Add on Modules
The following add-on modules enhance First Edition's usability by providing solutions to specific problems and by offering capabilities beyond the standard package. Please note that each add-on is available at an additional cost. For pricing, please contact us at (800) 451-5969 or send us your contact information and we'll contact you.
I’m pleased to announce the availability of a new FEWebExport module for First Edition. How does it differ from regular export? It’s designed specifically to help you keep you web database in synch. Your first export is date based. All new and changed orders from a specific date you set are exported. From then on, the new module tracks the last new order and last change date, and easily picks up where it left off the last time.
The module exports in CSV format (comma delimited) and has a locked in set of export fields that include User Defined Fields and Demographics as the last group. You may select to separate new and changes (including renewals). And you can elect to separate subscriber and name/address files. Only a Shipto and a Billto are exported. If a subscriber has only a customer, then the customer becomes a shipto and a billto. Else if a separate bill-to, then the bill-to customer is used.
Many fields have both the plain english field followed by the code field. For example, there is Status field of “Active” and StatusCode field of “A”. We do the same for postage, edition and subscriber types as well. And expire date is exported in both issue format and date replace format.
The module will also optionally generate a temporary username and password for you too. The user name is the firstname+lastname+customer number without any spaces. The password is the lastname plus a number of random digits from the set 0123456789@#$%^*. Five digits is the default, but you can change the number of random digits to suit you.
Both subscribers and customers are tagged with the export update and both have flags reset to show they have been exported. Thus you could do several exports the same day without duplication.
Each export creates a unique export filename starting with the publications' publication code and include the new/chg and or sub/cust depending on the format you choose. Finally it’s followed by the date and time the export started. Here’s an example:
AFWebExport_NEWCHG_SUBCUST_20080721_1557.CSV
The new module allows users to create almost any form imaginable. Form types include:
- 2 or 3 renewal notices and invoices
- single page renewal notices and invoices
- group renewal notices and invoices
- Gift invoicing for multiple donees
- Statements
Acknowledgments for new and renewal orders with backissues and premiums
Yes - the form module can do it all. And it allows you to design multiple series of efforts, with sales messages that vary by effort. For example, the invoice #1 may a have sales message thanking the subscriber for the payment while invoice #5 might have a message threatening collection. These are all designed by you using so that you can easily automate your bills, renewals and acknowledgments.
LynxForms uses Rich Text, so you can create beautiful forms with your choice of fonts, uses formating like bold, italic, and underline, add bullets and more. And you can easily add images ( bmp, jpg, gif) so adding your logo is simple. And of course LynxForm supports color too.
One of the unique features of LynxForms is the ability to create special forms for Group and Gifts. This allows a single form to have the Group bill-to or Gift Donor in which the receipients (members of the group or donees) are listed in a two or three across the list. This allows easy viewing of what is due, or easy viewing of which members or donees are coming up for renewal. The bill-to/doner can easily check-off which subscriptions to renew.
Also new to LynxForms is the ability to print daily acknowledgments of new paid orders, new credit orders, renewal paid orders, renewal credit orders, or payments. And Lynxforms can contain multiple detail lines for the order, back issues (if any), and a list of premiums (if any).
This popular module is a database of approximately 75,000 five-digit zip codes covering each city in the United States. When installed and used for address input, First Edition skips the city and state fields and jumps to the zip code field. It then looks up the zip code you enter and displays a list of cities for your selection. Also, it fills in the state code and area code for phone and fax. This saves keystrokes and prevents errors.
LynxZip also contains company names for companies with a unique zip. For example, the I.R.S. and Sears & Roebucks have their own zip codes, as do hundreds of other large organizations. LynxZip can, optionally, enter the unique company name.
The list is updated semi-annually (to supported customers) and approximately 7MB of disk space is required. (This module is not for Zip+4 CASS certifying but only for city look-up from zip code.)
First Edition supports BPA, ABC, and VAC audits. In fact, First Edition is the leader of in-house audited magazines (if you’re a newsletter publisher, you probably have no need for this module).
This module supports all of the above audit organizations. It allows up to 52 user-defined industries and 52 user-defined titles/job functions. Up to 43 customer demographics or unlimited subscriber demographics may also be defined. The audit report shows complete counts and/or percentage of qualified answers broken down by paid and unpaid.
The module also supports BPA’s short form qualification which tracks both the demographic qualification date (for three year qualification limit), and the short form date for reporting one year, two year, three year. The short form date can be from a bingo card, fax-back, or other quick and easy response device. This can save many re-qualifying marketing dollars.
You’ll also love our Audit Galley. For example, if an auditor asks you to pull every 41 names starting with John Doe, you can do it in a snap. But you will not only provide a galley listing but a compete audit report on the selected names. The Audit Galley also allows you a complete selection on all fields including audit fields. Select on Title, Industry, Qual Dates, Demographics, etc. And, you can play what-if games by changing the beginning qualification report date to a future date.
