Features & Fixes August 31, 2011

Enhancements

Ad Upload Form

• After selecting the ad size, the bleed & safety sizes are shown for easy reference.

Trim History Viewer

• A new button in the History tab of the ad details view allows viewing of ad's trim history.

Ad Creator

• New custom text templates for publishers to configure.
• Publisher and advertiser communication included in ad history.
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a problem with files being delivered multiple times when assigned to more than one issue.
• Missing materials Dashboard notification formatting fixed, and clicking the note displays the materials request.
• Ad Creator: various fixes including improved handling of newly-created lines, and removal of empty text blocks.
• When an ad is reprocessed, the approval states are reset and the ad sender receives a notification to review & approve the new version.

New features included in our August 2011 upgrade:

Enhancements


New browser support

• Firefox 5 / Firefox 6 (beta)
  
• Safari 5.1
• Internet Explorer 9
• Chrome 13

Notification Enhancements

• Separate email templates now available based on material type: print ad, digital ads, Ad Creator ads. (E-reader ads and print pages to come in a following update).
• Advertiser help requests sent directly from the ad details view will now be sent exclusively to the materials receiver contact at the publisher. If the help request requires input from SendMyAd technical support, it will need to be forwarded by the publisher.

Issue Management

• A new checkbox in the issues list (when viewing a publication) allows viewing of older, expired issues.

New Ad Upload Features

• New hide zip upload setting allows publishers to accept ZIP print ads more discretely in order to promote instead the use of PDF files with advertisers.
• New styling for input validation of required form fields eliminates form field "shifting."
• Custom metadata fields now appear on print ad upload form. Watch screencast.

Advanced Search

• Advanced search now available for digital ad campaigns.
• E-Reader advanced search results improvements.

Ad Creator

• Image editor now shows four decimal places for image & frame resolution.
• Better user feedback when editing ad images.

Dashboard

• New separation of group rights so users can access reports from Dashboard but not view charts and statistics. Look for new right "Can see Dashboard charts," used in combination with the existing rights "Can see Dashboard" and "Can Manage Reports."
• New users with no rights to view Dashboard will be taken to manage print ads by default.

Other Minor Enhancements

• Improved downloading of attached assets.
• API expanded to allow direct viewing of ad using material ID string.
• Faster site loading time and better performance.
• Customer report shows invitee info.

Bug Fixes

• Updated 3rd-party JavaScript libraries for latest security fixes.
• Fix for Manage Print Ads view not showing the issues for inactive publications.
• Newly placed text on the advanced editing text tool gets proper position.
• Fixes for proper email address validation for new user registration.
• Ensures that downloaded files are not cached in the browser.
• Run & materials dates are properly checked before editing issue.
• 100% black text added using our advanced editing text tool is set to overprint.
• Various improvements in publication and issues ad filters behavior.
• Users with "can manage publications" right are able to edit publication level approval group users.
• The materials ID is now validated to be unique only at the same publication level, not globally as before.

Features and Fixes March 2011

New features included in our March upgrade:

 Enhancements


Better Bleed Detection

• There is now a bleed preflight check which has a tolerance value just like trim. This allows publishers to flag bleed sizes that are too large and to accept bleed sizes that are slightly under your specifications. 

Cross Site Pickups For Publishers Who Are Partners

• If your portal is has partnerships with other SendMyAd publisher sites, advertisers will now be able to pick up and copy ads between all titles regardless of publisher.

Batch pickups

• There is now a way to simply copy multiple ads in a single publication to a new issue.

New Ad Notes System

• A new coordinate based ad notes system has been added. Publishers and advertisers can now draw note boxes on individual ads for tracking specific problematic areas.  

New Reminder Screen For Advertisers

• We have added new reminder screen for advertisers. This screen appears when an advertiser uploads an ad an then closes the details view before it is approved or rejected.

Invitation System Enhancements

•   Existing users will not get emails if re-invited by another user.
•  New report shown immediately after attempting to invite customers listing number of successes, failures, and skipped invitations to existing users. Poorly formed email addresses are shown so they can be corrected.
• Publishers may remove an invitee from their list to prevent duplicate re-invitations from being sent to a customer.

