SoS Blog

SoSimple's Email Editor

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 04:00:00 +0000

SoSimple's Community Manager is a powerful tool, allowing users to manage all of their digital communications within a single platform. Our email builder makes it easy to create and send bulk emails using our intuitive drag-and-drop editor, develop target campaigns for specific groups, access valuable reporting and analytics, and more!

Customized Designs

Our drag-and-drop email builder allows you to easily design customized and compelling messages that capture the attention of your audience.

Design on the Fly

Create emails on the fly using existing email templates, or choose from any of our template guides to get you started!

Are You a SoSimple CRM+ User?

If so, you can create customized templates for all of your email communications, and send them out using your existing CRM database. SoSimple CRM+ users can also enjoy:

Contact & Data Management
Bulk Emailing & Text Messaging
Automated Marketing Communications
Personalized Letters & Labels
Secure Large File Sharing

Questions? Contact Us to learn more!

Form Builder: Registration & Payment Forms

Sat, 15 Jun 2019 04:00:00 +0000

How to use your Form Builder page as a registration & payment form

Step 1

Set up your payment settings in the Form Settings (found by clicking the white "Form Settings" button near the top right of the screen). Decide how you'll be collecting payments, what the set payment amount will be, and if there should be a limited number of registrants.

Decide your payment method options and fixed payment amount.

If collecting payments using Stripe, you will need to know your secret and publishable keys.

If collecting payments using PayPal, you will need the email associated with your account.

Choose whether or not you need to restrict the amount of registrants.

Step 2

Set up any questions you need to capture the applicable information for your registration submissions. If you have a field that will alter the total payment amount (such as the number of registrants), you can set payment adjustments with each field answer. In the example below, we've set up a dropdown select options field for Number of Registrants. We've also said "Yes" to the question "Is This a Price Adjustment Field?".

When you click the blue "Manage Options" link below your dropdown select options field, you will be able to enter your dropdown menu options, as well as any price adjustments that apply to each option:

Step 3

Allow registration submissions to begin. On the front-end form, users will have the option to adjust the registration price based on how many attendees there are, and can also choose their payment method.

Step 4

Manage your payments through your form submissions. When you view your form submissions (using the white "View Submissions" button near the top right of your default form builder screen), you will see who has registered, and who has and has not paid yet. Credit card payments made using Stripe or PayPal will automatically be marked as "paid". If the user chose any other form of payment, it will default to "not paid".

When you click the "Manage" button under the Payment Status of any submission, you can mark the submission as paid for anyone who has since paid with their method of choice. You can contact registrants for payment based on their answers to fields included in the form (name, email, phone number, etc.).

Have any questions? Contact Us to learn more!

How To: Form Builder Conditional Logic

Mon, 27 Nov 2017 05:00:00 +0000

SoSimple’s Form Builder page now allows you to use conditional logic. This will allow you to include conditional questions to your forms that will only be displayed when triggered by certain answers to specific questions. See the sample below!

Step 1

First, you will have to create your initial question that will trigger your conditional question. This initial question will have to feature one of the following field types: Dropdown Select Options, Radio Button Select Options, Checkbox Select Options, Dropdown Multi-Select Options, State Dropdown, Country Dropdown, or Yes/No Dropdown. For this example, this will be a question called “Are you a resident of Connecticut?” with a Yes/No Dropdown field type (see below).

Step 2

Next, you will have to create your conditional question. This question can feature any field type. For this example, this will be a question called “Please choose your state:”. When creating this question, you will need to change the “Show This Field Conditionally?” option to “Yes” (see below).

Step 3

After you have made your question conditional, you will need to choose which existing question will link to this conditional question using the “Conditional Field” dropdown menu (see below).

Step 4

You will also choose which answer option in the existing question will trigger the conditional question using the “Conditional Field Option” dropdown menu (see below).

Step 5

Now, on the front end form, users will be prompted to choose an alternate state if they answer “No” to the initial question (“Are you a resident of Connecticut?”). If they answer “Yes” to this question, they will not be prompted with the conditional question.

Social Media Mashup Page Type

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 05:00:00 +0000

SoSimple CMS’s Social Media Mashup page type allows you to link all of your company’s social media accounts to one self-populating page of your website. Once your social media account(s) are connected to the Social Media Mashup page, all of your posts from your various accounts will automatically integrate into your website in real-time.

The mashup page currently allows you to connect accounts from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest, and Instagram, and will soon allow you to integrate RSS feeds as well.

To see the Social Media Mashup page in action, check out our client Lane Construction’s social media page here!

Form Builder: Auto Responder and Payment Setting Updates

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 04:00:00 +0000

Recent upgrades to SoSimple CMS’ Form Builder page type now allow merge tags in auto-responder emails, and payment options.

While users have always had the ability to turn on auto-responder emails in the form builder page type, users now have the ability to add personalized merge tags into these emails based on the different field types within the form. (For a quick tutorial on how to set up auto-responder emails, click here.)

For example, if you have “First Name” and “Last Name” fields in your form, you can address each recipient by name using “First Name” and “Last Name” merge tags. This tool now allows you to tailor your responses to each individual that submits a form.

In addition, users now have the option of adding payment options to their forms using PayPal and Stripe.

These payments can be set amounts for application fees, sign-up fees, etc., or left open-ended the form submitter to decide.

Payments made using the Stripe option can also be set to one-time only, or recurring monthly payments, which is perfect for monthly subscription fees, membership fees, and more.

How To: Add Anchor Links to Content Pages

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Anchors are a tool that allows you to link an item on a web page to related content further down the same page. Anchors are a great way to organize information on your Static Content pages, and are helpful ways to point your website users in the right direction. Follow the steps below to add anchors to your own website!