ODBC stands for "Open Database Connectivity" and it is Microsoft's protocol for allowing databases to talk to each other. Common ODBC-ready programs include Microsoft Access, Fox Pro, Paradox, Crystal Reports, and R&R Report Writer.
Using the ODBC Module allows these programs to access your First Edition database directly (not an export or a copy). Thus, you can manipulate the data, create reports, and connect your First Edition customer database to other applications.
Lynx Media can also create custom applications for you with our Lynx Name Browser. For one client, we created a password and mailbox database in Access and connected it to his First Edition customer file. He could look up a customer and have the password and mailbox as normal fields on the screen. And he could look up by mailbox and find the customer. It's a great way to add additional data to your database.
Define up to 10 unique issue schedules. For each schedule, define which issues to send to subscribers.
For example, you can define a schedule where subscribers receive issues only once per quarter, or a schedule where subscribers receive only the first nine issues of the year.
ACS stands for Address Correction Service from the United States Postal Service (USPS). NCOA is USPSs' National Change of Address. The Post Office reports that 40 million Americans move every year. Most list owners report that about 20% of their list moves each year.
To participate in ACS, mailers must modify their mailing label format to include a mailer identification (participant) code assigned by the National Customer Support Center (NCSC). (A mailer-assigned keyline is also required if the mailer wants to participate in the nixie service.) This keyline is supported by First Edition. The Post Office will supply you with an ACS number that will look something like this: BXNGBHH. Simply put that code in the ASC ID in the main page of the Publication Setup program on the General tab. Now it’s useable on your labels. Then in LabExp.exe, choose to add ACS CustomerID and ACS PostID. The ACS CustomerID is a special customer number with a special check digit added. The result is something like this:
The #AF00000010191# is the customerID and the #BXLYNXH is the ACS Postal ID assigned to you by the Post Office. Mailers participating in ACS receive the following benefits:
- Timely COA (change of address) information provided on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule.
- COA information that relates specifically to their address files.
- In many cases, the ability to make changes directly from electronic media rather than the costly manual process, which is prone to transcription errors.
Address change problems encountered by mailers in the past, such as poor-quality photocopies, postal labels placed over the old address, and crossed-out old addresses, are reduced substantially for ACS participants.
The USPS certifies a handful of vendors to process NCOA addresses. What’s nice about this is that you can get changes of address before mailing bad issues or notices. It’s much faster than ACS.
The full USPS NCOALink Product contains approximately 160 million records or 48 months of permanent address changes. Lynx Media’s NCOA module is both an export and an import. Simply export your data and send to the NCOA vendor. We recommend Tom Zukas at Anchor Computer (see LynxMedia.com for contact details), who has dealt successfully with First Edition data. They will process your changes and then return the file to you electronically. Point First Edition’s NCOA program to the file and the system will bring back the corrected address.
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This module is actually three modules in one. It provides the following capabilities:
- Installment billing
- Automatic charge card billing (like installment billing but charged to a charge card)
- Automatic renewing (standing order)
With this module, you can create your own installment and/or autocharge schedules. For example you might charge 33.3% per invoice over three payments. Or, you might elect to charge 50% per invoice with the first payment and 25% over the next two payments. And its all automatic.
You can offer your subscribers three easy payments or quarterly automatic credit card charges. And when combined with auto-renew, you can create a "till-forbid" marketing technique (one client reported a 42.5% increase in renewals with this method).
In addition, the auto-renew feature allows you to specify the number of remaining issues at the time of the automatic renewal. Choose 0, and a renewal is triggered on a reader’s last issue, or choose 2 to renew two issues before expire. First Edition automatically creates the renewal order transaction complete with accounting information. It's just like you entered the order manually.
The auto-renew feature also allows you to create a list of current price matches and subsequent renewal prices. If First Edition finds a matching old price, it renews at the associated new price. It’s a perfect way to build in price increases. Your customers will love it because they won't be bothered with annoying renewal notices and invoices while being assured of continuous service.
This module allows you to import prospects, customers, or subscribers. It will read the three most common formats:
- ASCII comma-delimited
- ASCII fixed-length
- dBase
- Access
When importing, the module automatically eliminates duplicates and writes those records rejected to a log file for review. For importing subscribers, the import module reads in the name/address data while allowing you to create a default subscription order. Thus, all subscriber imports get the same order information (except for subscription numbers). And audit data for BPA/ABC can also be preset.
One of the best uses of the import module is for "force free trials". This is a hot marketing technique which involves sending a trial subscription to a set of prospects while promoting them to pay to keep receiving the issues. Usually getting new orders has a high cost per order and this method can many times reduce your costs.
This module expands First Edition's billing and renewal series capability. First Edition’s base system allows up to 10 billing efforts and 10 renewal efforts for each publication. Each bill and renewal can have messages that vary with each effort. Thus, invoice #1 may have a pleasant," thank-you" tone, while invoice #5 can be a demanding collection letter. Both the timing and the copy of each effort is controlled by you. This capability is included in the standard system.
