Theatre Manager Online Help

Editing data on the Mail List Window

Accessing the Mail List Window

Accessing the Mail List Window

To access the Mail List window you perform the following steps:

To access the list of mail lists, you perform the following steps:
  1. Click Setup >> Mail Lists from the main Theatre Manager menu.

    Alternatively, you can select the Mail List button from the Main Theatre Manager toolbar / ribbon bar.


    The Mail List search window opens.


  2. Select a Mail List search option.

  3. Enter a search range.
  4. Click the Search button.

    The list of Mail Lists fitting the search opens.

  5. Select a Mail List and click the Open button.

    The Mail List Criteria window will open. Alternatively, you can simply double click on the Mail List name.

    For more information on the Mail List window click here.

Parts of the Mail List Window

Parts of the Mail List Window

Opens a new Mail List window.
Saves changes made to the Mail List.
Creates a copy of the open Mail List.
Reverts back to the last save point.
Deletes the open Mail List.
Generates a report to the screen or default print location displaying the details of the Mail List.
Checks the spelling of typed items within the current tab.
Opens the mailing label window to create mailing labels for patrons included in the Mail List.
Provides a report by zip code of all patrons in the Mail List.
Mail List # Computer generated number for the Mail List.
Mail List Name Brief name of the Mail List
Select Drop Down List:
  • Patron who matches criteria
  • Primary household patron instread
  • All patrons in household
Active Active / Inactive Flag
Outlet Outlet that created the Mail List.
Access Groups Specify which groups of people can access the data
# in List Number of patrons currently in the list.
Information about the Mail List and its behaviors. Click here for more information.
The criteria groups for building the mail list. Click here for more information.
List of Patrons who are in the mail list. Click here for more information
List of who may change this mail list. Click here for more information.
List of the dates and times the mail list was executed. Click here for more information.

Description Tab

Description Tab

The Description tab of the Mail List window displays information about the mail list and its behaviours.

VIP List Alert Employee if patron is on the mail list. If a patron is marked on a list as a VIP, the employee will be reminded that the patron is on the list via a popup-dialog window each time they open the particular patron's record.
External List Allow Patrons to subscribe/unsubscribe via the internet. For most mail lists, this is never checked. However, if it is checked, this flag allows patrons to add (or remove) themselves to the mail list using the online sales module.

Possible uses for this setting on mail lists are where the customer can elect to belong (or remove themselves) such as:

  • Send me a season brochure
  • Tell me about auditions
  • I'm interested in 'Dance' performances
Refer to a sample web page with external mail lists to see what the patron would see online.
Patrons must be logged in to subscribe If this is:
  • checked - the patron cannot add themselves to this mail list unless they are logged in. This mail lists are intended for the patron's 'account' page online.
  • NOT checked - then the patron can add themselves to this mail list through the mail list quick add web link. This option is intended for letting people subscribe to lists with a minimum of data. (Name and email address).
Double Opt in Emails This feature is only valid for mail lists that are 'external'. If enabled, then patron who is added to the mail list (manually or automatically) will be sent an email asking them to confirm that they want to be on the list. If the patron:
  • does not respond to the email within 24 hours, they will be removed from the list.
  • responds within 24 hours (or even at a much later date), they will be placed on the mail list with a status of 'double-opt-in confirmed' and the date that they confirmed opting in.

This feature is very useful

  • for implementing CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Law -and/or-
  • to improve accuracy of email addresses in the system because it requires the patron to confirm the email address, automatically improving the accuracy of the data.
Description Detailed description of the purpose of the mail list (in 'descriptive plain language') so that others will understand its purpose or suggested usages.

Criteria Groups Tab

Criteria Groups Tab

Displays the selected Criteria for the mail list and allows you to add others to the Mail List.

Inserts criteria for a Mail List. Click here for more information on adding new criteria.
Removes the selected criteria.
Opens the parameter window for the selected criteria.
Rebuilds the mail list based on the selected criteria.
Verifies the number of patrons in the Mail List.
Duplicate will take the criteria group that you have selected and make a duplicate of it at the end of the list of criteria. By way of example, this is useful when you need to
  • Generate a list of people for a time period and are using the having clause feature to get a total of donations, or count of events, perhaps by year
  • Need to repeat that for a number of years to find, for example, the people who gave more than $1000 in a number of specific time periods so you can find those that are lapsed, or are giving more or buying more.
  • The easiest way is to make one group of criteria
  • Then duplicate it and edit the date parameters
You can reorder groups of criteria on a window by clicking on one and dragging it.
You can also drag a group of criteria from one mail list window to another. If you have built some criteria that you like and want to use portions of them in another mail list, just highlight the group and drag it to this window on another mail list.

Re-Arranging Grouping of Criteria

Re-Arranging Grouping of Criteria

Complex groups/criteria adds and removes patrons from a list. Criteria within the query may need to be repositioned. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the grouping.

