Seeds Editor

Seeds

A Seed list usually contains contact details for representatives in your organisation - or possibly 3rd parties such as agency staff – and is a mechanism for ensuring that your marketing communications are sent out on time and with the correct recipient information. A seed list also provides a useful way to keep track of what campaigns are being sent from your organisation and facilitates your ability to response to any questions or complaints that customers may have.

Administrator permissions are required to add Seed list files into PeopleStage - the Seeds Editor can be found in the File Menu - Administration:

• Select - File > Administration > Seeds Editor

The Seeds Editor

Once loaded, the Seed Editor window displays any existing Seed lists that you can view or edit, and also provides the environment in which you can create a new Seed or new Seed list ‘set’.

 

You can manually add single Seeds or, alternatively, import tab delimited files containing the required Seeds. Both options are located at the top right of Editor window.

To add an individual Seed:

1. Click on the New Seed option

 

2. Type in the individual details

Ensure that each Seed is given a unique URN which follows the format of the URN associated to the reference number in the database.

3. Add email address and mobile number for email and SMS communications

Additional fields can also be populated if required by clicking on the New Fields option. Here any system variable can be selected and then populated with seed details. This is useful for testing dynamic content for each seed.

Once the information for the seed has been entered:

4. Click on Save

To view the Seeds added:

• Click on View/Edit all Seeds

To select a seed to edit:

• Double click on the record and edit by overtyping the existing information
• Click Save to save the changes

 

Creating a new Seed set manually

From the Seeds Editor window:

• Select New set

Any Seeds that have been added into the Seed Editor will be listed at the top of the window:

To create a set:

• Enter the Title for the Seed set, together with a description (optional)

To add Seeds to the set:

• Highlight the required seed(s)

Click onto a specific row to highlight and move a single Seed, but use Shift+Click or Ctrl+Click to pick up multiple Seeds

• Choose Add seeds to this set

This will move the record into the set. Conversely, to remove the seed from the set:

• Highlight the record(s) and choose the Remove seeds from this set

Add as many seeds as necessary and complete the process with Save. Once created and saved, a Seed set appears and is selectable from the Home screen of the Seeds Editor and contains all the seed records added.

To edit a Seed set:

• Click on the Edit button below the Seed list icon

 

Importing Seeds to create a new Seed set

You can create a new Seed set by importing a file that contains the relevant Seed information. Having selected the New set option on the Seeds Editor home page, in the New set window:

• Select Import

The file must be a tab delimited file, containing all information for the seeds. Any column headers which match the special columns – URN, Email, SMS, or any other system variable name, will be automatically matched during the import:

Once chosen and imported, a preview of the contents of the file will appear in the import window:

Before choosing Next, you can choose how to import the file.

The Seeds Editor will import the file as a new set, replace existing seeds where the URN matches, or can add additional information to existing seeds through matching to existing reference numbers.

• Once selected, choose Next

The second stage is to map column headers in the import file to any fields in the FastStats system:

• Use the menu in the Import As column to choose the mapping

Choosing ‘Variable’ in this drop down will allow you to select a system variable contained within the System Variables explorer in FastStats.

• Once mapped, choose Next

A preview of the file will be presented:

• If the preview is correct, click Finish

You will return to the New Set window and see the seeds from the file in the Available seeds area.

• Highlight and select the Seeds to include in their own set
• Click on Add seeds to this set
• Enter the Seed set name into the Title box
• Optionally add a Description if required
• Click Save to complete the process

In the Seed Editor home page, there are now two sets – one created by manually adding Seeds, the other by importing a file.]

 

To use Seed sets

You can apply Seed sets at the Campaign or Message level; the same setting can be used on both levels to apply the desired set.

• From the Campaign toolbar, select the Seeds View

When seeds have been added in the Seed Editor, the sets can be dragged and dropped from the library.

• Navigate to the Seed Sets Library folder, or search “Seeds” to find the sets

With the Campaign in Plan-Edit mode:

• Drag and drop the Seed set from the Library and onto the ‘hotspot’ within the Seed view window

Once the campaign is published, the selected Seed set is output with every delivery in the campaign.

If the Seed set is applied at the Message level, seeds in the selected set are applied to that individual message only, rather than to every message within campaign.