What can I do with Relevant Tools?
Relevant Tools lets you create full-featured, custom web forms on your site and sends the information you collect to your own custom online databases. You can also import and export your own information to your online databases and organize and query the data anyway you like. With Relevant Tools you can manage email campaigns and use the information in your databases to send personalized emails. Monitor, track and analyze your email campaign and web traffic with our reporting features. We offer everything you need to maximize the potential of your website.

I need customized features for my application. Can you help?
Yes, we can customize our software for a wide range of features and applications. Send your requirements to etools@relevantpower.com for a quick response.

What assurances do I have that this information is NEVER shared with a third party?
It is our absolute sacred policy to NEVER make any of your information available or accessible to anyone. Probably the best way for you to feel comfortable with that is to talk to someone here and get a feel for who we are; then you can decide if we're trustworthy!

Can I remove the Relevant Tool Server icon from my pages?
If you would like to upgrade your account status to VIP, you have the option of monitoring your web pages without any icon visible on your pages.

Can multiple people access one company’s information. For example, we have two people who will need to access the site, how do they go about that?
Are you concerned about two people editing the same record at the same time? If so, the way the system currently works is that if a user tries to submit changes to a record that was modified while that user was making his own changes, he or she will get an error message to that effect. That person will then have to refresh the record to get the latest changes, then resubmit his or her own changes.

The only other site-related state is the notion of "current database." So if two users are working on two different databases at the same time, there could be conflict. The best resolution is to change to a user-based rather than site-based state, if it's an issue for you.

Can my customers login to my own Relevant Tools?
Value Added Resellers (VARs) can have a branded Relevant Tools site with the VAR logo and customized services available to VAR customers. Contact etools@relevantpower.com to learn more about offering Relevant Tools to your customers.

I love Relevant Tools. What do I do to continue service?
Your credit card will be automatically billed each month until you notify us to discontinue your subscription.

Where is the VIP sign up?
Log-on to your account. That should bring up your account "home" page, that says "Welcome" at the top. The "VIP membership." link is near the top. You may signup for VIP membership directly on-line after you create your new account, or contact us at etools@relevantpower.com.

How do I upgrade if I start with the least expensive package?
There is no difference to the account itself between the various subscription levels. In other words, there is nothing for you to change if you upgrade from one level to the next. The entry level subscription ($10.00 per month) gives you one database, up to 500 records in that database, the ability to send out up to 500 emails per month, displays our logo if you use forms and site monitoring, and uses our own confirmation pages if users sign up on one of your forms, etc. Starting with VIP subscriptions ($30.00 and up), the logo disappears and you can use your own confirmation pages. The cost is tied to the number of emails sent per month.

I want to collect unique information - what about custom fields on my forms?
All members can have custom fields. You can select up to 50 fields per form. You can select which fields should be displayed when you look at the database reports.

Can I customize what my forms look like before generating the html?
The Relevant Tools are not meant to replace the complexities and options of an HTML page layout program or your mail program in terms of composing the message. Relevant Tools are intended to store messages and manage the mailings from there. What you can do is save the code on your machine, open it using a program such as MS Front Page or Adobe Page Mill, and use that program to make the form look the way you want.

I am looking for a software solution that would enable members to subscribe to e-newsletters based on profile/interests. Is it possible on the form to add multiple category headers?
You can certainly set up a form where members select from various checkboxes or menus to define their profile and interests. You can setup as many categories as you wish, each one being a separate field in your final database.

Can I play with the code to throw graphics even in the space between fields? Will that interrupt the script?
You can play with the code as much as you want, the only important items are the form opening and closing tags, and the field names, which need to match the fields defined in your database. How you size, display, or arrange those fields is absolutely up to you.

I built my site through a free web hosting service and my Relevant Tools form is not displaying properly and I get script error messages.
Many free "build a web site" services are not designed to accept HTML code, resulting in errors. Contact your service for further information about using HTML.

I am creating a form and can't seem to make the "middle initial" optional.
This one is easy to answer. All you need to do is remove the asterisk (*) after the field name. The asterisk is what tells the system that a field is required.

When I paste my sign-up form onto my web page with Microsoft Front Page, it shows up in text form. How can I correct this?
You can just insert the code into the final HTML page, after it has been generated by Front Page.

Can I have my own confirmation page?
When a user completes a Relevant Form, the default confirmation is shown. If you want to offer a seamless experience to your web site visitors first upgrade your account to VIP. Then click on Forms and "setup/update forms." Scroll to Step 3 to specify the full URL of your confirmation, error, and missing field pages. Visitors completing a form on your site will be redirected to the specified page and not see the Relevant Tool logo or default confirmation page.

How can I change the automatic response message?
You must be a "VIP" member in order to remove any Relevant Tools logos or confirmation pages, what we call "seamless integration." The VIP membership is described on our website, and starts at $30.00 per month.

