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Creating and previewing an e-mail Page

An E-mail Page in Outbound E-mail represents an e-mail message.

Before you begin

To create a Page you must have:

  • Page Management rights and Write permissions for the containing Structure Group
  • Page Templates and Component Templates available to you that define the visualization of Components and Pages

About this task

Creating an E-mail Page involves the following tasks:

  • specifying how the Page as a whole should be displayed
  • specifying which Components are part of the e-mail message
  • specifying how these Components should be displayed
  • specifying which Target Group or Target Groups each Component is associated with
  • previewing and saving the E-mail Page

Procedure

  1. Open the Content Manager Explorer.
  2. Navigate to the Publication and Structure Group in which you want to create the Page.
  3. Select a Structure Group and click the New Page icon in the toolbar.
    A New Page window appears.
  4. On the General tab, fill in the following fields:
    • Name — the name of the Page must be unique within the Structure Group in which you create it. Content Manager Explorer displays this name in the list view.
    • File name — you must make the file name unique within the Structure Group in which you create it. This is the name of the Page as it will appear on the Web site.
    • Page Template — the Page Template that the Content Manager will use to render the Page. If you click the Inherit From Parent option, the Page uses the default Page Template specified for the parent Structure Group or Publication.
    • Metadata schema — (Optional) you can select a metadata schema to create metadata values for the Page. You must fill in any mandatory metadata fields before you can save the Page.
  5. On the Component Presentation tab, click the Add button.
  6. Select the Component you want to add in one of the following ways:
    • In your Building Blocks Folder structure, navigate to the location of the Component you want to add.
    • In your Categories and Keywords, select a Keyword. The List View displays Components that have been classified with this Keyword or a child Keyword.
    When you have located the Component(s) you want to add, do the following
    1. In the list view, select one or more Components.
    2. Select a Component Template. If you select more than one Component, the Component Template is applied to all of the selected Components.
    3. Click the Insert button. A message appears at the bottom of the pane which confirms that you have added one or more Component Presentations to the Page.
    4. Repeat this step to add additional Components.
    5. After you finish adding Component Presentations, click Close to close the Component Presentations dialog.
    6. Click the Move up button or the Move down button to adjust the ordering of the Component Presentations on the Page.
  7. On the Target Group tab, you can define which category of user the content is intended for by selecting Target Groups. For more information, see the following tasks:
    1. Creating Target Groups for Outbound E-mail
    2. Personalizing an e-mail Page
  8. To preview the mailing for a specific Target Group or Target Groups, click Preview on the Ribbon toolbar:
    1. In the Preview tab, clear the check box marked Group-independent.
    2. Select one or more Target Group check boxes in the list.
    3. Click the Refresh Preview button to see the E-Mail Page as it will appear to members of this Target Group (Merge Fields remain unresolved). If you selected multiple Target Groups, the preview shows you the e-mail as it will appear to a Contact who belongs to any of these groups.

    If you select the Group-independent check box, the preview contains all content.

  9. Click Save and Close.

Results

You now have an E-mail Page that you can send out as a Mailing. Note that when this E-mail Page is sent out, Outbound E-mail:
  • Excludes or includes Component Presentations based on the Contact’s Keywords.
  • Replaces all Merge Fields with the appropriate values for each specific Contact (see the Adding Merge Fields).

What to do next

To test and send a Mailing, see Managing Mailings.