Setup an Alternate Email Address Field

ACT! has a programming limitation that prevents a lookup on the Contact table using the standard E-mail Address field.   e-BLAST! uses an Alternate Email Address field that it uses both for sending emails and updating your database to flag records with invalid email addresses.  This makes it easy to lookup contacts with invalid email addresses and contact them to update their records.  e-BLAST! has a handy utility, UpdateACT.exe that makes copying these addresses easy.  Simply run UpdateACT! from the yellow FortuneFlow icon. with the ACT! database you want to update already open in ACT!  Update ACT! will display the following dialog:

Select an Alternate Email Address Field, such as a User Field or Custom Field, Select "Update All Records in the Database" and and Click the Update ACT! button

A warning will display advising how many records in your database your selections will update.   Click "Yes" and UpdateACT! will quickly copy your email addresses over to the Alternate Email Address field selected.

Minimize this dialog while it runs and setup your SMTP Express options:

Setting Up SMTP Express

Off-line

On-line

Double- click the SMTP Express icon in your system tray and the SMTP Express Properties dialog will display:

Routing Tab Settings

Click on the Routing Tab.  You will need your ISP's or in-house Primary and Secondary DNS (Domain Name Server) IP addresses.  Enter them with a space between them in the DNS Server IP textbox.

How to get Your DNS Server IP Addresses

If you don't know what the Primary and Secondary DNS Server IP addresses are, you can usually get them by doing the following:

Open a DOS window by either clicking your START Button and selecting [Run] and typing "CMD" then clicking [OK], or by selecting [START][Programs][MSDOS Promt].  At the DOS promt type: 

IPConfig /all

This will display a listing of your computer's IP address information such as:

The two numbers you are looking for are the last two numbers shown above, enter your DNS Server IP numbers (not the numbers shown above) with a space between them in the DNS Server IP textbox with a space between them.

If the above procedure does not display an entry for DNS Servers, contact your network Administrator or your ISP to obtain the Primary and Secondary DNS Server IP addresses.

Ignore the Fixed Route setting.

Processing Tab Options

The default settings for retry and failure intervals is generally good, and don't need to be changed.  The number of Maximum Outbound Connections you should set is a function of how fast the "uplink" speed on your internet connections is.  The following table is a good guide:

The Status Tab

The Status Tab is where the ON/OFF switch for SMTP Express is located and is where you go to check what is happening with the delivery of your messages.

A Word about "Messages Waiting To Be"

The "messages waiting to be" number reflects the number of undelivered messages waiting in the queue to be delivered.  You will notice that at times there are messages "waiting to be", but there are no current connections.  This just means that the recipient servers for these messages were busy when delivery was attempted, that the recipient mailbox was full or that they are refusing to connect to your computer for some other reason.  If these get "stuck" and don't deliver, they will automatically fail after the end of the retry interval set on the Processing Tab.

Static IP Addresses and SMTP Server Registration

Some servers will perform a reverse lookup on the "From:" email address and compare it to the list of SMTP servers registered in the "MX" record for that domain.  If the IP address of the computer sending the message doesn't match, the connection is refused as an "imposter" / probable spammer.  Therefore, the best practice for using SMTP Express is to obtain a static IP address from your ISP (if you don't already have one) and to register that address in the MX record for your domain as a "secondary SMTP server".  This is done through your domain registrar and ensures that this won't be a problem.

You are ready to run e-BLAST!

Starting e-BLAST!

When you click on the red e-BLAST! icon on your desktop, with ACT! already running, e-BLAST! will automatically log onto the open ACT! database.  If ACT! is not running, e-BLAST! will display a logon dialog as illustrated below:

Navigate to the folder containing your ACT! database(s) on the left and double-click the desired database you want to send emails with on the right, or click on it and click the down arrow to the right.  This will make the full path and file name appear in the Database textbox as shown above.  Enter your ACT! user name and password if required.  Check the Remember User Name / Password checkbox to have these values automatically entered for you the next time you use the same database.  Click the Logon button and e-BLAST! will open.