However, it may be that you need different offers and/or schedules for various kinds of subscribers. The Series module increases your capability with up to 10 billing and renewal series. Each series can include up to 14 individual efforts.
You may, for example, wish to send trial subscribers five efforts while libraries only get two notices. In addition, you may want trials to start receiving renewal notices six months prior to expiration while library members start only two months prior to expire. With the Series Module, it's snap. And if that’s all the series module does, then it would be worth the investment, but there’s much more.
The Series module also allows you to use variable price offers on First Edition renewal forms. Using special selects, you can create renewal pricing that is determined by the number of copies, edition type, postage, subscriber type, categories, country, premium, billing type, renewal type, etc. And for each select, you can preset the price for both one and two year prices.
First Edition is licensed by the number of users. We support networking for all Windows network versions as well as Novell. Configurations are available in both a simple Peer-To-Peer network to full Workstation/Server networks. User licenses are available in any number so please ask us for a quote
AccuMail CASS Subscription
This address-matching system improves deliverability of mail by:
- Correcting addresses with missing or misspelled components
- Correcting mssing and/or incorrect 5-digit zip codes
- Adding zip+4 , carrier route, and delivery point codes Standardizing street addresses
In order to qualify for postal discounts, most mailing lists must be "cleaned" using CASS-certified software. Subscribers receive monthly updates of the program on CD-ROM (CD-ROM drive required) directly from Group 1 Software, the makers of AccuMail.
This module was created to handle batch processing of credit card payments. The system requires either ICVerify software or a bank supplied batch modem program. (Ask your bank if they support ICVerify). The system is mapable and is guaranteed to work with virtually any bank batch modem program.
By working in a batch mode, you can process all of your credit card payments at one time as opposed to the time consuming one-at-a-time method. Also it saves having to re-key the credit card info. And, if you use ICVerify, the Lynx Credit Card Module will also process any rejects. The rejected subscriber’s status is changed to “C” (Credit Card Reject) and the proper accounting entries are made.
This standard module comes with all versions of First Edition. Have you ever wished to change something on a large number of subscribers and had to do it one by one. Well, not anymore. Global Change has been around since our DOS days and allows you to do mass changes easily and to your pinpointed groups. It works this way… First, you select your chosen change group using First Editions very powerful Selection. That means you can choose a selection group based on any field. For example, you can choose subscribers who expire six months or more from now… or subs with a price less than $xxx… or subscribers with canceled, suspend or expire status… or subscribers that match a wild card select like 0810???? Which means source codes such as 0810ABC or 0810B93l or 0810XB09, etc. are selected? So the selection is very powerful and only limited by your imagination.
Once you select a group, you can then select a field to change. If you choose Remaining Issues, for example, you can choose to change it to an absolute, specific number like 7 or 2. But even more powerful is that you can add or subtract any number. Thus if you selected Active subscribers and choose to Add “1” to the “Remaining Issues” field, then every active subscriber will get one extra issue and their expire date will change automatically.
Or maybe you choose to move Expires and Cancels with an expire date two years or older to First Edition’s expire/cancel file and out of the active file (they’re still available for renewal and dup detection). Or maybe you’ll select a set of source/key codes and simplify them all to a single source code.
It’s powerful…it easy…it saves tons of work.
If you take web subscription orders and don't have an efficient way to get them into your in-house database, then Lynx's WebImport module is for you. And, you could also import telemarketing orders too.
With our WebImport module, you simply download your orders from the Web in a basic text file - no more one at a time via email - and just point this new module to the file, and all the orders are loaded for you — just as if you typed them in yourself. And oh, yes, the modules handle renewals and address corrections, and can also handle credit cards. What a way to extend your productivity!
You can import names, subscription orders with names, prospects, renewals, changes and even payments. And this module also works with P.O.S.T., our non-subscription order entry system.
This module is a special, preformatted import and export utility that allows you to:
- CASS certify your lists
- Address scrub your lists
- Add phone numbers
- Use the NCOA (National Change of Address) database for address changes.
This module allows you to export data out of First Edition, manipulate it, and then import the changes back in. It works with existing subscribers, customers, and prospects. Select which names to output (active subscribers, for example ), or output all names.
The file is outputted in a fixed length ASCII file with a time/date stamp and field descriptors. You can use this export file with CASS-certified programs such as AccuMail, or send the list to one of several service bureaus that CASS certify for about $4 to $6 per thousand. It’s a fast, easy way to become CASS certified as is now required for most presorted automated mailing discounts.
The Zip+4 file output can also be sent to special bureaus that look up and add phone numbers. This is great for adding telemarketing capabilities. Or, send your output to a NCOA vendor for address correcting your list. That’s a great way to get rid of nixes as well as qualify for most periodical presorts.
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