Pointing to Message Content

Specifying any message content consists of three steps:

Preparing the message content -- The message content must be appropriate for the type of body you are specifying. For example, if you are specifying an HTML message body, the content must be formatted in HTML. If you are specifying a text message body, it must be in plain text format.
For more information about preparing your content, please refer to the Content Administration section of this Guide.
Placing the message content on a web server - The content must be staged on a web server accessible to the Mail Composer, Conversation Manager, and the UI server. If you are unsure about the relationship between the web server and Connect, talk to your System Administrator.
Providing the pathname to point to the correct content on the web server.

When specifying the pathname to your message content, it is very important that you place the pathname to the correct content in the correct field.

For example: If you are sending different mail content types such as HTML, text, and AOL, you must place:

the pathname to the HTML message version in the HTML field,
the pathname of the text message version in the text field, and
the pathname to the AOL message version in the specific e-mail client field.

Mixing up these pathnames can cause serious corruption of your customer messages, causing your customers to receive messages they cannot read.

Note: It is very important that you specify the correct version of your message in each message content default pathname field.

You don't need to have both a text and an HTML version, but you need at least one of them for each message. If you have both versions, the appropriate version will be sent to each customer. We recommend that, if you have only one version, that version should be text, because all e-mail clients can read text. However, since HTML formatted messages return significantly higher click through rates, we suggest you provide an HTML version as well.

If all or most of your message bodies are stored in one location, enter the default URL to that location in the URL Prefix field. Then, when you type message body URLs later, you need only type the part of the URL that appends to this prefix.

Here's an example of a full URL:

http://Content/e-mailcampaigns/messages/1999/message_one.htm

If all your messages for this campaign are going to be found in the messages folder, the URL Prefix is:

http://Content/e-mailcampaigns/messages/

The message path is then:

1999/message_one.htm

If you are editing an existing URL, just enter the corrected information in the URL Prefix field.

Warning! If you change the URL Prefix for this campaign, it will change the prefix for all messages in this campaign, even those that have already rolled out. If any mail is created from the rolled out message after the prefix change, the system will not be able to find the message content. If the new URL location happens to have a file with the same name, the system will use the file in the new location. This could cause incorrect message content to be sent to your customer. Be certain of the ramifications of your change before attempting it.