Blog Archive

Coda Document – The New File Type

October 11, 2018 by Michele Leave a Comment

Coda is a new document type that combines the functionality of word processing, spreadsheets and databases into one document. Within a Coda document, you can build tables of data and easily embed results from the table directly in your text portions of your document. Those results can be a formula summing columns from a table or two or embedding a chart depicting the data from any of your tables.

No longer must you copy formula results from Excel or Google Sheets to Word or Google Doc. Simply press the equal sign (=) in the Coda document to trigger the visual formula builder. An embedded formula can contain complex data queries or simple sums of columns or charts created from your table data.

Coda was founded by Shishir Mehrotra and Lane Shackleton, two former Google employees. Shishir and Lane realized even with an internet filled with applications many organizations including Google/Youtube ran using customized spreadsheets and documents. Their mission is to revolutionize the way we see data – no more artificial boundaries around documents, spreadsheets and databases – combine them and allow “makers” to create powerful custom applications for their organizations.

Coda provides a number of templates that you can use to start your own document. Or dissect the template to discover how others have accomplished tasks that you need for your own document. Coda support is terrific and I cannot emphasize that enough. The Coda support members are always eager to help and provide assistance. Aside from posting questions or issues directly to the support team, Coda encourages you to post questions and ideas to their community forum which the Coda team members actively monitor.

Using Coda, we built a timesheet management, invoice application for freelancers, and a recipe costing model. Zapier has built an integration for Coda and moving data from QuickBooks, Shopify or any other application is only a Zap away.

Give Coda a shot on your next project.

Import Products Hosted on 1ShoppingCart Into WooCommerce WordPress

July 27, 2017 by Michele Leave a Comment

Many people use the popular 1ShoppingCart eCommerce and marketing software to sell digital products and/or physical products but adding those products into your WordPress website can be very tedious and error-prone.

Great News! You can now easily import your *simple* products hosted on 1ShoppingCart into WordPress. This method is free and does not require a developer.

A new built-in CSV importer was included in WooCommerce as of version 3.1.0 that was released on 2017-06-28. This is terrific news because you no longer need to purchase and install a premium Importer plugin to display your *simple* products in your WordPress site.

If your products are complex, with many product options, this method will NOT work for you because the built-in importer does not allow you to import all the product options that you are able to configure using 1ShoppingCart.com.

The WooCommerce’s built-in importer can be used to create all your products. Then you can use the importer again, at a later date, to update your products to reflect price and/or description changes. BUT, in order to update your products in WooCommerce, you need a way to uniquely identify the product. You can do this with a unique product name or SKU.

10 Steps to copy your 1ShoppingCart catalog to WooCommerce

Follow these simple steps to export your products from 1ShoppingCart, prepare the exported file for WooCommerce import and then import the file into WooCommerce.

Install and configure WooCommerce.
If you need help installing and configuring WooCommerce on your WordPress site, you can follow the instructions published by WooCommerce at https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/installing-uninstalling-woocommerce/.
Export your products from 1ShoppingCart.
1. Navigate to the Products menu item, select Import/Export and then select Export Products.
2. Select Product Details from the dropdown list box and click/tap the Export button. An export file will be created and downloaded to your computer in CSV format.
Prepare your CSV file to import into WooCommerce.
The export created by 1ShoppingCart.com is not completely ready for import into WooCommerce. A few columns need to be added to the original CSV to ensure its easy import into WooCommerce. I used Google Sheets to manipulate the file. The formulas you find below are Google Sheets formulas but will also work with Excel. CAUTION: WooCommerce requires a UTF-8 formatted file. Excel for Mac will not produce a valid UTF-8 file and your import will fail. Please use Google Sheets instead.
Your export from 1ShoppingCart.com contains 34 columns. You will be adding 5 more columns to the file.
Download sample CSV file with added columns here
1. Images: Take a look at your export. Notice that the 26th column contains the name of the product image but not the full path to the image file. You will need the full image path to import the file correctly into WooCommerce. The full path of the image includes your 1ShoppingCart.com Merchant Id. If you do not know your 1ShoppingCart.com Merchant Id, the image to the left shows you where to find it in your Admin panel.
  
