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Hosting & Email

Accessing the Hosting Control Panel

To access your Hosting Control Panel for your Volusion Account, simply go to http://my.volusion.com.  To login use the email and password used to sign up for your Volusion account or the current email and password you have for your Volusion Account if you have changed it since signing up.

Setting up Email Accounts 

1. Go to http://my.volusion.com
2. On the left menu under my store click on "Email".
   
3. Select Mailboxes and fill out the username and the password. The username will be the first part of your email.
   
4. Select Add Mailbox and you are done.
   
5. If you need to add additional emails, repeat steps 3 and 4.
   

Once you have added your email accounts, you can log into those accounts by going to http://mail.yourdomain.com (where "yourdomain" is your store's domain name) or you can optionally choose to setup your computer to download email. At least 90% of people use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. Outlook Express is free and included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. To download the LATEST version of Outlook Express simply download Internet Explorer 6 from http://www.microsoft.com/ie/

Microsoft Outlook (not express) is included with Microsoft Office software, however is not much different. One great thing about Microsoft Outlook 2003 is the built-in spam filter, which is actually very efficient and accurate in blocking spam. We have seen it block at least 50% of spam.

To add an e-mail account, you will need the following information:

Your Incoming mail server. Which is usually mail.YourDomainName.com. As well as your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) outgoing mail server name. You will also need to have you username and password to connect to your Incoming and Outgoing mail server. For the incoming (POP3) information, Volusion support can assist you. However, for the outgoing (SMTP) information, please ask your Internet Service Provider for this information. Note: Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is the company to which you pay for DSL / Cable / Dial-up access. All ISPs provide SMTP connectivity as a free service. Some ISPs even REQUIRE you to use their SMTP servers as opposed to any others.

Setting up Outlook XP/2003:

1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.
2. In the E-Mail Accounts dialog box, click View or change existing e-mail accounts.
3. Click the Add button.
4. Select the POP3 radio button selection and click next.
5. Then enter Your Name, E-mail Address, Incoming mail server, Outgoing mail server, User Name & Password. If your outgoing mail server requires authentication then click on the More Settings button, then click the Outgoing Server tab. Another great idea is to click on the Advanced tab and check the box labeled Leave a copy of messages on the server and Remove from server after 10 days.
6. Click next / finish to complete.

Setting up Outlook Express:

1. On the Tools menu, click Accounts.
2. In the Internet Accounts dialog box, click Add.
3. Select either Mail to open the Internet Connection Wizard
4. Insert the Name you wish to use as your Display Name. Click Next.
5. Enter the E-mail Address that you want people to reply to. Click Next.
6. Set the My incoming mail server is a drop down to POP3. Your Incoming mail server will be mail.yourdomain.com. You will need to contact your Internet Service Provider for your SMTP (outgoing mail server) settings. Click Next.
7. Then insert your Account Name (which would be your FULL email address -- including domain name) and your Password. Make sure that the Remember Password is checked. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.
9. After completing this wizard, go to the Tools menu, click the Mail tab.
10. Double-click on the account you just created, then click the Advanced tab.
11. Click Leave a copy of messages on server and Remove from server after 10 days.

Setting up the CRM System:

In the admin area of the store, navigate to Customers —> CRM system. Settings up Departments:

1. Next, you need to setup your departments.
2. At the top right gray area labeled "Additional CRM Sections", click on Manage Departments link.
3. Next, click the ADD tab
4. Fill in both the Private_Name and Public_Name fields with the name of your department such as Orders.
   
5. After filling in the Private_Name and Public_Name fields, click Add New. Repeat this until all departments are created.

POP3 Accounts:

1. Once all departments are created, click on POP3 Settings at the top right under the "Additional CRM Sections" area.
2. Next, click ADD to create your POP3 Accounts so that the CRM can pull the emails in.
3. Enter in the Email Address you want to connect to the CRM.
4. Then enter the Username of the Email Address.

   Note: If Volusion hosts your emails, then the Email Username will be the same as the Email Address.

5. Enter the password for the email address into the Email Password field.
6. For the Email Server field, this should be set to mail.yourdomain.com (where yourdomain is the domain name of your website).
7. In the Ticket Type field, select one of the departments that you created.

The Email Reply Footer field is optional, but allows you to put a message at the bottom of the emails you send out. The Auto-Reply Subject and Auto-Reply Body fields allow you to have an automatic reply sent to the customer verifying to them that you received their email. If you click on the icon next to those fields and you will see default examples that you can use.

CRM Point System

CRM "Point System", or Rating Rules creates a point system that can be used to evaluate administrator performance. Rating rules allow you to assign points to tickets as they are previewed and answered. These points are then assigned to the administrator who makes a reply to the customer. The summation and comparison of points can be viewed as a report in Reports > Reporting under the report CRM_TicketReplies.

Navigate to Customers -> CRM System and on the top right click "Point System", then click the Add tab. There are 4 different types of Ratings Rules:

• Credit_Views_After: Gives points for viewing the ticket for a specified amount of time.
• Call_Duration: Specifies how many points to award for call durations of that length
• Reply_Time: Gives points based on how long it too for a ticket to receive a reply
• Call_Duration: Gives points based on when a ticket is marked as viewed. Note that this is only applied once Credit_Views_After is applied first.