  • Click the line of criteria to be moved to select it.
  • Click and hold the mouse button to "pick up" the group.
  • Drag the criteria up or down the list and release the mouse button where it should be placed.

Who's In Tab

Who's In Tab

This window displays a list of the patrons in the mail list. There are a number of things you can do with these patrons like:
  • generate mail labels
  • determine distance from your venue
  • export them
  • use them in criteria for reports or other mail lists
  • drag individuals from one mail list to another to place them into two lists
  • use the list to allow people to subscribe and unsubscribe to marketing lists online
  • drag them onto tasks to indicate who is invited.
Tracking unsubscribes: If a patron unsubscribes from the mail list online, they are not removed from the mail list. Their record gets marked with an unsubscribed date. This tracks who no longer wants information from your venue for a specific purpose.

This can be very useful for CASL purposes to track explicit opt outs and when the patron opted out.

You may alter the subscribe status using the add and remove buttons as described below.

Type Customizable field that allows for classification of patrons by type (Individual, Student, Staff, etc.)
Patron # Unique number assigned to a patron.
Patron Name Patrons first, last name and business.
Source How the patron came to be in the mail list:
  • Added Manually - an employee selected the mail list and added to the patron's record.
  • Ticket Purchase (Box Office) - The patron was automatically added to the default mail list for an event by purchasing a ticket to an event at the box office
  • Mail List Build - The patron satisfied the criteria for the mail list and was added when the Execute was pressed
  • Added During Data Import - The patron was associated with one or more mail lists due to a data import. This could have been done when converting to theatre manager or by using the patron import feature
  • Internet (Patron Self Added) - The patron placed themselves on the mail list online either on mail list screen or on the patron account window after logging in online
  • Internet (Plug In) - You have a custom plugin that may have added the patron to the mail list as part of the processing.
  • Ticket Purchase (Internet) - The patron was automatically added to the default mail list for an event by purchasing a ticket to an event at online
  • Double Opt-In Pending (Box Office) - An employee added a patron to a mail list that requires double opt-in to satisfy CASL or to simply have the patron confirm that want to be on the mail list. The patron is automatically sent an email. If they:
    • confirm - the status will be changed to Double Opt-in Confirmed
    • don't reply - the patron will be removed from the mail list within 24 hours. However, if they subsequently confirm, they will be added to the mail list again as Double Opt-in Confirmed
  • Randomly Assigned - You can build a mail list for marketing purposes and find it too large for our purposes or that you want to try an A-B marketing strategy. if so, you can use the Mail List Randomization feature to randomly assign people to a smaller list or to a number of other lists.
  • Double Opt-in Confirmed - This means that the patron has received the email request to confirm participation in a mail list and confirmed it. This has two main benefits:
    • it confirms the accuracy of the email address because the patron had to respond to it
    • it provided a record of explicit consent as per CASL (Canada's anti-spam laws) or equivalent in other countries.
  • Pass/Gift Certificate Purchase (Box Office) - The patron was automatically added to the default mail list for a Pass/Gift Certificate by purchasing one at the box office
  • Pass/Gift Certificate Purchase (Internet) - The patron was automatically added to the default mail list for a Pass/Gift Certificate by purchasing one online
  • Patron Unsubscribed (Internet) - The patron removed them selves from the mail list online. Theatre Manager actually retains this record as an indication of WHEN they removed themselves. You cannot pick these people for other mail lists.
  • Double Opt-In Pending (Internet) - An employee added a patron to a mail list that requires double opt-in to satisfy CASL or to simply have the patron confirm that want to be on the mail list. The patron is automatically sent an email. If they:
    • confirm - the status will be changed to Double Opt-in Confirmed
    • don't reply - the patron will be removed from the mail list within 24 hours. However, if they subsequently confirm, they will be added to the mail list again as Double Opt-in Confirmed
Primary Phone Patron primary contact telephone number.
Clicking on the New button causes a pop up to be shown that lets you:
  • Manually add a patron to the list.
  • -or- if some patrons are selected that are unsubscribed, you can resubscribe them to the list. Note that the subscribe feature is intended for patrons to manage themselves for mail lists that they can access online. However, if you have a large mail list that is not public, you might find this useful to track who was on the list, and now wishes to be corresponded with by subscribing them.
Opens the patron window of the selected patron.
Clicking on the Remove button causes a pop up to be shown that lets you:
  • Manually remove a patron from the list.
  • -or- if some patrons are selected that are subscribed, you can unsubscribe them from the list instead of deleting them. Note that the unsubscribe feature is intended for patrons to manage themselves for mail lists that they can access online. However, if you have a large mail list that is not public, you might find this useful to track who was on the list and no longer wishes to be by unsubscribing them.
Export the selected rows of contact information from a Mail List. If you want everybody in the list, select all the rows (or click on a line and the Ctrl-A or Cmd-A select them all) before clicking the export button.