  Add a new column and label it Images. Insert this formula to the newly created column. The formula will preface the filename found in column Z with the “https://www.mcssl.com/content/” + your Merchant Id + “/”. Which will produce https://www.mcssl.com/content/000000000/my_image_file.jpg.
```
=if(Z2="","","https://www.mcssl.com/content/MerchantID/"&amp;Z2)
```
  Please be sure to replace the text MerchantID with your own Merchant ID. For example, if your Merchant ID is 789665, you would enter the formula as –
```
=if(Z2="","","https://www.mcssl.com/content/789665/"&amp;Z2)
```
  Copy the formula down the column for each product row in the spreadsheet.
2. Button Text: Add a new column and label it Button Text. You will fill this column with the words or phrase that you want to see on your WooCommerce buttons. This can be “Add to Cart,” “Buy Now,” etc.
  
  Copy the formula down the column for each product row in the spreadsheet.
3. Type: Add a new column and label it Type. You will enter the word “external” into this column for each of the products that you are importing. Because you will be selling your products via 1ShoppingCart, you will need to let WooCommerce know that WooCommerce is only listing and describing the product, and the item will be sold elsewhere. Marking the product external ensures that the customer is taken to 1ShoppingCart.com to complete the transaction.
  
  Copy the formula down the column for each product you want to import.
4. Published: The next column to add is Published. In the 25th column, you will see a field called Active. The column has the values TRUE/FALSE to denote that the product is an active product or not. WooCommerce does not have an Active field but it does have a Published field. The Published field requires a 1 to Publish or a 0 for Draft. Therefore, this next formula will convert the TRUE or FALSE in column 25 to a 1 or 0. Enter the following formula –
```
=if(Y2,1,0)
```
  Copy the formula down the column for each product row in the spreadsheet.
5. Categories: If you look at the 27th column of your spreadsheet, you will see the field called “path.” This field contains the product category(ies). If the product falls into multiple categories, you will see that the data in this column appears in this format – [Grocery,Beverage]. Notice that the multiple categories are surrounded by square brackets ( [ ] ). If you were to import this column as is into WooCommerce, it would create category names with those square brackets in them. The formula in this new column will remove those square brackets if they are present in the data. Enter the following formula in the new column.
```
=if(AA2="","",SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(AA2,"[",""),"]",""))
```
  Copy the formula down the column for each product row in the spreadsheet.
Download the Google Sheets file to your device as a CSV file.
This is important. You must download the Google Sheets file in CSV format.
Open WooCommerce in WordPress
1. Navigate to Products | All Products in your WordPress Admin panel.
2. If there are no products in WooCommerce, you will see two buttons at the bottom of the page. Click/Tap on the “Import products from a CSV file” button.
3. If you already have a product in WooCommerce, look at the top of the page and click/tap the “Import” button.
Select the file to import into WooCommerce

Map CSV fields to products
Here you will map the fields in your 1ShoppingCart.com export to WooCommerce fields. I have listed the column mapping below but if you would like to see the page as rendered in WooCommerce, click/tap here.

1ShoppingCart Fields	WooCommerce Fields
id	import as meta
sku	SKU
product	Name
price	Regular price
shipping	Do not import
weight	Weight (lbs)
product length	Length (in)
product width	Width (in)
product height	Height (in)
current inventory	Stock
recurring cycle	Do not import
recurring start duration	Do not import
recurring price	Do not import
destination url	Do not import
thank you url	Do not import
clear cart url	Do not import
autoresponders	Do not import
shipping calculation	Do not import
state tax	Do not import
country tax	Do not import
short description	Short description
long description	Description
sale price	Sale price
on sale	Do not import
active	Do not import
image	Do not import
path	Do not import
price type	Do not import
amount label	Do not import
default price	Do not import
minimum amount	Do not import
maximum amount	Do not import
eu vat	Do not import
add to cart url	External URL
Images	Images
Button Text	Button text
Type	Type
Published	Published
Categories	Categories

Click/Tap the “Run the importer” button
View results
If the importer finds problems with the file, you will see a link on the results page to the log file that will detail the issues with the file. Correct those errors and re-import the file.
Review your products for completeness

WordPress REST API V2

May 17, 2017 by Michele Leave a Comment

With the release of WordPress version 4.7, the REST API is now included in the core therefore you no longer need to install a plugin to use it.