If e-BLAST! Doesn't Start

On some systems, e-BLAST! may not be able to properly "see" all of the ACT components required for it to run, the first time you run it.  If this is the case e-BLAST! won't be able to logon to a database and nothing seems to happen - the program doesn't open.  If this happens do the following:

Press [CTRL] [ALT] [DEL] and "end task" on e-BLAST!

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to your ACT! Program Folder.  (Usually found at c:\Program Files\ACT or c:\Program Files\Symantec\ACT)  Locate the file ACTREG.EXE and run it.  It will display a series of messages advising you of the success (or failure) of registering ACT! components on your system..  Reboot your computer and run e-BLAST! again and it should now start.

Setting e-BLAST! User Preferences

Select [Edit] [User Preferences] from the the e-BLAST! menu.  This will display the User Preferences Dialog:  For the purposes of getting started, we will only cover the key items that need your attention.  See the e-BLAST! help file for further information on other items and how to use them, by clicking on the item in question and pressing the [F1] key.  This will take you straight to the help for that item!

The General Tab

ACT! Email Field Preferences

Select a field for logging Delivery Status of messages in.  This field will be used by e-BLAST! to flag records with bad addresses, records that failed, but may succeed on a retry, or for logging items that succeeded.  Choose any unused User Field or custom field for Logging Delivery Status.

Next, select the field you setup for the Alternate Email Address field. This tells e-BLAST! what field to use to read and lookup records by  email address from.

File Locations

The key item to set here is the default letterhead template.  Once you have created a default letterhead temple, enter the full path and file name here.

BCC Increment

For emails sent using the SMTP Express server that is packaged with e-BLAST!, set this number to a number as high or higher than the total number of recipients in your database.  If you are sending messages using the Alternate Server (usually your ISP's email server) set this in accordance with the limitations of your ISP's limitations.

The Headers Tab

e-BLAST! gives you complete control over the headers that appear in the recipient's inbox, for the name and email address the message is from, and even what shows in the "To:" header when a recipient replies to your email.  If you are sending emails with the Blind Carbon Copy method (BCC), you can specify the email address that the master email is going to and a "name" for who it is to, such as "My Favorite Customer"   This will appear in the "To:" header for each person who receives it.

The default is the user's "My Record" Name and Email address in the Alternate Email Address Field as setup previously.  To send emails using another person's name, company, email address etc. simply click on the appropriate radio button above and fill in the appropriate information.

Note: Every email must have a valid email "To:", "From:" and "Reply To:" email address and name.  Make sure that your name, company name and email address are entered in your "My Record" in ACT!

The ALT Server Tab

The ALT Server Tab allows you to specify a location for an alternative server to the SMTP Express, (typically your ISP or in-house email server)  The ALT Server can only transmit one email at a time, as compared to up to 64 in parallel using SMTP Express, so the ALT Server is generally only used in cases where a message is being blocked by servers that perform a reverse lookup on your IP Address as discussed previously.  Enter your Alternate Server with any user name and password required.  In general, if you have a cable or DSL connection, you will only need to have the address of the SMTP server, which will be the same as your email account settings in Outlook. (Typically [Tools] [Accounts] [Properties] [Servers]) Enter the information for the Outbound SMTP at the top of the ALT Server Tab as shown above.

The Alternate SMTP Express Executable Location

If you are running more than one copy of e-BLAST! on your network, you can specify an alternate SMTP Express Executable location that all users can use to offload the sending chores to.  This is particularly useful if one static IP is registered in the MX record for your domain as an SMTP Server (including an existing Exchange Server) and you want to send all outbound emails through it from multiple users.  Contact FortuneFlow and they will send you a setup file that allows SMTP Express to run as a service on your server or local work station running Windows NT, 2000 or XP.

Click OK and return to the main e-BLAST! Screen.  You are ready to start using e-BLAST!

Note: e-BLAST! has a complete help manual built in, Select [Help] [Table of Contents] to access the main help file / manual table of contents, or press the [F1] key on any control that you have a question about, to go directly to the help for that item.