  • You will be give a choice of export format: tab delimited, comma delimited, xls, or xlsx format.
  • Then you will be asked where you want to put the file
Add Pass Can be used to add a pass or gift certificate to a number of patrons at the same time.
Unsub Email Can be used to process an unsub/bounce file from an external emailer program and remove patrons from a mail list or remove their email addresses permanently.
Search options for finding patrons within the selected Mail List.
Search's the selected Mail List for patrons matching the selected search criteria.

Using the Unsubscribe feature

Using the Unsubscribe feature

In the sample list above, one patron is marked as unsubscribed online. One of the columns in the list contains the unsubscribe date, so you know when people no longer wanted to be part of the mail list.

When building other mail lists or running reports, there are two key selection criteria that lets you select these people:

  • Marketing Patron Belongs to Mail List - Subscribed to

    When used, this will find all the people in the mail list - except those patrons who unsubscribe themselves online. This makes selecting people on a public mail list easy. You don't need to worry about who doesn't want email since they are automatically ignored.

  • Marketing Patron Belongs to Mail List - Unsubscribed from

    This search criteria only picks people who have unsubscribed. Its best use might be for an eblast mail list where people say they no longer want a specific type of eblasts.

    You can include patrons in your normal way and then use this list to eliminate people in the unsubscribed list using something like the criteria below.

Access Restriction Tab

Access Restriction Tab

Displays a listing of who can change the contents of the selected mail list.
  • If you are on the access restriction list, you can add, rebuild and remove people from the list - and you can delete the mail list in entirety.
  • If the list of employees is empty, anybody can add, rebuild or remove people from the list
If you want to hide this list from some people, use the Access Feature at the top part of the window.
Preventing employees from altering the contents of the mail list does not prevent them from deleting the entire mail list unless you implement data permissions on the employee record (prevent delete of mail lists) or hide the mail list (as above)

First First name of the employee.
Last Last name of the employee.
E-mail E-mail address for the employee.
Grants an employee access to the Mail List.
Removes an employee from having access to a Mail List.
Opens the employee data window for the selected employee.

Emails associated with Mail List

Emails associated with Mail List

This window shows which emails are associated to this mail list for the purposes of allowing the user to unsubscribe from the mail list.
For mails to appear in this list, they MUST have been sent out using and unsubscribe list in the form letter merge.

You can:

  • Search by date sent to see what went out on a particular day or for a time period
  • Search by letter to see who got a particular bit of correspondence.
    • You can see who opened it the letter
    • Highlight a number of the lines based on status to see how many were sent and how many were opened
  • Have a look to see what is due the future
  • Select a number of emails and:
    • change their status to Not Done to resend them -or-
    • mark them done if you need to have them on the patron's file but never intended to send them, -or-
    • delete them - which means that the patron could no longer unsubscribe from the email.

Execution Log Tab

Execution Log Tab

List of the dates and times the mail list was executed.

First First name of the employee who ran the mail list.
Last Last name of the employee who ran the mail list.
Start Count Number of patrons in the list before the list is executed.
Stop Count Number of patrons in the list after the list is executed.
Time (Sec) Amount of time in seconds the mail list took to populate.
Status The method chosen to populate the mail list. This will be one of:
  • Duplicated - which means the mail list was original create from a duplicate of another one. The starting and ending counts will be the same and the time indicates how long it took to duplicate.
  • Proceed - the mail list was built without clearing it first. It may mean there are patrons in the mail list that may not match the criteria. (eg if they were manually added prior to the rebuild>
  • Rebuild - the mail list was cleared of app patrons prior to applying the criteria.
Start The date and time at which the instance of the mail list was begun.
Finish The date and time at which the instance of the mail list finished running.

Remove Patrons using External Email Unsub/Bounce file

Remove Patrons using External Email Unsub/Bounce file

It is possible to remove patrons from a mail list using an external file containing unsubscribes and/or bounces - which is typically created by exporting that data from an external mailing tool like Bronto, Mail Chimp, or the like. This feature has two functions:
  • Remove people from a mail list based on patron number -and/or-
  • Remove email addresses completely from the database

This process will remove people from mail lists and (optionally) email addresses from the database.

Please ensure you have a recent backup in case you delete data you do not want to delete. The only remedy is to restore a backup database, export the data and then use the patron import processes to bring it back in.

