Create and manage email publications

With OrchestraCMS, you can deliver content to users by email based on their preferences. Email publications and email notifications are different ways of delivering content to users:  

• Publication. A publication is a recurring compilation of content that can be published to your site and delivered by email. A single instance of a publication can be thought of as an issue of the publication. Creating an issue of a publication is similar to creating a page for your site, except you can also create an email version. Publications are sent manually after a new issue is created.
• Notification. When a user subscribes to a specific category of content, an email notification with relevant content is automatically sent to the user on a regular basis. Notifications are sent either immediately when new content is added or on a regular schedule—this is based on the options you provide and the preference of the user.

Create and manage email publications

A publication is a recurring compilation of content that can be published to your site and delivered by email. A single instance of a publication can be thought of as an issue of the publication. Creating an issue of a publication is similar to creating a page for your site, except you can also create an email version. Publications are sent manually after a new issue is created.

Build a taxonomy for email publications

When you create a taxonomy for email publications, each category within the taxonomy can define a single email publication. Each publication can have many issues that are distributed to subscribers over time. For example, a taxonomy for publications could have the following structure:

• Publications
  • Product News
  • Industry News
  • Special Deals

If you have many publications, you might want to use the taxonomy structure to break the publications into distinct subcategories. The following example shows a multilevel tree structure:

• Publications
  • Daily Publications
    • Tip of the Day
    • Daily Roundup
  • Weekly Publications
    • Monday Update
    • Deal of the Week
    • Weekly Roundup
  • Monthly Publications
    • Monthly Roundup

When you create your taxonomy, can choose whether you want users to be able to subscribe to all categories or only the lowest-level child categories. This is determined by the Subscription Type property in the taxonomy.

The first step in building a taxonomy is to create a new taxonomy content item using the Taxonomy content type and the Taxonomy Menu content template; the content editor for this template is where you add and manage taxonomy categories.

To create a taxonomy content item

1. In OrchestraCMS, select the Content tab.
2. In the Actions panel, select Add New Content.
3. In the Create New Content dialog, do the following:
   • From the Select Content Type list, select Taxonomy.
   • From the Select Content Template list, select Taxonomy Menu.
   • In the Name field, enter a name for the taxonomy that allows you to recognize it as a publications taxonomy (e.g., “Publications”).  
4. Click Finish to save and close the content item, or click Finish and Edit to go directly to the content editor.

The next step is to add categories to your taxonomy.

To add categories to a taxonomy

1. Open the taxonomy content item in the content editor. If you see a message that states that the current content template doesn’t have any content or template properties to configure, then you do not have the Taxonomy Menu content template loaded, and you can select it from the Actions panel, under More Actions.
   
2. In the category pane, click on the icon to the right of the category that you want to add child categories to, and then click Add. If this is the first time you have added categories, your only option is to add categories to the top-level category, Publications. You can add, reorder, and remove categories later.
   
3. In the Add Categories dialog, type the names of the categories that you want to add to that level of the hierarchy by typing each category name (e.g., publication name) on a separate line.
   
4. Click OK.
   

After the taxonomy is created, you can add more categories, remove categories, and reorder categories by clicking the arrow next to the category name. You can’t move categories to a different parent category.

For more information about working with taxonomies, see Manage Taxonomy.

Set taxonomy properties for email publications

When you use a taxonomy for email publications or notifications, there are additional properties that must be set in the content editor for the Taxonomy Subscription content template. The subscription type and subscription model must be defined, and if you are allowing unauthenticated users to subscribe, an email verification page must be associated with the taxonomy.

To set taxonomy properties for a publications taxonomy

1. Open the taxonomy content item in the content editor.
2. In the Actions panel, under Templates, click Taxonomy Subscription.
3. In the Actions panel, under More Actions, click View All Properties.
4. On the Content Properties page, do the following:
   • For the Notification Type property, select either All or Leaf. The option All means that users can subscribe to all nodes in the taxonomy; if a user subscribes to a node that has child nodes, he or she will also be subscribed to all of the child nodes. The option Leaf means that users can subscribe to only the lowest level of child categories.
   • For the Notification Model property, select Subscription Model, and optionally, select Allow Guest Subscription if you want unauthenticated users to be able to subscribe to publications.
   • If you have selected to allow guest subscriptions, click in the Email Address Verification box. In the Select Link dialog, from the Link To list, select A page in this CMS. In the Page box, select a page that contains the Email Verification Link content template; if this page does not yet exist, click New. After the Page box is populated, click Select.
   • In the Actions panel, click Save.
     

Build an issue of an email publication

An issue of a publication is created similarly to a standard OrchestraCMS page, except you use an email template instead of a page template, and the page must be associated with the taxonomy category created for the publication.

Before you can build an email publication, you need to have an email template associated with one of your Page Layout records in Salesforce.

To create an issue of an email publication

1. In OrchestraCMS, create a page using a page template that has an associated email template and open it in the page editor.

2. In the page editor, in the Actions panel, under More Actions, click Email Editor. This takes you to the email editor, which, depending on the style of your templates, might look the same or different from your page template. If the two templates have the same droppable areas, content placed on either template displays in both.
3. In the Actions panel, select Taxonomy, and then your publications taxonomy.
4. In the Select Category dialog box, expand the taxonomy tree to the name of the publication you are creating, click the plus symbol to add it to the Selected list, and then click OK.
5. Add content to the email by clicking in a droppable area and selecting one of the following options:
   • Add New Content. This option opens the Create New Content Wizard, where you can create new content to add to the email.
   • Add Existing Content. This option open opens the Add Content to Page dialog, where you can add content that already exists and choose the content template that you want it to be displayed with.
   • Add Content By Taxonomy. This option opens a dialog where you can filter content by taxonomy categories. If content authors assign categories from your publication taxonomy to content, this is an easy way to add content specifically associated with that publication.
6. In the Actions panel, click Save.

