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Contact Us Manager Help Pages

User Guide Contact Us Manager v1

Contents:

  1. Getting Started 
  2. Creating A Contact Us Page 
    1. Add A New Department
    2. Edit Department
    3. Insert New Contact
    4. Editing a Contact
    5. Deleting a Contact

Getting Started 

Imagine going to a store, and nobody is ever there. The lights are on, you can even see the item you want to ask about through the window. Yet no matter how much you knock, you can’t seem to get anyone’s attention. Chances are, you won’t wait around long to get an answer.

With a website, that feeling of inattention can be even stronger since you literally can’t see anybody. And that feeling can reduce sales. The DMXReady Contact Us Manager makes sure that someone is paying attention by automatically generating an instant reply, while at the same time forwarding the visitor’s question or comment directly to the addressed contact. It’s like a cyber-secretary, a reassuring voice that says “Your message has been forwarded, and someone will be right with you!”

And like a secretary, your clients will love the fact that they can ‘leave forwarding instructions’ themselves – anyone with basic Internet and e-mail skills can use the browser-accessed Admin Page. Which means happier clients – and less call-backs for you!

Creating A Contact Us Page with DMXReady Contact Us Manager 

Add New Department 

When you first install DMXReady Contact Us Manager into a Dreamweaver MX website, you will note a sample database that you may experiment with. Once you are ready to start your own Contact page, you can delete these entries as shown below.

  1. Open the admin.asp page through any standard browser: http://www.yourdomain.com/admin/ContactUsManager/admin.asp You will note an empty table with the following headers: Contact Name, E-mail Address, Update Department, an Activated radio button, a Delete checkbox, and a link listed as Insert New Contact.
  2. Click on Insert New Contact.
  3. Click on Edit Dept.
  4. A pop-up box will appear. In the text box next to Add New Department, type the name of your first department and click on Insert New.
  5. The pop-up window disappears and you are back to the Contact Us creation page. Repeat the above process until all your departments are included.

DMXReady Designer's Tip: SAVE YOUR CHANGES OFTEN!

Due to security reasons, Contact Us Manager does not autobackup any changes to your server. Therefore it is recommended that you save your changes often. If you fail to save your changes, not only will your edits not be “published” to your server, you will also lose any changes that you have made and you will have to start again.

Edit Department 

Once you have designated a department, it can be easily changed, replaced, or deleted. This can be done at anytime during creation or administration of the website; all changes made to department names will be automatically updated throughout the Contact Us page.

  1. From the admin page, click on Insert New Contact.
  2. Click on Edit Dept.
  3. When the pop-up window appears, select the department you wish to change. Once you've made the changes, click on Update.
  4. To delete the department altogether, click on Delete.

Insert New Contact 

Once you have created your departments, you are ready to add your list of contacts.

  1. From the admin page, click on Insert New Contact.
  2. Use the pull-down menu to select the department you want to enter the contact under (if applicable).
  3. In the corresponding text boxes, type all the information that you would like to display about that contact (name, title, address, phone, e-mail, etc.) There are not any "required" fields, though name and e-mail address are highly recommended. You may also include a photo with the contact name by typing the address of the photo (gif or jpeg) into the Photo text box, or by clicking the Browse button.
  4. Fill in the text boxes below the contact information table with the e-mail confirmation information.
  5. Click Insert Record. The contact information including the photo and the e-mail confirmation information will be automatically uploaded to your server.
  6. Repeat this process until all contacts are inserted into your Contact Us page.

Editing a Contact 

  1. From the admin page, click Edit next to the Contact that you wish to change. All the contact's information will appear just as you have entered it.
  2. Make the required changes and click Insert Record .

Deleting a Contact 

  1. From the admin page, click on the Delete checkbox next to the contact that you wish to remove.
  2. Click the Update button in the lower left corner. All information about this contact will be deleted from the server.

DMXReady Designer's Tip: To Avoid Losing Contact Information Altogether...

If it is at all possible that you may want to reuse the contact info again in the future, you may find it better to simply deactivate the contact by clearing the Activate checkbox on the admin page. The contact will no longer appear to visitors of your page, but the information will still be available to you to change or activate as you need in the future.