Is there a way to have a form sent to someone other than me?
There are a couple of things you can do: 1. Under "member information," you can change the email address for the entire account. All forms will now go to that address. 2. You can insert an additional line of code in the form code given to you by the server. The line should read: <input type="hidden" name="admin_email_addr" value="your_address@xyz.com" You can put any address you wish where it says "your_address@xyz.com".

Are the forms created by your program/company sent secured or unsecured. If they are unsecured, is there a way they can be sent secured?
By default, the forms are not secure, but this can be implemented if requested.

Can I have more than one database?
VIP users can define multiple databases with multiple views to support a wide variety of needs.

I already have a database of names. Can that be imported?
Yes. The import should be very straightforward. You define the fields you need in your database, save your existing database as a tab-delimited text file, specify which fields are contained in that file and in which order they appear, and import the whole thing.

What data formats do you support in your import?
The import format is tab-delimited text because that seems pretty universal.

Help, I'm trying to import a database. I created the database with the fields in the exact same order as the import file, but the data is not going into the specific fields.
The first thing is to make sure you saved the database in tab-delimited text format before you imported it. In your case, the problem is that the lines are terminated with carriage returns rather than newlines. This is something that Macs used to do; it this coming from a Mac? Is there an option for you to save that would indicate "newlines," or "PC format," or "DOS format," or anything like that?

Does creating the form create the database?
Creating a form does not create a new database. However as you've probably noticed, new accounts start off with a default database called "Contacts", with a set of default fields (first name, last name, email, etc.) When you create a new form, it will by default go into that database. Later on if you choose the VIP membership level which allows you to define more than one database, you will be asked each time you create a new form to select which database this form will populate.

I want to send email to a subset of my database. How do I filter out the group?
The easiest and most flexible way to send to a subset of the database is to start in the Database area, perform a search to find the group you want to send to, and then click the "email to this list" link near the top of the page. Alternatively, you can start in the "Mailings" area, select or type a message, and the next screen will give you four options to select your "audience." The fourth option is "custom list." If you select it, you will then be able to conduct a search on your database and select your subset of recipients.

If I have a registration database and I wanted to run a query of everyone registered from a certain company, can I do that?
Yes, the web interface will let you search by any field in your database, with qualifiers such as "contains," "starts with," "matches exactly," etc. You can specify multiple criteria on multiple fields, you can sort the results along any field, you can specify second and third level sorting, etc. Look at the "advanced search" interface in your account. There is no difference between the free and VIP membership for that area.

When I Display Database without specifying a search, the results are displayed randomly. Can the result be displayed from the latest entry to the oldest?
You can add the "Created On" field to any custom view you want, then click on the "Created On" column header to sort the records from oldest to newest, click on it again to sort from newest to oldest.

How do I send personalized email messages?
When you create Messages you can use any Form Field that you have collected information on. When the Mailing goes out, the mail merge uses the specified fields and substitutes the information from your database. You can send a test mailing to yourself to verify that the message looks exactly as you want it.

When I send email, is the message addressed to each person?
Yes. Relevant Tools sends individual emails to each person in the mailing where the from email address is set as your specified when you created the message.

Can I insert field information from each record (i.e. first_name) to personalize the message?
Yes, you just need to know the name of your fields (not the label, but the name, for example "firstname," or "email," as they are listed when you go into the field edit page from the database page). In your message you can then say something like "Dear ," etc. Although it's a little hidden, there is a link that will show you all possible macros for a given database: go to the Mailings area, the second tip in the orange "Tips" box has a link to "special field tags." That link brings up a general Help window, you can scroll down to the Messages paragraph, which should list your field options.

Once I have uploaded a message to your system using the email tool and edited it, is there a way to do a preview instead of sending a test email to view the HTML?
No. We tried this and seeing the message on the web is not the same as sending it through email. It can appear correctly on the web and still be incorrect when sent through email. Since the whole point is email delivery, we require the preview to be in email so everyone is happy with the result.

Can I see a list of duplicates?
On the main "Databases" page, in the orange box to the right, there is an area called "Tips. Click the link that says "duplicates."

Once I start the mailing, can I leave the relevanttools.com website? Do I need to monitor the mailing?
You do not need to wait around for the mailing to complete.

Do you allow attachments as part of you e-mail system?
We can handle attachments. Email your message with the attachment to your account. Needless to say, it is against Relevant Tools terms of use to send viruses.

Is there any way to enter more than one email address into a file?
Yes there is, they need to be separated by a comma, with no spaces in between, for example: joe@abc.com,jim@def.com It's a little strict because the server considers a space to be an invalid character in an email address, but not a comma.

