Accessing the administration panel

Go to www.’yourdomain’.com.au/admin and enter your Username and Password as provided by TOSD.

Note: Replace ‘yourdomain’ in the above link with your own domain name ?

Main administration tabs

The diagram above shows the general administration layout. There are six main menu tabs across the top. Pages and Files are the only ones we will concern ourselves with in this Quick Start Guide. Notice that when you click on any of the main tabs a secondary set of options appears in the right hand sidebar, with the currently selected option shown in orange.

Pages

View All Pages

Selecting ‘Pages’ (from the tabs) then ‘View All Pages’ (from the sidebar secondary menu) displays a list of all the pages in the website.

Clicking on any of the page title links will enable you to edit that page.

Clicking on the ‘Create New Page’ button in the secondary menu will enable you to create a new page.

Creating a new page

• Click the ‘Create a New Page’ button
• Click the ‘Page Options+’ button to expose the options for your new page
• Give the page a ‘Title’ (preferaby one that contains a keyword, or keyword phrase that is relevant to the page content). Do not make the title too long, or, apart from anything else, it may take up too much room in the menu.
• Slug/URL: you can leave this empty. It will be automatically created from the page title when your page is saved. However if you do want something a little different from the title use lowercase letters only and dashes to separate words (no spaces). E.g. daffodil-varieties
• Select the parent page. If the page is to be at the top level of the menu, select ‘index’ from the pull down list.
• Add keywords (I suggest no more that 6 words) and make sure that any keywords are also contained in the general page content.
• Add a meta description (I suggest no more that about 140 characters (including spaces). The title and meta description are both displayed in the search engine results. They must be relevant to the page content and written in such a way that they will encourage people doing searches to want to click them.
• Template: in general leave as ‘Default Template’. Contact TOSD if you are in doubt.
• If the page is to be added to the menu (this would be the normal situation but you may not want to do it until you have finished working on the page) tick the ‘Add to menu’ box.
• Use the editor to enter and format your text, images and hyeprlinks. If you hover over any of the menu icons a text label will appear to tell you what it is. As shown below, icons are available for all common formatting functions.

Adding Content

Images:

These should be uploaded first using the ‘Files’ tab. All images should be set to their final size in pixels before uploading and have a resolution of 96ppi. Images straight out of a digital camera will be far too big, both in terms of their physical dimensions and file size. If you don’t have software to do this go to http://pixlr.com/ , click “Open Photo Editor” and click the ‘Open Image from computer’ link. This will enable you to resize your image and save it at the correct resolution.

Images are added after the text paragraphs have been set up.

• Click on the start of the paragraph the image is the be associated with to set the cursor then click the image icon.
• In the popup window click the ‘Browse Server’ button and select your image from the uploads list.
• Add a brief description in the ‘Alternative text’ box (using keywords if possible) set the alignment to’ Left’ or ‘Right’ and the HSpace to 10px to allow for a little padding around the image. Click OK to save.

Hyperlinks (links)

Highlight the words that will form the link and click the link icon. A popup window will appear.

• If you are linking to another page of your own website set the link type to ‘Link to local page’ and select the page.
• If you are linking to a page on another website set the link type to ‘URL’ and enter the URL e.g. www.anotherwebsite.com.au/pagewhatever
• If you are linking to a pdf (uploaded previously using the ‘Files’ tab) set the Link Type to ‘URL’, click the browse server button and select the file from the uploads list.

Presentation tips

• Leave the main body text of the page at the default size and colour. In other words: just type!
• Best to avoid pasting text from another application but if you must always strip pre-existing formatting by papsting it into a completely plain text editor (e.g. Notepad) first
• Getting the order right will help. Here is what I suggest . . .
• Add the main text content first.
• Format the headings and sub-headings by clicking on the icon with the drop down arrow labelled ‘Normal’ and selecting the required heading size. Note that Heading 1 (H1) should not be used as it is reserved by the system. Note also that the colours of the headings will not show up in the editor. They will appear correctly when the page is viewed, though.
• Add any images
• Add any hyperlinks
• Do any final adjustments to formatting e.g. bold, italic etc

Creating a News Article

If your website has a News facility configured click the Pages Tab then the News Manager button on the secondary menu. The existing News articles will be listed. Click on one to edit, or click the ‘Create New Article’ button to create a new one. Creation is very simple. Just type the article and add images or links as required. An Excerpt (summary / intro) may be added if required but is not necessary.