It is helpful to set up your content page in sections. List your questions or items that you would like to link at the top of the page, and list the information regarding each of those questions or items below.

Next, highlight the very beginning of the first section that you would like to link to. This should be a title of some sort that comes before the question/item description, matching the link at the top of the page. Click the "Anchor" tool in the toolbar (the flag icon in the top right corner).

Once you have clicked the anchor icon, a dialog box will appear, prompting you to name this anchor. Give this anchor a name according to what it refers to in the text to avoid confusion. Click the green "OK" button to save the anchor.

Next, highlight the link title (at the top of the page) that corresponds with the anchor you have just created. Click the "Link" tool in the toolbar (the link icon in the top right corner).

Once you have clicked the link icon, a dialog box will appear. From the "Link Type" dropdown menu, choose the "Link to anchor in the text" option.

Once you have chosen to link to an anchor, the dialog box will prompt you to select an anchor. From the "By Anchor Name" dropdown menu, choose the appropriate anchor that you have created.

Once these steps above have been completed, your content page should look similar to the image below. The blue text equivocates to links, because you have now linked your title at the top of the page, to the content further down the page.

Community Manager Member Management

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 05:00:00 +0000

SoSimple’s Community Manager now allows you to choose which member data fields you would like to export. Now, you can export the information that is important to you, without crowding your documents with unnecessary information.

To export a .csv file of your member database, click the “Export CSV” button on the Community Manager landing page in the CMS.

After clicking the “Export CSV” button, the dialogue box allowing you to choose your exported fields appears. Simply un-check the boxes for the fields you don’t want included in your export, and then click “Generate Export”. A CSV file will automatically download to your computer.

Community Manager also allows you to bulk upload member information to your database. Create new members one-by-one, or import a larger list using a simple CSV file upload. You can download a pre-populated template to ensure that your uploads correspond perfectly with your database.

What You Need To Know About SEO

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 05:00:00 +0000

Search-engine optimization: the methods used to boost the ranking or frequency of a website in results returned by a search engine, in an effort to maximize user traffic to the site. (dictionary.com)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of maintaining a successful website. Having high search engine page rankings is a great way to grow your business and get a leg up on your competition. However, this doesn’t mean you need to pay a fortune on consultants and agencies that promise to magically shoot your page to the top of the ranks.

Many agencies, consultants, and programs exist that promise to help bump up your websites rankings – for no small fee. However, SoSimple CMS offers multiple tools, already built into the CMS, that can drastically increase the probability of your site getting found. You’re basically sitting on a gold mine here.

1.) URL Structure

To determine the URL structure of your page, enter a descriptive word or phrase into the "Title" field.

For example, “Construction & Engineering Websites” was entered into the "Title" field of this particular page (see above). As one of several sub-pages of “Showcase”, SoSimple CMS will auto-populate the URL accordingly.

2.) H1 Tags

Use descriptive H1 tags in the “Page Heading” field. This emphasized text shows up as the content heading, so it should set the table for what visitors are about to read. Like the URL Structure and Title Tags, your H1 tags should also contain the words or phrases that you expect people to be entering into the search engines in hopes of finding your business.

3.) Title Tags

Title Tags are what shows up in the top of your browser/tab window bar. In the "Window Title" field, create a descriptive phrase (approximately 50-60 characters long) that someone might use in a search engine to find your business.Title tags are extremely important because they are what is displayed on results pages of search engines. They are intended to give the searcher a preview of what they will discover when clicking the link to that specific page of your website.

4.) Meta Description

Use the “Meta Description” field to input a brief sentence (approximately 150 characters) that will show up in search results, offering a preview of what's in store on the referenced page.

5.) Meta Keywords

Use the “Meta Keywords” field to add a series of keywords having to do with information having to do with the referenced page. These keywords will likely be words that people will search to find your business.

6.) Search Engine Preview

SoSimple CMS generates a preview of what your page listing will look like in a search engine, allowing you to visualize your page titles and descriptions in the same way that a person using a search engine will see it.

SoSimple CMS Upgrade: New Linking Feature

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 05:00:00 +0000

Recent updates to SoSimple CMS now allow users to conveniently link content to any page within their site by utilizing a “Site Pages” button on the server.

To use this feature, first highlight the content you want to link. Then, click the “link” icon in the toolbar.

In the Link dialogue box, click the “Browse Server” button.

Clicking the “Browse Server” button will bring up the Server dialogue box (pictured below). In the top left corner, click the “Site Pages” button.

Once you have clicked the “Site Pages” button, you will see a link to every page of your website on the right side of the dialogue box. Simply click on whichever page you wish to link to from the list.

Once you have chosen your linking page, the CMS will automatically populate the URL section of the “Link” dialogue box with the URL of the page you have chosen. After you have completed these steps, click the green “OK” button to save your changes.

Grow Your Business by Utilizing Job Board Page Types

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 05:00:00 +0000

Our Job Board page type allows you to create listings for your open positions, categorize them and give potential applicants an easy way to apply online including a file upload feature for resumes, references and other relevant files.

This page type allows you to enter multiple positions at the same time, without having to create multiple application forms, making it easier to keep track of applications being sent in.

Job listings are completely customizable with text fields for Descriptions and Requirements. In addition, you can enter a unique job ID for each new listing, helping to make your records as organized as possible.

Each job listing has an online application already built-in, making it easy for users to apply on the spot. For each position you can assign a unique email so that the right hiring manager receives the application when an applicant applies online.

Each job listing has text fields for job title, location, type, salary, and more! Users also have the option to add job categories to this page, allowing applicants to filter available positions to their skillset.