Other Minor Enhancements 

• Publishers may choose to hide pickup details from ad history, XMP metadata and receipts. This is intended primarily for multi-publisher sites and the new universal pickup featured noted above.
• Translation edits no longer require a user to clear their browser cache.
• Usability improvements for users resetting their password.
• Improvements to materials requests when users are assigned late in the process.
• Adds an option to "Ads per issue (by issue)" report to omit hidden and archived ads.
• Help button available when uploading ads. It contains common solutions for users having problems using the uploader.
• More informative display of video tutorial links includes the duration of each video and a description.
• Ad sizes can now all be copied from one publication into another one.
• XMP metadata and digital receipt will show information about the source for copied ads. (Ads that were "sent to other pubs."). 

Bug Fixes

• Resolves issue with ads being offset improperly after trimming (found only in rare cases after the ad was reprocessed).
• Archived ads have only appropriate action options available to them.
• Improved behavior of Manage Ads at lowest supported screen resolution, 1024 x 768.
• Downloading large original files (under "Assets" in the ad details view) will be much more reliable.
• Resolves issue with ad sizes losing their connection to delivery locations.
• Better bleed size preflighting for rotated files.
• Allow users to access repositioning tool to fix over sized bleeds if there are no other errors.

Ads waiting for approval badge

We've introduced a new feature this morning for advertisers. There is a new graphic "badge" next to the Manage > Ads left menu item. The icon shows the number of ads waiting for a decision from the user - to be rejected or approved. We're hoping this extra visual will emphasize to users that they need to decide on the status of each ad they upload and cut down on unnecessary revisions.

Upgrade time!

Tomorrow, bright and early, we'll be upgrading SendMyAd with a bunch of new features:

• Support for iPad, mobile and e-reader ads


• Preflighting of click tags in digital ads


• Specifying date ranges for digital ads


• Expanded multilingual support, including uploaders


• Users can now directly request help while viewing an ad


• Help requests launched from Dashboard allow selection of publication


• Applies extra validation to editing of materials code


• Materials ID is checked for uniqueness during edits


• Adds paging through results of advanced searches for ads


• FLV support for digital ads


• Advertiser admins receive an email when new users from their company register with SendMyAd


• New email template for notifying advertisers when a publisher rejects an ad


• Allowing publisher users to edit the materials ID manually is now a preference

New notification type

We're adding a new notification email for when ads are revised. Previously you would get an email saying that new materials had been uploaded but there was no indication that it was a revision - it used the same email template as for new file uploads. Now you can control these separately. They of course have separate templates for your customizations. Simply enable this new notification under your publisher preferences.

One additional note - to make this transition easier, if you have "Notify us when ads are uploaded" enabled in your preferences, we've automatically enabled this new revision option. That way you'll continue to receive an email alert. You'll just need to customize the message with the new template if you wish.

Publication specific approvals

Approvals can now be set for individual publications.

Publication level notifications

Now you can control all email notifications at the publication level. You can set different groups or the default materials contact for any of the various email alerts. Previously you could only specify that a single group or the materials contact person would receive all types of notifications.

Watch our video for an explanation.


One thing to note - your existing settings will be migrated to the new system. You only need alter the configuration if you want to make use of the new feature.

Improved Advanced Search

Our January 2010 upgrade features an improved advanced search for ads, publications, issues, users and customers.

See the video for a walkthrough. We think you'll appreciate the new interface and the speedier results.

January 2010 Upgrade New Features

The January SendMyAd upgrade includes the following new features:

1. Publication-specific publisher approvals.
   


2. Individual notifications can now be managed at the publication level.


3. Better digital ad management using website containers.


4. Publisher customizable metadata.


5. Add margin to document support.


6. Advanced search has completely new interface - for ads, publications, users - and better performance.


7. Multi-language support:




• Publisher option to select languages approved for use with their portal.


• Publisher interface to edit custom translation table.


• User selection of preferred language - and is remembered even on login screen before authentication.


• Email and site text templates are now customizable for all supported languages.




8. Dashboard events system allows publisher and site to post important notices for users.


9. Right created that allows publishers to alter ads after the ad is completed.


10. Individual ad sizes can have custom closing dates using an offset from the publication run date.


11. Ability to cancel queued deliveries.


12. Current timestamp is now available as a variable when delivering files for the file or directory name.


13. New footer on all outgoing emails. Copyright notice, link to privacy policy and email template code for troubleshooting included for now.
    
