There are a number of ways StudioPlus Spectra can help you with emailing. You can:
- Email a single client or even family member from a client record.
- Send out a mass email as part of a marketing campaign.
- Have emails sent out through triggers when records status changes.
- Contact Technical Support directly from within Spectra from the Help menu.
- Get troubleshooting emails from the Control Center or Google synch that may help in solving an issue.
However, you do need some settings from your email hosting service (Internet Service Provider or ISP) and you will need to plug that information in to the Workstation settings on the each computer you’ll use for sending email. So, what do the three choices mean?
- With the first choice selected, SMTP, Spectra prepares the email and then makes contact with the email server directly for sending out the email. This is the option that most users will need to select.
- When using the second choice, MAPI, Spectra still prepares the email for sending, but then hands it off to whatever you have selected as your Windows default email client (program). Most people these days use some kind of a web mail client and not a separate program like Thunderbird, Windows Mail or Outlook Express. If you are using a web mail client, that is, something that you go into a web browser to use, you cannot have Spectra send directly to the web page. However, most services have an option to use third party email client program. You would need to know how to configure that program and your Windows default to use this choice.
- The third choice, Microsoft Outlook, is similar to the MAPI choice, but it looks specifically for Outlook (not Outlook Express) to hand off the message for sending. If you have Outlook 2007 or later, you can set it to trust Spectra so you don’t get a warning message with every email: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/i-get-warnings-about-a-program-accessing-e-mail-address-information-or-sending-e-mail-on-my-behalf-HA001229943.aspx
Since StudioPlus version 2011 introduced Google calendar syncing, there have been a lot of inquiries as to what Gmail settings to use with StudioPlus Spectra. You can find information in this article from Gmail help: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77689 .
You will have a different email address and whatever you want for display name, but your Spectra settings should something look like this:
Once you have all these settings plugged in, you can test them by sending yourself an email. It is often handy to have a client record for yourself in your data for various purposes. You can then use that or another test record with an email address from an account you can check. Simply click on the envelope icon next to the email address and send a test. If you get an error, double check your settings to make sure you do not have a typo. If you didn’t get an error, but it looks like you didn’t get the email, check in your junk folder or with your email filtering software or service to make sure it didn’t get blocked or shunted off to the junk folder. Some services may take a while to send it through.
To get more information on how to mass market using Spectra’s emailing capabilities, go to the Help topic on the Communication Wizard here: http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Application_Tools/Email_Wizard.htm
There is also a video: http://www.studioplussoftware.com/training/sptv6-104.aspx
Under the Help menu, there is a selection to Email Tech Support. When you set up the Control Center or Google Calendar syncing, there are choices to have emails sent for troubleshooting. These are often critical for narrowing down the cause of a problem.
http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Database_Utility/Control_Center.htm
http://www.studioplussoftware.com/training/sptv7-110.aspx
http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Mobile_Devices/Mobile_Devices_and_Spectra.htm
http://www.studioplussoftware.com/training/sptv2-201.aspx
In the near future, Spectra 2012 will also be introducing new communications features. You will be able to sign up to send and receive SMS texts and import incoming emails into client records. For more details, click here to go to our Spectra 2012 page.