3) researched Shelby Communicator - Group E-mail
A) email sender can be customized for each report
need
i) smtp server
a) tried comcast - failed
b) tried calvarydover - failed
ii) user name
a) tried name - failed
b) tried email - failed
iii) password
B) can send file - newsletter
C) can send file w/ merge fields
D) connection w/ Internet/Email currently down - may have affected success
i) restablished internet connection
ii) tried again
E) Sucess!! - screen shots
i) Communicator
ii) Send Mail Info
iii) Email Info
iv) Edit/View File
v) Selections Server
v) result
F) Error Msg -
i) deleted report
ii) tried again
iii) still received error message
iv) researched via SOS - no success
a) found - CAUTION: Before using this report to send out large groups of e-mails, check with your network administrator or Internet Service Provider to determine limitations imposed on the number of e-mails which may be sent at one time. While Shelby v5 can generate as many e-mails as you wish, your ISP or local mail server may only process a limited number of e-mails, in order to safeguard against spam. For more details about these limitations, answer Link to view Answer 504, E-mail Utility Comparison.
v) called Shelby Support
*) went over report setup
*) on hold
*) v 5.6.1100 intermittent for sending html files
*) need to update
vi) sent as text - Success!!
G) tried again sending as SMTP - successful
i) sent email to staff
ii) noticed ‘-’ after name via merge field
a) use instead of ‘,’
*) how would it know its the email greeting
*) deleted ‘Dear [Full Name]
*) replaced w/ [Salutation] [Last Name]
*) no ‘-’
*) added [FullName] under ‘Dear [Salutation] [Last Name]
*) ‘-’ appeared after [FullName] - programmed for greeting purposes
H) Applications
i) newsletters
ii) visitors letters
iii) greeters
iv) YA events
v) Inform
vi) youth
vii) etc…
PrintThis
Years ago I was excited about ShelbyCommunicator. In practice, we never use it! This is true about both my current and prior church. We do use Group Email SMTP, but by itself.
ShelbyCommunicator suffers from two critical flaws at least. It doesn’t care what someone’s preferred method of communication might be. It doesn’t handle bounced emails or allow for a workflow that handles bounced emails.
It’s primary use (emails/labels) was pretty much replaced by the Mail Merge button.
In practice, I’ve found that the following actually happens:
#1 People send an email and if some records don’t get it, tough.
#2 People use the mail merge button in membership, send emails, then make calls.
#3 People use the mail merge button in membership, send emails, and then send letters.
Note that because it doesn’t handle bounces, it will omit printing people who have an email address that bounced on subequent reports. This problem is the same with the Mail Merge button. The only thing you can do is really work on handling bounces.
Keep in mind that #2 is functionality that was created after ShelbyCommunicator. In my opinion it pretty much renders the ShelbyCommunicator, the way we might wish to use it, obsolete.
I would recommend investing any training time into the mail merge button. While it has some workflow problems and is based on the complete opposite assumption (email is #2 choice instead of #1 choice).