Navigating Around #V2|arpReach

The main menu bar will allow you to access all of the functions and capabilities of #V2|arpReach.

Hovering over Setup, for example, will automatically expand the menu, showing you the additional options and functions available in that section.

Throughout this guide, we will use the following format to identify what you should click and in what order to access the sections and functions you will need to use or change.

Setup / Users / Show List

This would indicate that you should hover over or click Setup, locate the Users submenu, then click on its Show List option.

Doing so would bring up the following screen:

At this point, please also note of the I want to… and Choose action… drop-down menus on the right of your screen.

These are consistently placed throughout arpReach and provide quick routes to many core functions and capabilities within each screen.

We can now expand on our earlier navigation function which was:

Setup / Users / Show List

To indicate that you should follow a longer path for example:

Setup / Users / Show List / Choose action... / Edit

Following that path and clicking on Edit will bring up the following screen:

There are two tabs of settings named Account Settings and Preferences.

Now that you are in the Edit User / Account Settings screen, you should:

  • Change your password
  • Change your username, if needed
  • Add your email address – This is the email address that will be used for essential functions such as password recovery. Your contacts will not see it.

Once you have made the changes, click Save Changes. The next time you sign in, you will need to enter your new password.

Personal preferences are set for each user to personalize and enhance their experience of arpReach.

In the Preferences tab of your user settings, you can set your choices for items such as the visibility of the page header, the number of items shown on list screens, and visibility of form field hints.

You can also set your home page — the page that will be loaded every time you sign in to arpReach, as well as the report that will be shown on your personal dashboard.

Screen layout

Every screen in #V2|arpReach has a similar layout and some elements appear on every screen.

The header

The header section contains two elements:

  1. The main menu bar
  2. The service status bar
The main menu bar

The main menu bar is the quickest way of navigating around arpReach. The menu bar remains onscreen at all times.

Most functions of #V2|arpReach can be reached with just a few clicks when using the menu bar. We discuss the various capabilities later within this manual.

Hovering over any option in the menu bar will expand to display additional related menu options for each section.

The service status bar

The grey notes bar under the menu bar gives information about the current status of #V2|arpReach.

Items that require attention and the current status of the scheduled task (e.g., is currently running, idle, etc.) are shown here.

Click the service status bar to reduce its size if you need more screen space. It will return on the next screen refresh.

Action maps

Action maps are a way of navigating to the important areas of #V2|arpReach and to assist in leading you through the flow of each section. There are seven action maps.

The main Action Maps screen can be accessed by going to Help / Actions Maps which shows all seven action maps:

  • Autoresponders
  • Broadcasts
  • Content
  • Contacts
  • My Dashboard
  • Help
  • Setup

Use action maps to find the basic areas of the software and the menu bar when you know exactly where you need to be.

The Autoresponders, Broadcasts, Content, Contacts, Setup, and Help action maps can also be accessed by clicking the relevant option on the menu bar at the top.

For example, to access the Autoresponders action map, click Autoresponders on the menu bar:

This brings up the action map with sections where you can manage your autoresponders and autoresponder groups like this:

Action power menus

Choose action… menus

Many of the screens that show tables or lists of information have an Actions column and every row of information has a Choose action… drop-down menu in that column. Note that the options in the Choose action… drop-down menu may change depending on the status of the item in that row.

For example, here is the Choose action… drop-down menu under the Actions column on the Contacts list screen:

The I want to… menu may be different depending on the permissions you have been assigned by your system administrator.

Many Choose action… menus contain Copy and Copy then edit options.

  • Copy – makes a copy of the item and redraws the list with the new item added.
  • Copy then edit – makes a copy of the item the switches to the edit screen so the new item can be changed and saved. Note that the copy is created in the list even if no changes are made on the edit screen.
I want to… menus

Many screens have an I want to…drop-down menu at the top right of the screen. The options available are different depending on the screen you are viewing.

For example, here is the I want to… drop-down menu on the Broadcast Queue screen:

With selected… menus

Screens with a list of information (e.g., the Contacts list screen) have a With selected… drop-down menu. These work with the checkboxes in the left-most column.

Check the items you want to work with from the list, then choose an option from the With selected… drop-down menu at the top of the list table.

Checking or unchecking the box at the top of the column selects or deselects all the items on the screen. Items not currently showing (like on a multi-page list) will not be selected or deselected by this process.

The checkbox in the column header selects or deselects all items on the screen.

Inline help

In many sections, on the left of the screen, you will find small question mark (?) icons that are inline with the input options. Simply hover over the question mark to see additional help or information.

Once you hover over the question mark, a help box will pop up which will give you additional help or advice related to that input option.

Help menu

As with every menu bar section, hovering over the word Help will expand the menu to show the available options.

Useful information

There are various areas in #V2|arpReach where you can get useful information about the running of your system. This information is useful if you need to raise a support enquiry.

The service status bar (on the header)

The grey notes bar under the menu bar gives information about the current status of #V2|arpReach.

Items that require attention and the current status of the scheduled task (e.g., is currently running, idle, etc.) are shown here.

Click the service status bar to reduce its size if you need more screen space. It will return on the next screen refresh.

When requesting support, give as much relevant information as you can from this section.

Version and resources

Your running version and the resources it is using are shown at the bottom left of every screen. Always quote your version number when raising a support inquiry.

We recommend that you always run the latest version of #V2|arpReach. This is available for download from the #V2 Hub or arpReach Hub, providing you have an active Updates and Support plan.

At any time, you can check if there is a newer version by going to Setup / Check for Updates.

Check for Updates — Running an old version

Check for Updates — Running the latest version

Admin system information

You can get more useful information about your server’s PHP and database systems by going to Help / About… / System.