After the first issue of an email publication is created, you can choose to create a new page or create a new version of the existing page to create subsequent issues.  

For more information on adding, moving, and removing content from pages, see Manage your Pages and Site Map.

Link publication content titles to a page on your site

If you use the Document Style 1 content templates to display content in your email publications, you can use the Email Link field in the page properties of the publication to link the title of the content to a page on your site. This page should contain a content item that uses the Content View content template to dynamically display the piece of content that a user clicks on in the email.

Typically, the Content View content template is configured to display content using a different content template than the email. For example, the Document Style 1 content template can render the content as a summary in the email, and the Content View item can specify that another template, such as Small Block With Image, be used to render the full content on the site page.

However, because Document Style 1 templates are content cached, they cannot be used to link publication content titles to a page on your site. In order to do that, you will need to create a duplicate of the Document Style 1 template.

• To create a duplicate, you will first need to access Content Layouts by way of a Content Layout Tab in Salesforce.

To create a new tab for Content Layouts

1. In Salesforce, go to Setup.
2. Under Create, click Tabs.
3. Click New.
4. From the Object selector, choose Content Layouts.
5. Choose a tab style icon and then click Next.
6. Optionally, decide which profiles will see this new tab. Click Next.
7. Optionally, decide which custom apps will include this tab. Click Save.

Once you have accessed content templates, duplicate the Document Style 1 content template.

To create a duplicate content template of Document Style 1

1. In Salesforce, click on the Content Layouts tab you just created.
2. Find the Document Style 1 content layout.
3. Near the top right of the page, click Edit Layout.
4. In the “Fields” section above, add all fields to the layout. Click Save. (This is needed so all properties will be copied over in the next step.)
5. Click Clone to clone the Document Style 1 content template.
6. Give it a new name; call it Document Style 2, for example.
7. Change the Label to [Document Style 2].
8. Change the Type to Custom.
9. Deselect the isContentCacheable checkbox.
10. Click Save.

In order to use your new content template, you will need to associate it with a Content Type in OrchestraCMS — for example, the Text Content Type.

To use your new content template in OrchestraCMS

1. In OrchestraCMS, go to Setup.
2. Under the Templates heading, click Content Types.
3. Under Core Content Types, select the Text Content Type.
4. Under Content Templates, click Add Templates.
5. Scroll and find Document Style 2. Select the checkbox next to it.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Save.

The first step in linking publication content titles to a page on your site is to create the page that will be associated with the Email Link property.

To create a page to associate with the Email Link property

1. Create a page as you normally would and open it in the page editor.
2. Click in the Droppable Area where you want content to appear. Click Add New Content (alternately, Add Existing Content).  
3. If you are adding new content:
   • From the Select Content Type list, select Utility.
   • From the Select Content Template list, select Content View.
   • In the Name field, enter a name for the content item that allows you to recognize it as a placeholder for content that will be dynamically loaded when a user clicks on a content title in an email publication.
4. Click Finish.
5. Return to the page editor, and click the Page-specific Properties icon for the Content View content item you just created.
   
6. In the Page-specific Properties dialog, select the content type and content template that you want to use to display content. This should be the same content type as the Document Style 1 content template that you are using to display content in the email version of the publication; but it can be a different content template if that template is also associated with the content items contained in the email publication.
   
7. Click Save.
8. In the Actions panel, click Publish.
9. In the Publish Page dialog, make sure the Content View content item is also selected for publication.
10. Click Yes.

After the page is created, you can associate it with your email publication page.

To populate the Email Link field in the page properties for the publication

1. Open your email publication page in the page editor.
2. In the Actions panel, click Properties.
3. In the properties dialog, click in the Email Link box.
4. In the Select Link dialog, from the Link To list, select A page in this CMS.
5. Click in the Page box, and enter or select the page created in the previous procedure that contains a Content View content item.
6. Click Select.
7. Click Save.
   

After the page is associated with the email publication, any content rendered with the Document Style 1 content template in the email version of the publication will have its title linked to the page specified in the Email Link field.

Send a test email

When you create an email publication, we recommend that you always send a test email before distributing the publication to your contact list. Test emails can be sent before the page is published.

Before you can send a test email, your email deliverability settings must be properly configured in Salesforce. To send a test email

1. Open the email publication in the page editor.
2. In the Actions panel, click Send Test Email.

The message Email Successfully Sent is displayed when the test email is sent. The email is sent to the user who initiated the test email.

Distribute the issue of the email publication

Before an issue of a publication can be distributed, it must be published.

To publish an email publication

1. Open the email publication in the page editor.
2. In the Actions panel, select Publish.

Before you can distribute emails, your email deliverability settings must be properly configured in Salesforce.

To queue an email for distribution

1. Open the email publication in the page editor.
2. In the Actions panel, click Queue Email.
3. In the Queue Email dialog, select one of the following priority options:
   • Standard Priority. Distributes the email during the next run of the scheduler. The date and time is shown in the dialog.
   • High Priority. Attempts to distribute the email immediately. We recommend queuing emails using standard priority whenever possible.
     
4. Click Queue.