FastSender Tutorial

Thank you for purchasing FastSender.

Installation:

To install fastsender on your server please upload the folder "fastsender" which is existed in the same folder of this tutorial, then please open your Internet browser, type the URL of fastsender folder you just uploaded adding to it “/setup.php “ (i.e http:// path _to fastsender/setup.php), When you get there you should see an installation wizard of two steps.

 

The first step:

In this step you should give read /write permissions to some directories, you can do that from the file manager of your website's control panel or simply open a new page in your web browser, in the address bar type the ftp address of your website, then click enter to connect, then move the mouse cursor from the address bar to the body of the page and right click any where in it and choose “login as”  (as shown in the following image), then type your user name and password.


Now you should be able to see the files and folders inside your website and can give read/write permissions to the specified ones simply by right click on each of them and select “properties” (as shown in the image below).


Then get back to the installation wizard and click next


The second step:

In this page you should enter your MySQL connection parameters

• The name or IP of the server on which your MySQL database is running (which is not     necessary the IP address of your website, sometimes the databases are kept in a          separate server)
• Database name
• User name and password

You can find these information in the “ MySQL” section of your website's control panel .
If you still can't find them you need to contact your hosting provider and ask him/her about “ Your MySQL connection parameters”.

Then you will need to set an Admin password, user name and Email address , this information will be used to login to your administration control panel .


After finishing the installation you will be directed to the admin control panel.


Getting started:

The first thing you should do is click “settings” then select “general settings
In this page you should:

1- Enter the “installation path” ,which is the path to the fastsender folder you uploaded adding to it “/mailer” (i.e http:// path _to fastsender/mailer )

2- Enter the sender data of your newsletters ( from name, from email)

3- You will need a valid email address to which bounced messages should return so that fast sender can trace them, ” (Please note that you should not delete bounced messages from that email account)” Please type that email address in the “reply to” box

4- Set a valid email address in the “test email”, this email address will be used whenever you need to test sending a message.

5- The sending rate is the number of emails to be sent per hour. (you should clear that with your hosting provider not to get your account blocked if you exceed his limit). According to our experience many hosting providers would allow between 50-200 emails per hour, sometimes they set a maximum of 50 Emails per hour and you have to call them to raise that to 200 per hour and usually that doesn't require any extra fees.

If you check the “fix rate” box (which is recommended if your hosting provider have fixed limits ) FastSender will always work with that fixed rate even if it creates problems, otherwise FastSender will try your suggested rate but if a problem occurs or it finds that your server can handle higher rate, it will change the rate you entered and adopt a new one more suitable for your situation.

6- “The bounced Emails” , Checking this option will allow fast sender to track bounced Emails and show them in the delivery reports, If you set this option correctly you can know  who didn't receive your Emails and keep your lists free from invalid Email addresses . To do that FastSender needs to connect to your “reply to” email account which contains the bounced emails, so you should set the POP3 or IMAP server of your “reply to” Email address, you can find that info in your hosting provider control panel, it's like configuring this email server in outlook or any other email client.

Please note that :

• If your hosting provider support both POP3 and IMAP ,please use IMAP in fastsender . • The default port no of IMAP 143, while the default port no of POP3 is 110 but you need to check your hosting provider to be sure.

• “bounce specification” shows fastsender which type of server It should connect to, for IMAP you should enter "/imap/notls" or  "/imap"  for POP3 you should enter “/pop3/notls” or “/pop3”  according to your PHP version (Fast Sender can detect the correct specifications if you click "Get specifications")

• The user name and password is your “reply - to” Email address and it's login password.

7- By default fastsender stores your subscribers email address, first name, last name in the subscribers management section of your control panel and you can use these information to personalize and send newsletters, If you need other contact details of your subscribers like telephone, Fax, zip code you can add it in the custom fields.

Now you finish your general setting, you need to save and Go to the “Settings" then select "SMTP Servers”.


Configuring SMTP servers:

In this page you should add the connection parameters of your SMTP servers which are used to send emails, only one server is enough however we recommend that you add more servers to get better delivery results especially if you have a large number of subscribers,
 For each SMTP server you need it's name (you can ask your hosting provider or check your control panel to know, Port number (default port no 25, but many times another port number is used instead of the default, so you better check), user name and password , (in most cases It's your email address which uses that SMTP server to send emails and it's password).


Mailing lists:

Now you need to go to the “mailing list” section to create at least one mailing list (you can set the unsubscribtion link of this new mailing list later when you start creating subscription / unsubscribtion  forms (from the forms section).

 

Importing subscribers:

Now you need to go to the "subscribers" section and select "Import"

This step is important only if you already have subscribers that you need to import to fastsender, and you have two options to do that

(A) If you have your subscribers in a file you will need to format it like that:

email,first name,last name,custom1,custom2, custom3

Example:


Petter77@yaho.com , peter, smith ,43743, NY, USA

Please note that:

• The file shouldn't contain any header row
• The file extension should be .txt or CSV
• The only field that is required is the email address ,so your file can be look like that:

Petter77@yahoo.com
alan@gmail.com
WM@someserver

(B) If you have your subscribers in another database then all you need is:

• Enter the Connection parameters of your data source (host, user, password, database name )
• Select the Table and columns which contains your subscribers emails .


Now you are ready for sending your first newsletter