The #V2|arpReach scheduled task which was set up as part of your installation process may use different settings from those shown on the image above.

The information above is important when raising a support enquiry.

Scheduled task system information

To view the settings that the scheduled task is using, enable logging and debug mode in Setup / System Settings / Scheduled Task and view the scheduled task’s log files that are created in the schedule_logs directory of your #V2|arpReach installation directory.

arpReach directory structure

This is a system administration task that should be done by someone familiar with your server and its directory structure. The log files can be accessed by FTP software or by using your hosting control panel’s file manager utility.

Help and support

There are lots of help and support available for #V2|arpReach and a library of resources that you can use to learn about the package.

Your First Session

Throughout this user guide, we will assume that you have installed #V2|arpReach on a subdomain “arpreach” on your website “example.com”.

This means that the pages you need to visit to access all the functionality will look like this:

arpreach.example.com/a.php

In situations where the software is installed in a sub-directory of your domain (e.g., mail), then the pages you need to visit will look like this:

example.com/mail/a.php

The screen at the end of the installation process tells you which page to visit to sign in or your installer can give you the information.

Sign in and let’s get started!

We recommend you bookmark the correct URL for your installation, as visiting it will always take you to the sign in page for your #V2|arpReach to get started. Note that some browsers will require you to put https:// at the start, but most modern browsers don’t require this.

Throughout this user guide, we will use the following format for all our examples:

arpreach.example.com/a.php

Signing in

Visit the sign in page and enter the default username and password. These are set to “admin” and “12345” for a new installation of #V2|arpReach and should be changed as soon as possible.

arpReach can send you a new password if you forget it but make sure it knows your email address.

Forgotten password

If you have forgotten your username and/or password and #V2|arpReach knows your email address, a new password can be generated and sent to you along with your username.

Click Forgot user name or password on the sign in screen to access this feature.

Click Return to signin screen to exit this screen and return to the sign in screen.

Screen layout

When you have signed in, you will be taken inside #V2|arpReach where you should immediately change your password.

In the next section, we will show you how to do that while explaining how to find your way around #V2|arpReach.

Understanding The Basics

Contact management

Every contact in #V2|arpReach is primarily identified by their email address and an email address can appear only once in the contact list.

However, every contact can belong to multiple autoresponders (follow-up sequences) and multiple categories (e.g., customers, prospects, hot-leads, etc.), as well as have multiple unique and customizable tags (e.g., sex, age, location, likes, products bought, etc.).

Using the #V2|arpReach segmentation tools, you can easily target your messages to selected sections of your contact list. Extensive reporting allows you to view in numbers and charts how responsive your contacts are and you can target further those responsive (or even the unresponsive) contacts.

Delivery tools

As ISPs continue to battle with the issue of “SPAM” (unsolicited email, a.k.a. UCE), #V2|arpReach has tools to help you get email through to your contacts and monitor delivery by allowing you to integrate with local and remote email “senders” and “monitors”, as well as internal tracking open rate and bounces.

As new email headers are developed to aid the fight against “SPAM”, #V2|arpReach can use them immediately.

It is important to maintain a “healthy” contact list and #V2|arpReach has tools to help with that including automatic unsubscribe, suppression (do not contact), and ban (do not allow to subscribe) lists.

Multiple personalities

#V2|arpReach Gold allows you to create multiple personalities (personas) that act as the “senders” of your messages. A persona is an entire profile for an individual with a name, address, company details, contact information, and so on.

The advantage of this is if you use #V2|arpReach to send information from multiple websites, companies, or from various staff members in a company, you can create a persona for each of them to avoid brand confusion or improve staff interaction with clients and customers.

We are constantly striving to add more useful functionality so let us know what you need.

Multi-user

If there are several people in your organization that need access to #V2|arpReach, you can add them to the users list and set permissions for what they can view, add, change, or delete within the system.

As an example, you might want to allow someone in Marketing to create a new follow-up message, but have someone else proofread it and approve it. Or you may wish someone in Customer Services to be able to view contacts, but not add or change them.

By setting up permission profiles, you can easily manage what individual people and entire groups can and cannot do within the system.

Content management

Templates and template groups, attachment library, variables, and centralized ad management are all available to help you manage your content in one place. Change it once and it changes everywhere.

Testing and reporting

Do you want to test one follow-up message against another to see which generates the most opens?

Or maybe compare sending emails from your own server against a third-party provider?

#V2|arpReach provides the split testing and reporting tools to set it up easily.

Summary

We constantly strive to add more and more useful functionality so please let us know if there is anything you need. You may contact us by raising a ticket at:

https://support.arpreach.com

Getting Started

What are #V2 and arpReach?

#V2 and arpReach are contact management and marketing automation tools with a highly powerful follow-up autoresponder and email marketing system. It has been designed and developed by direct email marketers for direct email marketers to help build profitable long term relationships with prospective and actual clients.

At its most basic level, #V2|arpReach allows you to build and collect a list of contacts that you can contact regularly either by one-off broadcast emails or by using a sequence of one or more automated follow-ups.

Contacts can be added through forms on your website, by email, by importing from other systems, or by having them automatically added by integrating with other software (e.g., a shopping cart). But it is capable of much more sophisticated and automated marketing tasks.

arpReach is all you need for direct email marketing.

Typically, you might add a form to your website that asks your website visitor for their first name, last name, and email address. That person then becomes a contact and you can start to build up trust and a relationship with them by following up automatically and sending relevant targeted emails.

arpReach currently is available in two versions, Standard and Gold. Some advanced features such as the API functions are only available in the Gold version.

In this section, we outline some of the basic concepts so that you can start to use arpReach profitably.

Use the navigation links in the sidebar or the search function to quickly move to what you need, or start with the next section — Setup.