Uploading Files

• Select the ‘Files’ tab from the top menu – existing files will be listed under the Uploads directory
• Click the ‘Upload files and/or images’ button in the secondary menu to upload a file from your PC, taking note of my comments above in the Page Content/Images section regarding correct image preparation.
• This facility can be used to either upload images for insertion into a page or news article, or documents (preferrably pdfs) that you want to link to.

• Creating Categories / Sub categories
• Creating Products including prices, descriptions and images

Creating Categories and Sub-categories

• From the top menu select [Products] / [Products & Categories]

The top level categories will be listed in the ‘Available Categories’ box.

• Click the ‘Add Category’ link at the bottom of the ‘Available Categories’ box.
• Fill in the required information and note the following:
  • The order allows you to set the display order of the Categories
  • Category names are best kept as short as possible
  • Leave the ‘Parent category’ set to [top] if you are adding a top level category. This is the level that shows by default
  • If you are creating a sub-category, set the parent to the category that the sub-category will nest under by selecting from the drop down list
  • Assign Category images and descriptions if required. These will show up as icons to aid selection.
  • Meta data allows you to set up your website so that search engines can readily index your content. This is quite important. Typically at this level the page title and description should both contain the most important keywords relating to the category. Keep the title to just a few words and the description to 10-20 words. The keywords field should also contain the main keywords relevant to the category. Separate them with commas and whatever you do don’t indulge in keyword repetition or you may (will?) be penalised.

Creating Products

In Viart Shop there is a high level of control afforded to administrators when creating products and their attributes. In this Quick Start guide I will only cover the basics of creating a new standard product:

• Navigate to the category that you want to add a product to using Available Categories box on the [products] / [Products and Categories] screen. Clicking on a category will expose any subcategories. When you get to the lowest category level the products in that category will be displayed in the adjacent box titled “Products in (selected) category:”.

• At the bottom of the product list click ‘Add New’, then complete as follows:
  • at this point you should also note that if you want to go back and edit a product, there is an [edit] link next to each listed product.

General Product Information [access via top tab]

• Complete, as a minimum, those fields that are marked with an asterisk. Note that the product order allows you to control the order in which the customer will view the products in the list view.
• Don’t feel compelled to complete all fields. In many cases the minimum required field information will be sufficient.

Pricing

• The first item relates to tax. This will normally be set up by TOSD. The ‘Change settings here’ link however allows you to control how prices are entered (inc or ex tax) and how they are displayed (inc or ex tax). After clicking on the ‘Change settings here’ link, select the ‘Tax Settings’ tab.
• The required field ‘Price (List price)’, will be visible by default. In other words, this is the price that non-registered visitors will see. It is also the price that will be presented to customers belonging to the retail customer group.
• The ‘Trade Price’ is the price that registered wholesale customers will see after they log in.
• Note that there are also fields to enter discounts (one for each customer group). These allow you to set up special prices for either or both groups. Ensure that the ‘Activate Discounts’ box is checked if you wish to enable discounts. There is also a  price preview box to allow you to see how the discount will be presented to the customer.

Fees and Commissions

These are costs that can be added to particular products but are beyond the scope of this Quick Start Guide.

Descriptions [access via top tab]

There are three types of descriptions that are used for different purposes:

• The ‘Short description’ is presented to the customer when they are browsing the products in a gategory.
• ‘Highlights’ appear next to the product image and pricing details when the customer clicks through to a detailed product page. Bulleted lists work well here.
• ‘Full description’, as the name suggests, is a more detailed description of the product. It is displayed under the large product image and highlights on the detailed product page. For some items specifications or applications can be entered here.
• ‘Meta data’ – see comments for categories above. The same principles apply except that this time the keywords should relate quite specifically to the product.

Quantity prices [access via top tab]

This is where quantity discounts are set up (e.g. 1-9: $10.00 , 10-20: $9.00 etc). Quantity discounts can be particularly relevant to online shops that cater to wholesale customers. In fact the options allow the administrator to apply quantity discounts to members of the wholesale customer group, but not the retail customer group. This flexibility can be quite handy.

Images and Appearance [access via top tab]

• Images: assigning images is easy in Viart Shop. In general, all the administrator has to do it prepare a single image (usually) 600px X 600px, 96dpi in jpg or png format and upload it via the ‘Upload Image’ link next to the Super-sized image box. Viart will then create all the associated image sizes on the fly.
• Appearance:The ‘Hide add to cart’ function is useful in situations where you may like to oblige a customer to click through to the detailed product page before they can commit to an order. You may for example want to do this to ensure that the customer has viewed detailed and important information that is required to make an appropriate selection.