 

Preparation of Data

Most email services external to Theatre Manager have a feature to export patrons who unsubscribed from the emailer, or whose emails bounced. You will need to create a file that:

  • has (at minimum) a patron number, email address and status. All other fields are ignored. You do not need to get the field names correct as they are matched later.
  • The status must either be:
    • unsub to indicate that the patron has unsubscribed from the mail list. Theatre Manager only looks at the first 5 characters, so you can use unsubscribe or any other variation.
    • bounce to indicate that the email was not deliverable. Theatre Manager only looks at the first 5 characters, so you can use bounc, bounce, bounced or any variation.
  • It can be in excel format, tab delimited or comma delimited

 

Importing the file to remove patrons from a mail list

To begin the process, open up a mail list window to the Whos In Tab. You can either:

  • Click the Unsub Email button which will ask you for the file you prepared above -or-
  • Drag the file you prepared above on top of the list of patrons.

 

Match up the following fields:
  • Patron Number - note, any row with no patron number, or a patron number not found in the database will be ignored. This means:
    • if you merged people together and then they unsubscribed, TM cannot will not find them in the database and they cannot be unsubscribed from the mail list.
    • It will also not unsubscribe people who are only in the mail list program database and not in Theatre Manager since they don't have a Theatre Manager Patron Number
  • Email Address - the email address from the mail list program
  • Status - which contains the first 5 letters of either unsub or bounce. Any other status codes are ignored.

 

There are two functions that the unsubscribe process can support which are indicated on this screen. You can:
  • Remove People from a mail list. The patron's email address is retained in Theatre Manager - they are simply deleted from the mail list based on patron number matching. Since there are two status codes in the import file, you can elect to remove based on:
    • unsub - the patron has indicated that they don't want emails from you by actively unsubscribing from an eblast you sent out. This option reflects the patron's intent
    • bounce - The external email package does not know if the patron got the email from you. A bounce could mean many things such as: an invalid email address, the patron's email sever is not currently working, or their email server is rejecting your email as spam. A bounce does not necessarily mean bad email. Multiple bounces from many emails increases the likely hood of the email address being bad, so you may need to track the bounces for a while before using this option.
  • Completely delete the email address from the database - if you get a lot of bounces, you can elect to DELETE the email address from the database. This option should be used sparingly because it will DELETE the email address from the database and disassociate it from ALL PATRONS IN A HOUSEHOLD that are sharing the email address.

 

The final step is to confirm what you want to do. It suggests a backup be made since the process cannot be undone without going to a backup.

Removing a Patron Through the Mail List Window

Removing a Patron Through the Mail List Window

This method is useful for removing multiple patrons from a mail list when they do not have common information. If the patrons all have common information (e.g. they all are non-donors) use the Mail List Database Query method of removal.

To remove a patron through the mail list window, you perform the following steps:

  1. Open the Mail List Window.

    Click Here to learn how to open the window.

  2. Find the mail list to remove patrons from.
  3. Click the Who's In tab.
  4. Select the patrons you want to remove from the mail list.

    Single click on a patron to select them or use the Ctrl key (PC) or the Command/Apple key (Mac) to select multiple patrons.

  5. Click the Remove Button.

    6. The patron has been removed from the list.

Selling Passes/Gift Certificates to a number of Patrons

Selling Passes/Gift Certificates to a number of Patrons

There are occasions where you want to give passes to certain groups of volunteers, staff, subsets of donors, subscribers. An example might be to give people working on an event free passes, or to give staff passes for a predetermined number of shows during the year. Once they have the passes or gift certificates, they can obtain their tickets online and/or manage their own tickets without the need to contact the box office.

You can add those passes to the patron record one at a time, or you can add them EN MASSE to selected people in a mail list.

This process can sell a lot of passes or gift certificates quickly. It does not provide a process to pay for any that generate a balance owing by the customer.

If passes are sold that require payment, you may find it easier to pay for them on the Patron Tab in the pass setup window.

 

Process of selling a Pass/Gift Certificate to Multiple Patrons

Open up a mail list that contains the people that you want to sell the passes/gift certificates to and go to the Whos In tab on the mail list window. The start of the process is:

  • Select the patrons who you want to give the pass to

 

Then do one of the following two steps:
  • Click the Add Pass button (above window) and then pick a pass/gift certificate type from the pop up list -or-
  • Open the pass type list and drag one of them onto the selected patrons

 

Once you have picked a pass to sell to the selected patrons, you will see a confirmation message.

Who is on the Mail List

Who is on the Mail List

Once a mail list has been created or found you may wish to view the patrons belonging to the list. By viewing the Who's In tab of the Mail List,

  • patrons can be viewed or removed from the list
  • you can export the data
  • you can print labels for the patrons in the list using the mail lable button
  • do maps of where selected people live (context menu)
  • and more

To view a patron on the mail list, you perform the following steps:

  1. Open the Mail List widow.

    Click here for more information on opening the window.

  2. Find the mail list required.

    Currently there are 30 patrons attached to this mail list as seen by the # in List to the right of the window.

  3. Click the Who’s In tab.

    The Who's In information will be displayed.

    For more information on this window click here.