How can I manually add to the unsubscribe list?
Use the link for manual unsubscribes. This can be accessed from either the main "Databases" page (in which case you need to type in the address by hand), or you can search for the address you want to unsubscribe, then click the little "v" in the left column for "view", and there will be an "unsubscribe record" link at the top of that page, which will automatically fill out the email address for you. The same link can also be accessed through the "e" ("edit") page.

Relevant Tools handles the "unsubscribe" requests: the process is fully automatic, a link is added to the bottom of the email, and clicking on the link immediately unsubscribes that address forever (even if you later upload a complete list again that still contains unsubscribed addresses, email will not go out to them).

When I do a manual unsubscribe, is an email automatically sent to my customer or do I need to send an email manually?
We can add this as an option if requested.

When an e-mail bounces or a recipient unsubscribes, can these be cleaned out of the database automatically?
" Click on Database in the top orange bar and select your database. In the box on the right are links to manage your unsubscribes and bounces. When you display the list of bounced or unsubscribed records that you wish to delete, click on the "delete this list" link.

Do you remove the bounces? Should I be deleting the "please removes" from my original list?
The way the bounces work is that an address is flagged when it bounces, but it's not automatically removed because bounces can be caused by temporary conditions (network down, mailbox full, etc.) It's usually up to the list owner to decide what really constitutes a bad address; typically users will remove a list after it has bounced three mailings in a row for example.

Will the Relevant Tools unsubscribe address always appear at the bottom of sent emails? In other words, will the address always be a Relevant Tools address, and will it take the un-subscriber to the Relevant Tools site to confirm the un-subscription?
As a VIP member, you can have your own footer at the bottom of your emails. Your footer must contain a working unsubscribe link and your physical address to conform to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Is it possible to send e-mails without the Unsubscribe link at the bottom?
No, all emails sent through Relevant Tools must include the Relevant Tools 'unsubscribe' in the footer. VIP subscribers may change the wording of the unsubscribe tagline.

Can I re-subscribe someone?
There is no interface to re-subscribe someone. To maintain our reputation as only permitting non-spam mailings, we can't allow users to re-subscribe people that have asked to be unsubscribed. Of course that presents the obvious problem of the owner of the list accidentally unsubscribing somone and not being able to put that person back on the list. What we've been doing in the meanwhile is just having users ask us to put someone back on the list, and doing it manually from here.

I need to check bad and unsubscribed. How do I do that?
There are two ways to get to these records: if you're looking at the mailings results, click on the name of the mailing itself, which will show more details on that individual mailing. The words "missing email addresses," "bad email addresses," etc., are links that will take you to these various groups of records.

Or you can simply go to the "Databases" area, and at the bottom of the little orange "Tips" box on the right side of the page are links that point to those same records.

Note that whichever method you choose, those links will show you ALL bad email addresses in the current database, ALL bounces, ALL duplicates, etc, not just the ones pertaining to a particular mailing. So your mailing may say "10 invalid addresses," but clicking on the link may show more than that if your mailing was only addressed to part of the database.

What will happen when the recipient of my email hits reply to the original email?
The replies will go to the address(es) in the "From" field.

How do I go about changing the address that inquiries come back into?
You can change the email address in the "membership info" area, which is a link right under the "Welcome" heading of your home page (the page you see after you log on). You can specify a different from email address for each mailing when you create or edit the message.

Does your software product send an alternate text email if someone does not accept html?
You can send a MIME email message that contains both text and html. The text portion is first so if the user's email client does not accept or understand html, they will automatically see the text message. You can create a MIME email message by either entering or uploading separate text and html portions or using the email in method of message creation. Most email clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express and Eudora do create MIME messages although you should also check your preferences.

Can I change my own email address at some point if I do not wish to use the one I signed up with?
Yes - you can change it by clicking on the member information link from the home page shown after you sign in.

How many web pages can I monitor?
You can monitor as many pages as you would like. Simply install the code for Relevant Tool Server Page Monitor on each page you wish to monitor.

What kind of detail do you provide on e-mail campaigns?
We track email open, click throughs, forwarding rates, and bounces. Opens can only be tracked for HTML emails, since we need to insert a hidden tracking URL (can't be done from text-only emails). We also keep track of invalid addresses, missing addresses, and duplicates.

I just placed some monitors on several pages of my site. Where would I view the results from each monitor?
Go to the results page and click on usage detail (all monitors) or usage charts (data by monitor). VIP users have expanded reporting capabilities.

I have set up monitors on about 40 pages of my site. Is there any way of tracking the results from each separately?
We're working on distinguishing between different monitor "names," which are assumed to be used for grouping of certain sets of pages. But even without that, the monitoring, by definition, reports which page was viewed, so you can go to the Results area and see how many people viewed each page, and if you look at the detailed results, you can even see the page hits one-by-one (date and time, IP or host name of viewer, name of page that was viewed, referrer if there is one, etc.)