Stock and Shipping [access via top tab]

• The stock control section is fairly straight forward. If you have weight based freight calculations then the weight of the product can be entered here. You can also instruct Viart to either monitor stock levels (by clicking the checkbox) or not. If you elect to use stock control you must enter real stock numbers for each product. Minimum and maximum order quantities can also be ordered.
• The shipping controls in this section override the default site shipping conditions. This is very useful. For example you may want to assign free freight to a product as a special promotion, even though the rest of the site has shipping costs assigned. Another example may be where a product simply falls outside the default calculations, perhaps because it requires special packing. In these situations you can assign a one off shipping cost at the product level.

Downloadable [access via top tab]

This section will be covered by a dedicated article.

Special Offer [access via top tab]

The special offer facility allows you to assign a product to the special offer module (which is often configured to display on the home page). In addition it provides an editor for entering and formatting the special offer. e.g. ‘Buy two get one free if you order before 31st’. The editors formatting controls enable you to set up the offer to stand out. Images etc can also be included.

See also:

• Viart Shop Information Pages
• Viart Shop: adding options to products

If you have found this article useful you are welcome to leave a comment. If you have any queries relating to Viart Shop please Contact us

If you are new to TinyMCE you may like to download the  tinymce editor quick reference. It lists all the common icons (buttons) and their usage.

Access

URL: http://www.tosd.com.au/sendstudionx/admin/index.php
Username: yourusername
Password: yourpassword

If you don’t know your Username and Password contact TOSD.

Overview

The Email Newsletter Marketing centres around “Subscribers”, who join a “Mailing List”, which is in turn assigned to an “Email Campaign”. The Email Campaign is the actual mailout.

Subscribers can be added manually, or via a web site subscription form. Subscriptions are automatically managed, meaning that users can subscribe and unsubscribe (from the link in every newsletter) without reference to yourself. In this way your mailing list is essentially self managing.

Templates

When you create an email campaign the newsletter is based on a template. This makes it easy to prepare the newsletter and also ensures that it goes out in a form that can be correctly read by the majority of email applications. Usually there are one or more templates available for your selection when you create a new campaign. If your business requires additional templates contact TOSD.

First Steps

1. Add the initial subscribers.

• Access admin (see above)
• Go to Subscribers / Add subscribers to add customers one at a time,  or Subscribers / Import subscribers to import a mailing list in bulk. If you need assistance with this contact TOSD.

2. Test subscription form

TOSD will have set up a newsletter subscription form on your web site. Add at least one subscription (e.g. your own details) to this form to check its operation. Once you have submitted your details the system will email you a confimation link. This must be clicked on to complete the subscription. It is a security precaution to ensure that a real person is signing up as opposed to an automated spambot.

3. Create an Email Campaign

• Select Email Campaigns / Create Email Campaign
• Give it a name e.g. Update Dec ’07 or whatever
• Select a template
• Replace the template content (text and images)with your own (this will not overwrite the template)
  • Note: at the top left of the editor icon bar there is an icon that allows you to view and edit the newsletter in a full screen. When you have finished editing you will need to click the same icon again to return to the view with the “Save” buttons at the bottom of the screen.
• Save the Newsletter at intervals while you are working on it.
• In the ‘Email Validation’ section click on each of the two buttons to check your newsletter for words that may trigger SPAM traps and to ensure that it presents correctly in each of the common email clients listed. Both these checks are important to ensure the maximum open rate for your mailout.
• When it is done send a test preview to your own email address.
• Save to finish when you are satisfied.

4. Suggestions
Before you send your first mailout ask TOSD to check it.

It is also recommended to have a test subscriber list that has your own email address and details as a subscriber. This enables you to do a ‘real’ test sending. Much better to find a problem this way that send out a campaign to thousands of subscribers on your main list only to find out when it is too late that it had a problem. With email marketing testing is vital.

5. Send the email Campaign

• Select Email Campaigns / Send Email Campaign
• The first screen gives you the option to select some of your subscribers based on certain criteria. If you want to sent to all subscribers on your list click [next]
• Select the Email Campaign (the one you just created)
• Select the Firstname field (usually ‘First name’ from the pull down box to personalise the email.
• Uncheck (deselect) “Embed Images” – this is important.
• Click [next] then [Yes, send this campaign]

The sending is scheduled. It is not immediate. The actual time it will be sent is indicated onscreen.