Customizing the Contact Us Manager

One big advantage to using DMXReady applications is that although they are “ready to go, right out of the box,” they are also fully customizable. That means you can change the design, the code, even the database fields and connections to create your own website solution.

Of course, different people have different skill levels – not everyone is a web programmer. Due to the growing number of beginners and do-it-yourselfers out there, we’ve created new ways to customize DMXReady apps without learning code or design.

But that’s just the beginning. The beauty is, no matter what your skill level now, you can always learn how to do it yourself. In fact, 99% of web designers today are self-taught, and if they can do it, you can do it too.

Below are a few pointers for customizing your DMXReady application. This will give you a good head start, and will also give you resources to use to find solutions for your specific customization questions.

Tools of the Trade

Depending on your level of customization, you’ll need some or all of the following:

  • DMXReady Contact Us Manager - Files should be located on your local website folder and uploaded to your website domain.
  • HTML Editor to edit the files - You can use the CMS built-in Live Editor (available in CMS full version only), Notepad, Dreamweaver, Front Page, Silverlight, IE, Firefox etc.)
  • FTP Client to publish files to your server - You can use FileZilla, BulletFTP, CuteFTP, Dreamweaver, Net2FTP or other FTP client.
  • MSAccess for database modifications (Note: MSAccess is not required for application use.)

Basic Customization

DMXReady has created built-in customization features, which you can find within the Dashboard of Contact Us Manager. These settings are all fairly intuitive for even the most beginner user. However there are little hints listed with each feature as well as a complete User Guide to help you if you get stuck.

The level of basic customization options will be differ based on the application you are customizing. Below is a list of the things you can change from the control panel/admin area of Contact Us Manager.

  1. Settings/Preferences
  2. Categories
  3. Content
  4. Graphics
  5. Navigation, Header, Footer, Logo (available in v2 apps)

Instructions for basic customization can be found in the Contact Us Manager User Guide. You can also search the Online Knowledgebase for other customization Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Advanced Customization

DMXReady applications are unique in that you can actually change the software to meet your needs. There are literally an unlimited number of ways you can customize your DMXReady application. You can change the design including background color, font, graphics; you can tweak the CSS; you can recode the AJAX and VBScript to do different things; you can create new database fields using MSAccess or even convert to another database system. Below is a list of the things you can change from the control panel/admin area of Contact Us Manager.

We've gathered a number of resources over the years to help you modify your applications. This is not a "course" in how to modify your DMXReady apps, but a set of pointers and tips to help you get started in the right direction.

Unlike the Basic Customization, you will be changing things at the code level, including CSS, AJAX code snippets, and more. But don’t worry, there are little hints listed with each feature as well as a complete User Guide to help you if you get stuck. 

If you have any ideas of your own that you'd like to share with other DMXReady app owners, feel free to contact us!

General Tips for Customization

  • Don't be afraid to explore and experiment - Create backups of your original Zip files so if you make a wrong turn simply restore the original files and start again. By simply keeping a back-up copy of your original files, you will never make an irreversible mistake.
  • Take advantage of DMXReady’s resources – We’ve spent years compiling tips and tricks, especially those specific to DMXReady applications. See a list of our resources below.
  • Familiarize yourself with the power of Dreamweaver - Refer to your Dreamweaver (or other HTML editor) "Help" documentation and "Getting Started" tutorials found inside your Dreamweaver application (click on the "help" menu). This is a great resource for learning how to build database applications like those built by DMXReady.
  • Use Existing Online Resources to learn about web design - There are many resources available on the Internet to help you including the Adobe Dreamweaver Support Center and literally thousands of web pages with free advice on ASP, MSAccess and HTML design.
  • Search Google - If you are stuck on a specific problem, search Google for a solution using terms that best describe your problem - you will find answers to issues already posted by other web designers.

Other Internal Resources

External Resources

Websites
There are a number of websites that offer great information about modifying your applications, including:

Hire a Freelance Programmer
There are 1000's of freelance programmers willing and able to modify your DMXReady app to your exact specifications. Here are a few websites offering a quick and easy way to hire a programmer.

