Wayne State Web Communications Blog » email

How we handle dozens of web requests per day without a ticket system

Nick DeNardis — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:01:14 +0000

Because we oversee 350+ Web sites and get a large number of new requests, questions and maintenance requests each day it’s important we have an efficient way to manage them all while still getting other work done. I cannot be at my computer all day so most of the requests have to be read and assigned by the team itself.

How we do it

We have a central email address. web [at] wayne [dot] edu. That email goes into a central inbox. Inside that inbox everyone has a folder and there is an archive folder where every project we work on has it’s own box.

This inbox is mapped to everyone’s computer. Throughout the day different people check the box and scan to determine who is the most appropriate to take each request. They put the email in the person’s folder and move on. The inbox then syncs across everyone’s computer.

We use a plugin called TruePreview for OS X Mail that keeps email’s unread until they are double clicked or force marked. This makes it possible for each of us is scanning the folders to see how many new emails are waiting.

This process allows everyone to have a list of items to read and respond to. If it was assigned by accident they can just move it into someone else’s folder and move on.

Completed Tasks

Once an email or task is done the whole conversation get moved into the z_Archive folder. Every project has their own folder to things are kept nice and neat. The beauty of it is the folders automatically update and everyone has the same content on their computers. No conversations or files are lost.

Why not use a ticket system?

Over the past 6 years we have played with the idea of a true ticket system, and have even tested a few. The problem is a separate system brings a level of unnecessary overhead. We don’t really need to pull stats from all the tickets and our staff really isn’t that large. Everyone already knows how to use email and having a central single interface makes processing hundreds of emails quite easy. There are downsides to our system though, like if someone deletes something it will probably be overlooked or if someone is sick and no one looks in their folder to pick up tasks. But this is a risk we are willing to take and is inherit to any task based system.

Simple solutions

The solution to this tough problem doesn’t have to be a complex system. Our department strives to use existing tool and centralize and streamline as much as possible to get the most bang for the buck. We are use to working with limited resources and we apply this philosophy to everything we do. In this case a zero cost crowd sourced analyze and assign system was the best approach. I cannot be at my computer all day and I don’t want to be the one to have to look at all the requests and assigning them. Everyone knows their capabilities and has the authority and position to act on them as they see necessary. It’s a beautiful system that just works.

Added: I’m in no way saying this system is going to work for everyone but it works great for us.

Testing HTML emails efficiently as possible

Tom Krupka — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:45:51 +0000

Recently, I talked about the pros and cons of sending HTML vs Text emails to your clients in this article “Filling your inboxes with visual appealing HTML emails”. Since HTML Emails are becoming increasingly more popular to send here at Wayne State, we are trying to come up with a system that makes this painstakingly clumsy process as streamlined as possible.

Third party testing

If you have one main template and don’t have to create new ones often, a pay email testing service might be for you. For a small fee you can use one of these services to send your HTML code to and then it will produce screenshots of how the email looks in the most popular email clients. In addition, some of these services will also test how your email will react with spam filters.

Pay for testing resources

Testing in house

If you don’t have the resources or funding to go with one of the automated services, you can go the “old fashioned way” and set up a series of test email accounts on all the popular email clients. To begin with, set up accounts on Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, AOL and of course, Outlook 2000, 2003, 2007 and Outlook Express. Don’t forget to test Apple Mail 2 and 3 and to test on the iPhone as well. This will get you tested in over 80% of all the popular email clients, according to Campaign Monitor as of June 2009, in their article Email client popularity.

Don’t forget to test email in popular mobile environments as well, iPhone for example is now more popular than gmail in viewing email. Once you establish some main HTML email templates the testing will get easier. When designing email templates, keep it simple. Trying too much, is one of the biggest mistakes designers do when creating HTML emails.

Here are some more good resources for getting a professional and cross-platform HTML email below. Remember to test, test, test!

Free HTML testing resources

Other resources and HTML email information

Filling your inboxes with visual appealing HTML emails

Tom Krupka — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:20:10 +0000

Within the last year we have seen a dramatic increase for the demand of HTML emails. To keep up with the demand we have created some default templates for schools and colleges, as well as a very basic template to keep the Wayne State University brand uniform across campus.

There are two basic methods on sending email to your clients: HTML version and text only version. There are various advantages to each and it seems the HTML version is more popular based on demand.

HTML Email

Advantages:
Allows you to brand you emails, with the use of colors, logos and stucture
Visually appealing and you can get your point across with images
You can track your your email campaigns and see their effectiveness
Better readability and people can skim over the content to get to the point fast

Disadvantages:
Each email client renders HTML coding differently, making it more challenging to design uniform looking campaigns, across all email software and applications
Can be more complicated to design and write for to avoid anti-spam filters
Increased chance someone won’t open the HTML email, because they are scared of getting a virus

Text Email

Advantages:
Concise and simple to produce
Looks more personal and will render correctly across all email clients increasing readability
Less problems with spam-filters and delivery

Disadvantages:
No Creativity present creating a flat “brandless” email
People more apt to delete or not read the whole message if in text format
Unable to track the campaign and analyze the open rates

There is alot of parameters to examine when choosing what format to create your email messages in. Wayne State University’s email client, Wayne Connect sends out an alternative text version of the HTML email as well, increasing the probability the client will get the message in their preferred format.

We intend on tracking some of these HTML email messages in the future to see how effective these campaigns have been. In the meantime, we will deliver what seems to be in high demand these days, which is creating the emails in HTML format to appease our visual nature.