Per Automattic, “WordPress is moving towards becoming a fully-fledged application framework, and we needed new APIs. This project was born to create an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand and well-tested framework for creating these APIs, plus creating APIs for core.”

We wanted to see how easy it is to build an application using the new REST API. So, we looked to solve a long-time pet peeve – finding a decent movie to watch on the many premium cable channels available. You probably thought we’d focus our attention on some revolutionary way we did business or launched websites. Nope. We try to optimize our free time just as much as we do our work day hours.

We were tired of scrolling through the hundreds of movies streaming through our cable packages and not being able to find a decent movie to watch.

Yes, it is true your cable box will allow you to sort movies by genre but not by rating and the rating that is used is not quite accurate, where do those ratings come from anyway? We’ve found IMDB and RottenTomatoes to be more reliable metrics and yes, we have had personal differences of opinion with IMDB but for the most part, the ratings are fairly accurate.

Problem to solve: Hundreds of movies are available to stream via HBO, Showtime and Netflix. Make it easy to find a well-rated movie in the genre of your choosing starring the actors of your choosing.

Answer to problem: movies.siteessential.com

Resources:

Guidebox’s free movie, TV and video API.
WPAPI a JavaScript Client for the WordPress REST API.
The OMDb API is a RESTful web service to obtain movie information.
Advanced Custom Fields WordPress Plugin

Explanation: We found the Guidebox API and we were delighted that it offered the information we needed – movie title, network, movie description, poster image, IMDB link and Rotten Tomatoes link.

Using the results from our requests to the Guidebox API as the driver, we added or updated posts in our WordPress installation with movie details. The second step was to make calls to the OMDb API to retrieve the ratings from IMDB and RottenTomatoes.

Users of the site can query by Network and/or Title and/or Actor and/or IMDB rating to find the movie of their choice.

Thoughts about the REST API

We loved it! We absolutely loved working with the REST API!

Searching posts using Advanced Custom Fields can require complex query strings when you are faced with multiple search criteria. We found searching posts using the REST API easy. Even populating posts with Advanced Custom Fields was made easy by using the REST API.

If you are building an AJAX application and want to make use of the REST API, you must install WPAPI – JavaScript Client for the WordPress REST API. This Javascript library is well maintained and documented and will remove the headache of accessing the WordPress tables.

We have been using movies.siteessential.com and happy with the results.

Abandoned Cart Reminder With WooCommerce and ActiveCampaign

March 3, 2017 by Michele Leave a Comment

In this article I will discuss how you can create an Abandoned Cart Reminder process for your WordPress site using WooCommerce and ActiveCampaign to boost sales and encourage customer engagement.

Amazon uses this process all the time. Perhaps you have received one of those Amazon reminder emails saying you’ve added items to your cart and here’s the link to complete your purchase. They look something like this –

Customer Name,
Thank you for visiting Amazon.com. You recently added items to your Shopping Cart. If you haven’t already purchased or removed them, simply visit your Shopping Cart to complete your order.

What you need to create an Abandoned Cart Reminder process with WooCommerce

1. First and foremost, this process requires ActiveCampaign. If you are not using ActiveCampaign, you can click on this link to learn more about this email marketing and automation tool.

2. This process requires that the ActiveCampaign site tracking script be running on your website. The easiest way to add the tracking script to your website is to download and install the ActiveCampaign WordPress plugin from the WordPress repository.