Other fields that you would want to specify to customize the rating rules:

1. Point_Value: Specifies how many points to award for the associated rating type.
2. Name: The name of the point value that is being assigned.
3. Value: Specifies how many minutes must be reached in order for the points to be assigned or credited to the administrator.

Auditing Sales Reps

Navigate to Customers -> CRM System and on the top right click "Audit Reps".

1. Select the Representative to be audited.
2. The Start Date, End Date, along with the hours and minutes for each can be entered in order to specify what to audit in greater detail for this particular representative.
3. Click the submit button and the report will be generated.

Ticket Classifications

Classifications are used by administrators to quickly search for related articles to find solutions effeciently. Classifications are per ticket type, so you can create an assortment of ticket classifications for each department. It is the administrators responsibility to assign appropriate ticket classifications to tickets.

Navigate to Customers -> CRM System and on the top right click "Ticket Classifications". To add a classification, click the add tab and input the following required fields:

• TicketType: This specifies the department to this classification applies. You can use this value to separate classifications between departments . For example, you can assign technical classifications to your technical department and sales classifications to your department.
• Name: This is the visible name of the ticket classification. Some examples would be "installation problem", "problem contacting sales".

Setting up CRM Inbound Rules

Inbound Rules allow you to tell the Volusion software what to do with certain emails when they are received in the CRM.

• From the home page in your store administration, navigate to Customers —> CRM System —> Inbound Rules
• Select Add and you will see a empty Inbound Rule record.
  
• The ID_CRM _Inbound_Rules will be automatically assigned once add the record.
  
• Select Field , this field will tell the CRM which field in the ticket to look at when taking a action.
  
• From email: Allows you to specify a rule based on the email address
• Subjectline: Allows you to specify a rule based on the content in the subject line.
• Body: Allows you to specify a rule based on the content within the body of the ticket.
  

• Select Operator: This field will tell the CRM how to look at the variables.
• Begins With: Tells the CRM to look at the beginning of the field you select. For example, if you selected "subjectline" for Field you can select the "Begins With" operation to have the CRM only look at the characters at the beginning of the subject line of the email.
  
• Ends With: Tells the CRM to look at the end of the field you select, like "Begins with" but it will look at the last set of characters instead of the beginning.
  
• Contains: Tells the CRM to look at the field you select that contains any of the variables you specified.
  
• Equals: Tells the CRM to look at the whole field that contains the EXACT variables you will specify.
  
• Fill out Value: This is what to search for in the email in order to make a match. For example, if you wanted to create a rule based on the email address, you would input the email address into this field (make sure the Field you select is set to "From Email")
• Select Action: tells the Volusion software what to do with the ticket.
  
• MovetoDept: Tells the CRM to automatically move the ticket into a specified department.
  
• Delete: Tells the CRM to automatically delete the ticket.
  
• Close: Tells the CRM to automatically close the ticket.
  
• If Action is set to MovetoDept, then specify the department here.
  
• When you are finished, select Add New and you have created your rule.

CRM Signatures

To add, edit, or delete a signature for the CRM ticket replies hit "Post a Reply" to one of the tickets in the CRM system. Then towards the bottom before sending the reply there will be a light gray "Add Signature" link, click here. Then a dropdown of all of the signatures will come up and to the right of this dropdown there is another light gray "Edit my signatures" link. Click here and add, edit, or delete the CRM signatures.

Connecting via FTP

Connecting to your website via FTP is rarely necessary since your administration area allows you to do almost everything. Some things that require FTP are:

• Uploading photos in bulk.
• Customizing the graphics / replacing existing images on your site.
• Customizing some HTML code such as CSS, or some e-mail templates.

Using Internet Explorer to connect via FTP:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. In the address bar type in your domain name but preceding it with ftp:// instead of http://. For example, ftp://www.youdomain.com
3. When the Log On As box pops up, enter your username and password in to the corresponding fields.
4. Then click on the Log On button.

If you are having trouble connecting and it seems that Internet Explorer is hanging, you will most likely need to adjust a setting in your browser. Go to Tools menu and choose Internet Options. In the Internet Options dialog box click the Advanced tab. Now either check or un-check the box labeled Use Passive FTP. Some firewall configurations may require this enabled, some may require it disabled.

Using SmartFTP to connect via FTP:

If you are not able to get Internet Explorer to connect via FTP, you can use any other FTP client. SmartFTP is a free client available for download here: http://www.smartftp.com/get/SFTPFull.exe?nomap

1. Open SmartFTP
2. In the Address field insert your sites FTP address. For example, www.yourDomainName.com
3. Enter your Username into the Login field and then enter your Password into the Password field
4. Push the Enter key on your keyboard
5. You can double click on any folder to progress a level deeper into you site
6. To transfer files you can drag and drop them from your desktop to the corresponding folder.

Click here for SmartFTP Tutorials

Accessing Your Site Statistics

1. Go to http://my.volusion.com and log in to your account. Click STATS on the left side
   
2. After clicking STATS, you will either be presented with your statistics or with a page with links to all your current Volusion stores. Clicking any of those links will bring you to the SmarterStats page, which provides a breakdown of the most commonly viewed statistics. The welcome / home page displays site statistics from the previous 7 days, if available.

   Note: There is no extra charge for this feature.