“Tokens” are placeholders that can be used in your mass emails, autoresponders or email templates stored in your Message Library in Open Leads.

There are Tokens automatically created for each field you have in your account, along with ones for signatures and for the unsubscribe link for your CAN-Spam compliance.

To use a Token, simply type it into the message body, or copy and paste it from the list that you see on the right hand side of your email composition screen in Open Leads. It is simply the name of the field inside square brackets – like [First], for example. Inserting this into your messge body will result in Open Leads replacing the Token with the data from recipient’s record in your account. “Dear [First]” becomes “Dear Bob” in the email that is actually sent.

Using the [Signature] Token places your signature from your Personal Profile in the message, so you no longer have to type that in in all the messages.

A new Token, called “[Lead Signature]” is related but a little different – this places the signature of the User assigned to the lead into the message. This is very useful in creating Autoresponders that are sent from a Workflow that also assigns a user by rotation. In this scenario, the email message is personalized not only to the recipient, but also from the user that was assigned that lead.

We have added the ability to create a custom Signature for your emails as well as a Personal Profile section, including your photo. These elements add to functionality of email messages, and also work with the new Lead Tracking function.

To edit your signature and profile, click on the “profile” link in the upper right corner of your screen, or on “Personal Profile” from the “Settings” tab. When you open this screen, you may update your email address and password just as before, but you will also see sections for uploading a photo from your hard drive, as well as adding your signature in both plain text and HTML.

These signatures can then be used with “Tokens” to populate mass email messages and Autoresponders that are sent out of Open Leads.

This one is a little on the complex side of things, but in a nutshell, “Lead Tracking” is a feature in which the person who submits their information into Open Leads can follow comments – basically “progress” – on their submitted information.

This would be primarily useful if a form is created in Open Leads to handle service requests or support tickets, for example.

Several users that are in the Property Management sector have set it up to work with their community “Maintenance Request” forms on their websites. In this situation, a homeowner submits a form to let the Property Manager know that a light switch has begun malfunctioning. Immediately upon submission of the form from the community website, the homeowner receives a confirmation email with a link to a tracking page embedded. By clicking on this link they will be able to monitor any new Comments made in the users Open Leads account that refer to that submission. If the lead is assigned to a user, either automatically using a Workflow, or manually by the Account Administrator, the homeowner also has a photo and a link on that page to the Profile info on the user that is handling their request.

This is but one use of Lead Tracking, and it is very easy to set up. All you have to do to enable tracking is to either create a new form or edit an existing form, and click on “Lead Tracking” then check the box to enable it on that form.

One very important thing to rememember, though, when using Lead Tracking, you have the addtional ability to make a Comment public or private. Any “public” comments can be read by the lead when they use the tracking link.