Explanation of the Abandoned Cart Reminder Process

The process steps

The steps of an Abandoned Cart Reminder process are simple and straight forward:

1. Send an email to contacts with link to site, product or shop.: This step is important. When the ActiveCampaign WordPress plugin is installed and activated on your site, you can track a contact’s travels around your site. When you send an email to a contact that contains a link to your site, that link is coded with the contact’s information so that the contact’s activity on your site can be properly tracked. All your contact’s page visits are then recorded in ActiveCampaign. Please note: Activity can only be tracked of known contacts.
2. Contact adds a product to the shopping cart and visits the WooCommerce Cart page (/cart/); contact tagged with [cart created].: The tracking script detects that the contact has visited /cart/ which will trigger an automation that tags the contact with the tag [cart created].
3a. Contact proceeds to the checkout page (/checkout/order-received/*) and completes the product purchase; remove [cart created] tag.: If the contact makes a purchase, we can remove the [cart created] tag. Since the contact made a purchase, we don’t want to send them a reminder to check their cart.
3b. Contact leaves site – abandons the product in the cart.: The contact gets distracted and leaves your site without making a purchase, the contact remains tagged with [cart created].
4. Wait specified amount of time; if contact still has tag [cart created], send the email reminder.: Setting the wait time interval is up to you. The time period can be as short as an hour or as long as 24 hours. It is entirely up to you. Once the time has elapsed, the automation will send a reminder email to the contact.

The ActiveCampaign Automations

Using ActiveCampaign, the process requires two automations. Each automation begins when a contact visits a page on your site.

The first automation, Part 1, is needed to identify the contacts that add a product to their shopping cart. Any contact that adds a product to their shopping cart and visits [YourWebsite]/cart/ gets tagged with [cart created].

The second automation, Part 2, removes the tag [cart created] if a purchase is made when the contact visits [YourWebsite]/checkout/order-received/*. Notice the asterisk in the URL. This is important. When a purchase is made in WooCommerce the contact or customer is redirected to a page with an address like [YourWebsite]/checkout/order-received/[Order Number]/?key=wc_order_9999aa99a9999. For our purposes, we don’t need to know what comes after/order-received/. So, we use a wildcard (*) to accept anything.

What the Abandoned Cart Reminder Process Looks Like

The first diagram on the left below illustrates the process flow, including the campaign that triggers the initial email addressed to your contact, the interactions your contact has with your website and the logic of the two necessary automations. It may seem complicated but once you understand the steps it is quite simple. Click on the image to see the full size image.

The second and third diagrams are screenshots of the ActiveCampaign automations. These will serve as guides for you while creating your automation within your account.

ActiveCampaign Abandoned Cart Reminder Process Flow

abandoned cart reminder automation part 1 — ActiveCampaign – Abandoned Cart Reminder Automation Part 1

abandoned cart reminder automation part 2 — ActiveCampaign – Abandoned Cart Reminder Automation Part 2

Let’s Create the Abandoned Cart Reminder Process

Step 1: Open ActiveCampaign and create a new Automation.
Step 2: Select Start From Scratch automation and name it Part 1 – Abandoned Cart Reminder.
Step 3: Add New Start of Web Page is Visited: In the Action Options section, enter the website domain and the path to your WooCommerce cart usually /cart/.
Check the Segment the contacts entering this automation. Select Not currently in automation and select this automation that you are working on Part 1 – Abandoned Cart Reminder. Use the screenshot as a guide.
Step 4: Add a Tag: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Click on Contacts in the left column and then click on Add tag. On the next popup, Enter a tag to add, enter [cart created] without the brackets. Use the screenshot as a guide.
Step 5: Wait a Period of Time: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Select Conditions and Workflow from the left column and choose Wait. Select For a specified period of time and then enter the time period you want to wait. Tip: While testing, you might want to use just a few minutes (10 or 15 minutes).
Step 6: Send email: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Select Sending Options from the left column and choose Send email. If you already have the email created, select it from the list. Otherwise, you may see a popup that states –
Send email
You don’t have any emails to send. You can create an email to get started.
Click on the “create an email” to create the email that you would like to send to your returning customer. Use the screenshot as a guide.
Step 7: End this automation: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Select Conditions and Workflow from the left column and choose End this automation.
Step 8: Create a new Automation.
Step 9: Select Start From Scratch automation and name it Part 2 – Abandoned Cart Reminder.
Step 10: Add New Start of Web Page is Visited: In the Action Options section, enter the website domain and the path to your WooCommerce cart usually “/checkout/order-received/*” Please ensure that you enter the asterisk in the URL as shown here.
Use the screenshot as a guide.
Step 11: Remove a Tag: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Click on Contacts in the left column and then click on Remove tag. On the next popup, Enter a tag to remove, enter [cart created] without the brackets. Use the screenshot as a guide.
Step 12: End other automation: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Select Conditions and Workflow from the left column and choose End other automation and select “Part 1 – Abandoned Cart Reminder” to remove the contact from Part 1. This step is necessary since the contact made a purchase there is no need to keep them queued in the automation to send the reminder email. Tip: While testing, you might want to use just a few minutes (10 or 15 minutes).
Step 13: End this automation: Click the plus sign to add a new action. Select Conditions and Workflow from the left column and choose End this automation.
Step 14: Create an eMail Campaign With A Link to Your Shop: Create an email campaign that includes a link to your new product or service or just a link to your site.