Customization is the Spirit of DMXReady

From the start, DMXReady has set out to provide web designers and owners with dynamic website applications that are easy to use right out of the box, and fully customizable. That is the goal we still set ourselves today. Customization is always a learning process, but we hope that with your ingenuity and these resources, you’ll get the most from your DMXReady applications.

DMXReady Customization Support Policy

We encourage everyone to modify the HTML code and all scripting to meet your own specific needs. That being said, we unfortunately cannot provide free technical support for your customization efforts. De-bugging is a big part of the customization process, and it's a skill that every scripting programmer needs to learn.

Just remember to keep a backup copy of your Zip file, and you will never make an unrecoverable mistake. Also keep in mind that most web designers are self-taught – if they can do it, you can do it too!

If you get really stuck, or if you just want to “get it done” you can visit our Professional Services page to find out more about our customization services.

DMXReady + You = Great Websites!

 

Install & Setup Contact Us Manager v1

click to view installation demo

What you need to complete installation:

Installation Instructions

  1. Unzip all files to your local site, the folder location on your computer that holds your website files.
  2. Upload all files and folders to your web server exactly as they were unzipped (DO NOT MODIFY file or folder names)
  3. Start using your application! - you can access the display page and admin page through the following url's (you need to substitute your domain name):

Location of Application:
http://www.domain.com/applications/ContactUsManager/inc_contactusmanager.asp

Location of Admin Control Panel:
http://www.domain.com/admin/ContactUsManager/admin.asp

Your default login credentials for the Admin Area are:

    username: admin
    password: admin

Congratulations! You are now ready to setup your installation of Contact Us Manager

Setup Instructions

  1. Open the Admin Control Panel of your application through any standard browser:

    Location of Admin Control Panel    :
    http://www.domain.com/admin/ContactUsManager/admin.asp

  2. Adding, editing, and deleting entries and Settings is fairly intuitive. However, instructions can be found in the user guide. Be sure to use the “Save” button/link to save any changes you make before you exit the page.
  3. Configure your server permissions (if necessary): Depending on how your web host has configured your web space, you may encounter a problem where your changes are not being saved to the database. To solve this problem, you simply need to change the read/write permissions on your "/databases/" folder, found in your web space control panel. If you do not know how to do this, please contact your web host company for instructions.
  4. Configure your email settings (if necessary): Follow the instructions from the readme.html file included in the Contact Us Manager zip file or admin control panel for step-by-step instructions on how to configure your email settings to match your web hosts requirements.

Important Notes

Skin Contact Us Manager with your own css template

www.freecsstemplate.org
It’s easy to skin Contact Us Manager, whether you are using CSS templates or the “old-fashioned” HTML templates. You get all the power of a database-driven CMS application built into your own beautiful designs. Here's how to do it:

  1. Download and Extract your Template & Contact Us Manager files to your local site folder.
  2. Create a copy of the main template file (index.html) and rename "index.asp".
  3. Open your new "index.asp" file and replace the placeholder html with the appropriate include files from Contact Us Manager.
  4. Wrap the Contact Us Manager html with the appropriate CSS Div and Id classes using the original index.html file as a guide.
  5. Upload all files and you are ready to go!

    This process may be challenging but the results are well worth it! It doesn't take much of a leap to figure out that you can do this with all your DMXReady applications – or your complete web site for that matter. Skin your old content for a new look and feel!

Checkout the Special Edition (zenlike) accessory to see how this was done with the Blog Manager v1.

We’ve also written a brief overview of how we skinned the Blog Manager in the DMXReady Classic ASP Garage Blog.

 

Submitting a Trouble Ticket

  1. Prior to submitting a trouble ticket, please review the help pages and make sure the answer is not already posted.
  2. Fill in the contact form with your name, email address and details of your issue.

 

Contact Info

* First Name:
* Last Name:
* Email:
* Website Link:
* DMXReady Member ID:

(your Member ID can be found in your profile page)

Issue Type

Description of Issue


* Required

Important Note:

Prior to submitting a trouble ticket, please review the help pages and make sure the answer is not already posted.

Plug-in Wizard

You are just two steps from plugging in your new DMXReady application directly into your new or existing website. First, enter your domain name (without the www.):

Step 1 - Wizard Setup

Provide the domain/website address where Contact Us Manager is installed:
domain/website: ( i.e. mydomain.com)
 


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