14. Advertisers now can view the preflight report (under Actions menu) for an ad after it has been approved.


15. Email variables concerning ads are expanded and standardized across all templates.


16. Delivered count as optional table column for publishers only.


17. Easy access column preferences and column reordering.


18. Notes in ad view always show notes count.

As always, any bug fixes you might have been promised are included in this update.

Watch this blog for video tutorials for all the new features starting this evening through the next few days.

New Enhancement: Materials Id in Thumbnails view

For all of the people who wanted to see the materials id on the thumbnail view, it is now available.
You must be signed in as a publisher to view this option and if there is no materials id, the item will not show up.

Manual file delivery

SendMyAd now allows manual, user-driven deliveries of completed ads.

The best part is that you can rename the file for the manual deliveries to whatever you wish.

Watch the screencast for a quick tutorial.

Download Ad Specs

Our recent upgrade includes a new feature in beta testing. This feature provides a way for advertisers to download your Ad Sizes as InDesign documents.

We currently do not create the InDesign file for the ad sizes automatically. If you wish to make this feature available for your users, you must edit each ad spec individually. You can edit any field in the ad spec to trigger the .INX file generation. An easy way to do this is to edit the ad size code field, hit tab or click another field to save the change, then return to the code field to restore the original code value.

You'll then see the button to download the .INX file in the ad size viewer:

Customizable message for upload form

Responding to numerous feature requests, we've added a new feature that allows you to create a customizable message for each of your publications. Whenever a user uploads an ad, they will see this message, depending on the publication they select.

You control the message in the publication setup.

The best part is that you can post HTML links so you now have a way to present your own media kit or schedule PDF files right where the advertiser will see them.

View tutorial here.

Revamped advanced search

We have completely revamped the advanced search window to simplify the options and to provide quicker search results.

Look for an upcoming how-to video in the site.

It's still accessed by clicking the magnifying glass in the Quick Search widget.

Hiding publications from advertisers

You may wish to temporarily hide a publication so that advertisers cannot upload ads to it.

We've introduced a new feature that will allow you to do this easily. Simply go to the Manage Publications > Publication Settings and look for this new option:



Simply uncheck this "Allow advertisers to upload to this title" option to hide it from advertisers.

Publisher users will still be able to access the title normally.

This new setting is turned on by default so you don't have to do anything unless you wish to use this new feature.

Simple advertiser sign-up for multiple portal sites

As part of tonight's upgrade, we are simplifying the user experience for when an advertiser visits multiple SendMyAd sites from different publishers.

As long as the URL is a valid publisher URL, the user's account will automatically be granted access for any new publisher site visited. They will no longer have to select the "Click here if you already have a SendMyAd account" link.

If the user types in the wrong URL, like "www.portalname.sendmyad.com", they will be redirected to "portalname.sendmyad.com" and the login should work fine.

Only if the URL doesn't match a known publisher URL, will they be shown the portal redirector that allows them to choose one of the sites they have visited in the past.

We hope this will remove a source of confusion for advertisers visiting your portal for the first time.

Dashboard improvements

After tonight's upgrade, we hope you'll take a look at the new Dashboard for publishers. We've expanded the range of charts and statistics and improved the presentation of this important information.

Both advertisers and publishers will now also be able to keep up to date more easily with SendMyAd news - the latest articles from this blog now appear right in the Dashboard.

We hope you'll find these features useful.

New Flash uploader

Our latest version of SendMyAd (scheduled for upgrade tonight at 7PM Central) will include a feature that we hope you might not otherwise even notice.

We are switching our file upload code to use a Flash applet to handle the file name checking and upload processing.

We expect this new Flash uploader to be more reliable and a bit faster.

From an end user perspective, there really isn't anything different except now a very small Flash applet loads when you click "Step 3" in the send ad form.

Users have always needed Flash installed to use the trim applet. Over time we will be expanding the functionality of the site, some of which may also require Flash.

If you're unsure of your installed Flash version, you can check it easily. We require version 9 or higher.

Expanded bleed preflighting

Another upcoming feature being tested now: better preflighting of adherence to your bleed specifications.

Previously, SendMyAd was always warning if an ad did not contain bleed according to the ad specification used.

We now allow you to set this check just like other preflight checks - ignore, warn or error.

See the video for further details.

Note that this feature is retroactive for any ads that were preflighted with the profile you adjust to use this feature.

The default setting is to warn, so if you do nothing the behavior you see will be the same.