I hope this article helped explain how you can add an Abandoned Cart Reminder to your business process using ActiveCampaign and WooCommerce.

Using Simple Social Icons with W3 Total Cache

January 9, 2017 by Michele Leave a Comment

In a previous post, W3 Total Cache Garbled My Simple Social Icons, I explained how to prevent your icons from being garbled by adding the Simple Social Icons style sheet to the list of style sheets that never get minified.

This image on the left is the result after upgrading the Simple Social Icons plugin to the latest version. This issue was caused because Simple Social Icons now uses scalable vector graphics (SVGs) instead of web fonts for better accessibility and legibility and the W3 Total Cache plugin did not upload the new SVG files to my CDN. No worries, it can be done manually.

To correct the problem so that the Simple Social Icons render correctly with W3 Total Cache follow these steps:

Login to your WordPress Admin panel.
Mouse over the Performance menu item and select CDN.
Look for the Purge button as pictured to the left and tap/click it.
Enter the path and object names for all the SVG files associated with the Simple Social Icons plugin. You can see my list below.
Press the Purge button. The files on your CDN will be deleted and refreshed with the files from your server.
Refresh the page and you should see the icons rendered properly.

wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/behance.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/bloglovin.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/dribbble.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/email.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/facebook.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/flickr.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/github.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/gplus.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/instagram.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/linkedin.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/medium.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/periscope.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/phone.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/pinterest.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/rss.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/snapchat.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/stumbleupon.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/tumblr.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/twitter.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/vimeo.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/xing.svg
wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/icons/SVG/youtube.svg

Why I Use StudioPress’s Genesis Framework and Themes For WordPress Sites

March 14, 2015 by Michele Leave a Comment

When I first started building sites using WordPress, I downloaded a few different themes and took pieces from each to build the sites my clients wanted. Each theme had its own peculiar way of implementing things and, of course, with each new theme used I spent precious time learning that particular theme developer implemented their features.

In the summer of 2012, I learned about StudioPress. I read their blog and searched for sites that were using their themes. I was impressed with the diversity of the sites built with the StudioPress Framework.

I purchased the framework within the next few months and have been very happy. The support forum is moderated very well providing answers to questions about particular themes and advise on how to implement your own features. I found the third party developer community is quite active and, therefore, I am able to find plugins coded specifically for the StudioPress Framework to bring advanced functionality to my sites.

Primary Features To Consider

Ease Of Use – StudioPress provides full instructions on how to configure any one of their themes to look exactly as the theme is demonstrated on their website.

Developers Are Not Required – The framework and theme can easily be uploaded to your site via the WordPress Admin Dashboard. When a new release of the framework or theme is published, you will be notified via the dashboard and updating the framework and theme is as easy as clicking the Update button.

