optin

Get who you need without mistakes.

OptIn is an iOS app that enables your company to collect email addresses at offsite events – without labor-intensive, error-prone data entry. Instead of using a pen and clipboard to gather emails, your potential customers do the work for you by using OptIn.

Remove Errors, Increase Productivity

You know the drill.

You have a “street team” gathering emails for your company’s newsletter at a local festival. Armed with pencils and clipboards, they return to the office with a crumpled pile of chicken scratch. Time is wasted trying to decipher this so-called “hand-writing,” and more time is wasted, when your admin or salesperson is tasked inputting the data into your system – when they could be doing something more productive. Heaven forbid they mistype a name or address. What’s left of your clipboard is then filed with your IT department to import into your newsletter software. Did IT get the file? When are they going to import it?

With OptIn, you eliminate the variables that can cause errors and inaccurate email addresses, while increasing your team’s productivity.

Overview

When launching OptIn for the first time with your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, it will prompt you to type the location of your event. Now, you’re ready to go: You will see a screen to type a prospect’s first name, last name, email address and confirmation of the email address, to ensure the correct address. Tap Save – and move on to the next prospect. Your first client’s information is saved to “Current Signups,” and OptIn is ready to take the next email address.

After the event, when you’re ready to merge your new prospects with your existing database, go to “Current Signups” and tap the “Save List” button. You’ll be presented with 4 options:

• Email Attachment (.csv) This option will gather your list up and attach it in .csv format to an email.
• iTunes Shared Docs (.csv) This option will export your file in .csv format, so it can be accessed when you attach the device to iTunes. To access your file, plug your device into iTunes. In the left rail under DEVICES, select your device you are using. Then select Apps from the horizontal menu in the iTunes window. There you will find a scrolling list called Apps under File Sharing. In the list find OptIn and select it, to the right you will see your exported file(s) under OptIn Documents. Select the files you want and then select “Send to…”, you will be presented with a dialog on where you’d like to save it.
• my Web Server (.xml) If you select this option, it will initiate a connection to you web server and send an .xml formatted file for processing. You will need to configure your web server to receive the files (see Web Server Configuration below) and OptIn’s Server Location in Settings with the web server you just configured.
• List Archives Only If you’re at an event that doesn’t have Internet access or you’re using a iPod Touch or iPad without 3G or for whatever reason you can’t or don’t want to send the list at this time, you can select this and it will save the list to the “List Archives” area, where you can access the list at anytime to send or re-send.

All options also send a copy of the current email signups to the “List Archives” just in case anything happens during the attempt to send or the recipient doesn’t receive the list. No more misplaced clipboards!

It’s just that easy. With OptIn, there is no more trying to read someone’s bad hand-writing… no more mis-typing an address… no more time wasted on data entry. Once it’s in, it never has to touch human fingers again. Your data can be sent directly to you through an email attachment or even better, directly to your company’s web server.

Web Server Installation

A great feature of OptIn is its ability to send the email information directly from your iOS device to your company’s web server for processing.

It’s a pretty straight forward process to prepare the web server to receive the .csv files from OptIn, but you’ll need access to the web server to make some simple modifications. You’ll need to be able to upload php and html files to the web server and also create directories in the web root.

First, you need to create a .php file so OptIn can communicate to the server. Using your favorite text editor, create a new file and name it uploader.php. Then copy and paste the code below:

<? php $target = “optin/”;
$target = $target . basename( $_FILES[‘uploaded’][‘name’]);
$ok=1;
if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES[‘uploaded’][‘tmp_name’], $target))
{ echo “YES”; }
else { echo “NO”; }
?>

Save your new uploader.php file and place in the Document Root of your web server.

NOTE: You can name the uploader.php file something different if you’d like, but remember – whatever name you make this file, you need to make sure to change the OptIn app settings (Settings-> Server Setup->Upload Script) with your different name.

Then, in your web server’s Document Root, create a new directory and name it optin. This is the directory OptIn will send your .csv file with all your email address’.

ANOTHER NOTE: You can name this directory anything you’d like, just be sure to update the $target = with your different directory name. For example, if you wanted to send your OptIn files to a directory named “myEmailFiles“, you would change the first line in the uploader.php script to:

<? php $target = “myEmailFiles/”;
…

If you don’t feel like going through the process of creating the upload script and we don’t blame you, we created a .zip file and it contains the uploader.php script also… as an added bonus! We included a script to test the server configuration to see if you can upload files to the server. You can download it here:

OptIn Files

You’ll still need to create the directory and such, but we’ve saved you a little time. If you have any questions regarding Optin or you just want to drop us a note to say how awesome we are, please send us an email (there’s that email thing again… ).

Happy emails and thanks for purchasing OptIn!

Thanks to Sailesh Agrawal for the awesome HTTPUploader.

behold…

we are…

Lanyap MediaWorks is a iOS application, web development and graphic design firm, powered by the husband and wife team of Patrick and Stacy Bertinelli.

Patrick is your IT guy – only with more personality and creativity. With more than 20 years of experience as a systems administrator, developer and designer for Gannett Newspapers, Patrick has managed systems behind Arizona’s most popular website – azcentral.com – and he helped launch the site’s wildly successful DealChicken online coupon program. Prior to coming to Gannett, Patrick owned his own design firm, UVWave, and earned a MacUsers Editor’s Choice Award, for his desktop diversion, Insanity.

Jill of all trades, master of one, Stacy provides content for Lanyap’s clients as a copywriter and designer. A sportswriter for seven years at the Shreveport Times and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Stacy has written about everything from changing tires for a NASCAR pit crew to mowing the infield for a Major League Baseball game. Stacy has spent the past quarter of her life married to Patrick and working in advertising for Market Enginuity, a public radio corporate underwriting outsourcing firm.

Lagniappe: Patrick was the fourth-place finisher in Amateur Unlimited Superbike at the 200X CCS-National Championship at Daytona. Stacy was the fastest sportswriter in her age group at the 1995 London Marathon. They live in Scottsdale, Arizona, with their two dogs, Coolidge and Winslow, and their DAVIS Vantage Vue Weather Station.

Lanyap is Pat and Stacy

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