for the template |
Remove a column | Remove the selected data column |
Remove the selected rows | Remove the selected rows |
Fill a column | Fill a column with the same value |
Search for a row | Search a row from a data column value |
Item | Meaning |
---|---|
Load your Message | Import your message body (*.html, *.txt), you may have to choose your charset. |
Save your Message | Export your message body (*.html, *.txt), you may have to choose your charset. |
Item | Meaning |
---|---|
Start mailing | Start sending mails, the user can stop after the operation. |
Stop the current mailing | Stop sending mails, the current one will be terminated before. UniMailer will keep in memory your last operations. |
Enabled all the sent status | Enabled all the sent status |
Disabled all the sent status | Disabled all the sent status |
Previous error | Go to the previous mailing error |
Next error | Go to the next mailing error |
Change the current Email | Change the select email, it avoids to go to the data grid |
Item | Meaning |
---|---|
Preferences... | Update user preferences. Restart The application after changing |
Check the last version... | Check for the last release |
Item | Meaning |
---|---|
User Manual... | Load the manual from the UniMailer site |
Tip of the day... | Show an Unimailer tip |
Release News... | This is changelog |
Contact us... | How to contact us |
Buy online... | Purchasing an activating key and receive it instantly by mail for full usage of UniMailer. |
Register... | Insert your Activating Key |
About... | General Information about UniMailer and your system. |
Note : Since the 3.01 userdata.dat and template.dat are stored with an UTF-8 encoding.
You can copy/paste anywhere else the Home_Directory/.unimailer directory for :
The interface contains a data grid and a toolbar :
icon | meaning |
---|---|
Import your Data Grid from an Excel File (*.xls, *.xlsx) or a CSV File (with an UTF-8 encoding). | |
Export your Data Grid to an Excel File (*.xls, *.xlsx) or a CSV File (with an UTF-8 encoding). | |
Enabled all your rows (by checking the Use column) | |
Deactivate all your rows (by unchecking the User column). The deactivated rows will be ignored while the mailing. | |
Add a new data column | |
Choose an delete a data column | |
Remove a row | |
Fill a column with the same value | |
Search for a value inside a column. | |
Check all your email syntax | |
search field | Fast search inside your data columns |
The data grid contains 2 required columns :
The grid data can be exported using the action.
You can choose between an Excel file format or a CSV file format. In this last case the file encoding is UTF-8.
Note that the activated/deactivated values are stored with a special value
"true" or "false".
The import operation is done with . UniMailer will search for a @ character for detected your Email column. If it doesn't detect this character inside your first line, then it will use this line as your column names. If you use a CSV file format your file encoding must be in UTF-8. You can use a ";" or "," separator.
Each import/export operations are also available from the File menu.
Here a sample of file for the import operation in a CSV file format.
Email;Enabled;First;Last;Phone;Address;City;Postal
aaa@hotmail.com;true;Sarah;McRTYe;11111;#555 28 Helene Street North;Mississauga;REZA
bbb@operamzz.com;true;Arthur;Hanli;22222;"16 Hogarth Ave;";Toronto;TYUE
ccc@utorozz.ca;true;Johanna;John;44444;10 Bay St. Suite 1110;Toronto;HYRE
Note that the column
separator is the ';' . It is better to put a value
'true' for the Use column or to not put this column.
You can enable (if the Use
column value is missing or has a 'false' value) all your imported lines
using the action
Note : UniMailer detects you have an HTML document by searching a content "<html". So you must have this html tag for your HTML documents.
When importing your message body, UniMailer will store in memory your message file path. When using an HTML content, you may have some images with relative paths, so UniMailer will need to find each image starting from your message path. You can update this image location from this icon :
Here a sample of HTML content with an image :
<html>
<body>
Dear Customer
<img src="hello.jpg">
</body>
</html>
We have an image "hello.jpg" which is located at the same location path of our imported document, so UniMailer will keep in memory this path because it will need to get and send this image for the mailing part.
A parameter is a way to personalize each mail. A parameter is available
in a plain text or HTML document under the following format : ${parameter_name}. A parameter_name is provided by the
Data grid (the first tab) and is bound to a data column. For sample if
I have a data column called "title" then I can use a parameter ${title} anywhere in the final message. Note that you must check for
lowercase/uppercase for matching exactly the parameter name.
When editing your mail message using your favorite HTML editor, you
must insert yourself while editing the parameters. By editing a plain
text, you can insert a parameter using the following action . You can check your parameters
(controlling they are valid ones) by clicking on the action.
While sending a mail, each parameter is replaced by the real value from
the data grid (the first tab), if an error occurs (a wrong parameter
name), the mailing process is stopped and you can fix your message body.
Note also that you can control your parameter inside an HTML preview tab,
this part will replace each parameter by a default value.
You can use parameters for any fields of the message tab (including the
CC, BCC, header).
icon | mearning |
---|---|
Import a plain text or an HTML document. You may have to choose a valid encoding inside the file chooser dialog | |
Export your message body. You may have to choose a valid encoding inside the file chooser dialog | |
Undo | |
Redo | |
Cut the selection | |
Copy the selection | |
Paste the selection | |
Search and/or Replace | |
Add a data column value. This is choosen from the data grid columns. | |
Check your data column value. |
The role of the configuration is to set your SMTP server, this server is a standard way to send mails. If you don't know this server, you must ask to your internet provider or to your network administrator. Mostly, you just need to insert the location of your SMTP server but you may also insert a login and password. Most of the time this server host start by smtp.YourHost.. If you don't know how to find this information, look at the properties of your favorite mail manager (like outlook), this is bound to an account or mail account.
The test email field must contain an email account for checking that unimailer can send mails without problem, use for this test the send button.
The last part will set particular options like the message encoding (let DEFAULT if you don't know) and a wait option useful when you provider doesn't accept too many mails for a delay.
A configuration is per campaign, however you can import any SMTP configuration from another campaign using this icon :
After checking your SMTP configuration, it is important to test your final mail as your customer using your Test tab. In this tab, you just have to specify a valid mail for checking the result. UniMailer will notify any problems inside the Result field.
Note : UniMailer will insert the following footer if you use it as a non registered user. After activating your version, this message will disappear.
This message has been sent with the evaluation version of Unimailer (http://www.unimailer.com)
For mailing your current campaign, you must activate the following action . This action is available in the mailing menu too. The goal of this action is to start the mailing process. So UniMailer will get each data row and will send the result mail.
This action will navigate inside your data grid
ignoring disabled items (in black) AND already sent items (when this is
sent several times). Each time a row is processed the sent flag is
set.
After sending, you may interrupt at any moment the current mailing using the action. This action cannot
interrupt the current mail and it will interrupt the mailing processing
for the next mail. Note that after stopping you can retry with the action which will restart from the
first non sent mail. UniMailer doesn't send the same mail several times for one user target.
If you meet errors, it can be a normal case so check the following
cases :