Responsive Design – If you want your visitors and customers to be able to access and read your site using a smartphone, tablet or desktop, you want your site to be responsive. StudioPress themes are responsive right out of the box. No additional configuration necessary.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Afraid of all those SEO plugins available for WordPress? No worries, the StudioPress themes are fully optimized and they support the Schema.org code, which allows you to output microdata in your site’s code. This enhances your site’s search engine optimization even further. Click here to read more about the Schema.org code.

Unlimited Use – There are many theme developers that sell you a theme and restrict its use to just one site requiring you to make multiple purchases for each site you would like to install it on. Not with StudioPress, purchase the theme and framework and you can install it on as many sites as you require. How cool is that!

Developers Can Be Helpful – While you can install the Genesis Framework and child theme without needing a developer, should you have a very customized site in mind by all means contact us and let us know what you have in mind.

This list is just a brief list of the Genesis Features. Click here for a complete list of Genesis Framework features.

Also, take a look at the Showcase of Sites where you will see what some people have done with their site design projects.

Do yourself a favor and take a look at the StudioPress Genesis Framework – there’s a good reason why many of the Internet Notables are using StudioPress.

Yoast (https://yoast.com/)
Jay Baer – Convince and Convert (http://www.convinceandconvert.com/)
ProBlogger (http://problogger.com)

FREE Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners

If you are worried that the Genesis Framework is too advanced for you, go ahead and click on the image to the right to download your FREE Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners. After reading it, you’ll see just how easy it is to install and configure a Genesis Theme.

Infusionsoft: Redirecting After Submitting Web Form Version 2

March 7, 2015 by Michele Leave a Comment

I was asked today how could I route users to different pages using the value of a dropdown list and thought my original version of the routing function would work perfectly but it did not. It required a little tweaking but here you go…

Infusionsoft Web Form

For my example, I created another simple Web Form at https://fr381.infusionsoft.com/app/form/interests1. I set the Thank You page for this form as a Web Address -> http://clients.equalserving.com/loreen/infusionsoft-router-v2/

Shortcode Verion 2

Version 2 of the shortcode –

[esifs_router_v1 field_name="inf_custom_BlogInterests" pages = '{"Digital Downloads":"https://www.equalserving.com/category/digital-downloads/","Infusionsoft":"https://www.equalserving.com/category/infusionsoft/","How Tos":"https://www.equalserving.com/category/how-to/"}']

Where the field_name (inf_custom_BlogInterests) that I want to interrogate is named and the values of the choices (Digital Downloads, Infusionsoft, How Tos) and the pages I want visitors redirected to follow in the variable pages.

Select	Redirect to Page
Digital Downloads	https://www.equalserving.com/category/digital-downloads/
Infusionsoft	https://www.equalserving.com/category/infusionsoft/
How Tos	https://www.equalserving.com/category/how-to/

If you take a peek at the source code of my web form, you will notice that each of the items in the dropdown has the values that you entered in the field in the Infusionsoft web form builder.

<div class="infusion-field"> 
   <label for="inf_custom_BlogInterests">Blog Interests *</label> 
   <select id="inf_custom_BlogInterests" name="inf_custom_BlogInterests">
      <option value="">Please select one</option>
      <option value="Digital Downloads">Digital Downloads</option>
      <option value="Infusionsoft">Infusionsoft</option>
      <option value="How Tos">How Tos</option>
   </select> 
</div>

To enable the use of such a shortcode requires that I add a function to my WordPress theme’s function.php file. I’ll explain what the following code does line by line below.

add_shortcode('esifs_router_v2', 'esifs_router_v2_function');
 
function esifs_router_v2_function($atts, $content = null){
    //* What is the IFS field name we are concerned with that predicts the routing
    if ((isset($atts["field_name"]) && $atts["field_name"] != "") && (isset($atts["pages"]) && $atts["pages"] != "")) {
        //* Convert the pages to a proper array
        $pages = json_decode( $atts["pages"], true );
        if( !is_array( $pages ) or count( $pages )<1 ) $pages = array();

        //* Get the value of the IFS field
        $field_name = $atts["field_name"];

