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.

New right to see publisher's action menu

We've also added a new right to allow or restrict access to the publisher actions menu when viewing an ad. The new right is called "Can see publisher action menu" and can be assigned per group. The default publisher groups will have this right. You will need to add it to any custom groups you've created that need access to this feature.

To do this, visit Manage > Groups, and select each group that must be edited. You can assign the right in the editor view that appears under the Rights section.

New user right to see Dashboard

Following a publisher's request, we've added a new feature that will be in our next update. It will allow you to choose if your users can see the Dashboard. It's called "Can see Dashboard." It is enabled for all default groups in the system. If you have users that are only in custom groups you've created, you'll need to add this new right to the custom groups to still allow access to the Dashboard.

To do this, just visit the Manage > Groups area, and add the right for each group.

New Features for Digital Ads, Part 2

This screencast shows some new options for setting up digital ads, like an automatic IAB ad size converter, the ability to control metadata fields that appear on the uploader, and expanded click tag support.

New Features for Digital Ads, Part 1

This screencast shows a few new features when uploading a digital ad. We can now retrieve an ad from the web automatically, and give you an easy way to create a snippet to link to a digital ad in your site.

EReader / iPad Ads

SendMyAd now accepts mobile / EReader / iPad ads. This is an optional feature - please ask your account representative for pricing information.

See the video for details on how this works.

New trim tool

One major feature of our upgrade tomorrow is a redesigned trim tool interface. We think you'll find the new interface more efficient and easier to use. We've also added a new optional feature that allows a user to add text to the PDF using the trim tool. A typical use of this would be for adding reader service numbers. Please contact a SendMyAd sales representative for more information on the new type tool.

Watch this screencast to see it in action.

This new version of the tool also will display in French Canadian if that is the language selected for the user.

Publisher statistics at a glance

Watch this screencast to see a new summary report with charts to help you keep tabs on your ad activity. You can also use the new Publisher Statistics to see at a glance the most common reasons for advertisers rejecting and revising their ads.

Reason tags make revisions easier

Watch a video of our new Reason Tag system to make it easier for advertisers to communicate why they are revising or rejecting an ad.

Upgrade planned for Tuesday, August 23

We have been working hard on a new release of SendMyAd. We're planning to upgrade early Tuesday morning, August 23. Just some of the features you'll notice in the new release:

New Features:

• Introducing support for IPAD/Ereader/Mobile ads


• Revamped Trim tool interface


• New Trim tool feature allows type additions to PDF files


• Publisher reports view shows more information and chart for incoming ads


• New Revision Tagging System allows customers to quickly categorize the reason for a revision


• Support for GWG ads coming into our system automatically. Supported by Certifyle and Adstream.


• New GWG Filter view


• GWG ads also support embedded preview now


• New Pickup ad filter view


• Quick search supports enter key. This will auto open the top result.


• Back button in light box popup supports hot key CTRL B


• Custom safety available on all sides


• SFTP delivery support added

Digital Ad Features

• Retrieve ads directly from DoubleClick or other digital ad servers for preflighting


• New view to manage your client's uploaders


• New snippet view allows for better result snippets


• Revision of digital ads available


• Easily convert your ad specs to IAB standards


• SWF ads now have several customizable click tag detections

Page Portal Features

• New Page portal allows publishers to upload pages to be preflighted


• Visually compare revisions

Bug Fixes

• Enter key no longer refreshes whole site randomly


• Warning added when selecting SFTP as delivery destination


• Digital uploader can now be configured to require and accept different file types


• Rich Media specifications can accept SWF or FLV instead of automatically accepting both


• When using "Send to other pubs", the "Is a pickup" flag is set to "No"


• When picking up an ad or sending it to another publication, the revision count is reset to zero


• Flash ad upload now supported in IE7


• Numerous small IE7 bug fixes


• Ad Notes are copied on pickups and copies


• Version check bug on Flash ads fixed


• Inviting multiple users bug fixed for IE7

New beta feature: SFTP file delivery

Today's upgrade contains a new beta feature - the ability to deliver files over secure FTP. Also known as SFTP, it can be configured in the add or edit delivery location screens. Please contact support if you would like to test this feature. We'd like your feedback on this new functionality.

Changes to password reset system

In order to help users that have not yet had a chance to set up a new security question and answer, we've restored the old ability for a user to reset the password themselves by following a special link emailed to them. They will receive this email automatically now if they enter their username in the password recovery area, and we detect that they do not have a challenge question. Users with challenge questions will use that method for their password resets. We hope this will make the system even simpler to use and require less work for publishers.

This functionality will appear in the next upgrade, tentatively planned in about a week.

New password reset system

Our existing password reset system has proven difficult for many advertisers to use, so we've replaced it with an easier method. This follows the widely used challenge question and answer format you've surely used on other sites. Many online banking sites, for instance, use this method to protect your identity.

Any new users will be prompted to enter their password recovery question and answer when they create their account.

Existing users will be automatically taken through the process when they log in to the portal after Tuesday night's upgrade. This is a one-time process and will take less than a minute for a user to complete.

We think you'll find the new method of resetting forgotten passwords much easier and quicker.

Technical contact for publishers

We have added a new configuration option in Manage > Company Profile where you can supply the name of a technical contact for your company.

This person will receive copies of any technical support requests created in the portal by your advertisers or internal users.

Very often the support requests received by SendMyAd are not technical issues with the software, but simple questions about an ad or a company policy. Now your technical contact can receive these immediately and provide timely first-line support for those types of queries.

Please be sure to select your technical contact after Tuesday's system upgrade.

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.

Unlocking advertiser accounts

Publisher administrators may now unlock their customer's accounts.

Accounts get locked for 30 minutes if the user has tried unsuccessfully to log in 5 times in a row.

To unlock an advertiser's account, simply click their user name under the Manage > Customers list. When viewing the user's information, if their account is locked out, a button will be available to unlock it.

See video for a demonstration.

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.

Custom publication information field in upload form

We're testing a new feature that will allow you to create a custom message for each publication. This message will appear on the upload form once an advertiser selects a publication.

See the video for a demonstration.

Note that if you do not add anything in the custom message field for a publication, this section will not appear.