        //* Make sure there is a value
        if (isset($_GET[$field_name]) && $_GET[$field_name] != "") {
            $value = $_GET[$field_name];
            $url = $pages[$value];
            if ($url != "") {
                $string .= '<script type="text/javascript">';
                $string .= 'window.location = "' . $url . '"';
                $string .= '</script>';
                echo $string;
            } else {
                echo "<p>No value found.</p>";
            }
        }
    }
}

Line 1: Associates the shortcode [esifs_router_v2] with the function esifs_router_v2_function. WordPress now knows that when it sees the shortcode [esifs_router_v2] in a page or post, it will call the esifs_router_v2_function. For more on WordPress shortcodes, you can read Smashing Magazines guide on shortcodes.
Line 3: passes the attributes from the shortcode to the function esifs_router_v2_function.
Line 5: checks to ensure that the field name is set in the shortcode and not empty.
Line 7 – 8: converts the details of the pages parameter into an array to use in the rest of the code.
Line 11: tells the function what field name I want to check for redirection. In my case, it is the field name inf_option_MyInterest.
Line 14: checks to ensure that the field name is being passed to the page by Infusionsoft and that the value is not empty.
Lines 15: assign the value of the option the visitor selected to the variable $value.
Lines 16: assigns the appropriate URL to the variable $url.
Lines 18 – 21: Will output a small piece of Javascript to the page that will redirect the visitor to the page you defined in the shortcode.
Lines 22 – 23: If a URL is not found in the array, it will output a message without the JavaScript code to redirect.

To finish this post I wanted to show you how to change the shortcode from my original example so that I could use the new version of the shortcode.

The new shorcode would look like –

[esifs_router_v2 field_name="inf_option_MyInterest" pages='{"213":"http://clients.equalserving.com/loreen/infusionsoft-router/213-kayaking", "215":"http://clients.equalserving.com/loreen/infusionsoft-router/215-biking", "217":"http://clients.equalserving.com/loreen/infusionsoft-router/217-hiking"}']

Infusionsoft: Need a Forward To A Friend Link In Your Emails

September 18, 2014 by Michele Leave a Comment

Problem

An ~~exasperated~~ dumbfounded client contacted me today. He was frustrated by the fact that while Infusionsoft allows sharing of email content via their social sharing widget that includes Facebook, Twitter and Google+, they do not include a simple “forward to a friend.” The “forward to a friend” feature is included in many email services – ActiveCampaign, MailChimp and iContact to name a few.

Goal

Our goal is to have the “Forward to a friend” link blend with the other social icons as shown below:

How

With a little tinkering I came up with an approach that I think fits in nicely with the rest of the Infusionsoft email design elements. To accomplish the task insert an HTML Snippet into the email just above the Social Snippet as pictured below.

In the HTML Snippet copy and paste the HTML code below into your HTML Snippet:


<p style="text-align:center;wdth:100px;float:right;">
<a href="mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20~Company.Company~&body=Hi!%0DI%20was%20reading%20the%20~Company.Company~%20Newsletter%20and%20thought%20you'd%20like%20it.%20Check%20it%20out%20at%20-%0D%20~HostedEmail.Url~.">
<img src="https://db.tt/sIe7bF7e" border="0" align="center" alt="email icon" />
</a>
</p>

The above code will render the email image to the right of the social share icons as shown in the image at the top of this post.

When the contact clicks on the email icon, it will open their email client with a new email with –
Subject: Check out ~Company.Company~
Body: Hi!
I was reading the ~Company.Company~ Newsletter and thought you’d like it. Check it out at –
~HostedEmail.Url~.

~Company.Company~ will be replaced with your company’s name and ~HostedEmail.Url~ will be replaced with the link to your hosted email.

Notice in Line 3 of the code above, we are using our own image file that is stored on Dropbox. If you prefer to download the email image [ ] or use one of your own, make sure that you change the URL https://db.tt/sIe7bF7e to the proper URL of your image file. To download ours right click on the email image above and select Save Image As to save the image to your hard drive.

I hope this is helpful to others using Infusionsoft who would like to include a simple “Forward to Friend” link in their email marketing.

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