Patent Application
20150106928
Some enterprises market their products, services, and offers to customers through various modes of campaigning such as email campaign, letter campaign, phone campaign, etc. In an email campaign, enterprises send a marketing email to a large number of recipients. In many instances, the marketing email is created using an email template and personalized for individual recipients. For example, certain dynamic portions of the email template called place holders are replaced with attributes personal to the recipient. Usually, the email templates are defined outside a campaign management application and required to be uploaded into the campaign management application for defining email campaigns for generating emails. Often, the emails generated using the email templates are error prone. For example, the emails may be subject to malware and errors relating to format, syntax, etc. Executing a campaign using an error prone email template means sending out several hundreds of erroneous emails to recipients. Once sent out, it is practically impossible to rectify the erroneous emails received at the recipient end.
The claims set forth the embodiments with particularity. The embodiments are illustrated by way of examples and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements. The embodiments, together with its advantages, may be best understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Embodiments of techniques for screening of email templates in campaign management are described herein. In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the embodiments can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, etc. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail.
Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment”, “this embodiment” and similar phrases, means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one of the one or more embodiments. Thus, the appearances of these phrases in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.
Software as a service (SaaS) sometimes referred to as “on-demand software” is a software delivery model in which software and associated data are centrally hosted on the cloud. SaaS is typically accessed by users using a thin client via a web browser. SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), management information systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), etc. SaaS applications are hosted centrally where software and data are stored on host servers. The applications can be run on a PC with an internet connection and a web browser. One such SaaS offering is SAP® Business ByDesign from SAP® AG.
The SAP® Business ByDesign solution offers several modules designed to track end-to-end business processes. For example, Customer relationship management (CRM) is one such module designed to support processes that span marketing, sales and service activities. Marketing includes a variety of activities such as creating and running marketing campaigns across multiple channels, connecting with target customers, generating leads, etc. One of the marketing functions supported by SAP® CRM module is campaign management to control the complete marketing campaign processes including design, execution, coordination, optimization, and monitoring.
Enterprises use campaigns such as email campaign, short message service (SMS) campaign, letter campaign, phone campaign, etc., for marketing products, services, and offers to customers and/or business partners. Enterprises have hundreds or thousands of business partners and customers. Marketing campaigns such as email campaign requires email to be sent in huge volume referred to as bulk email. Bulk email is dissemination of large number of emails to people across the globe. Typically, in such marketing campaigns, bulk emails are processed in batches referred to as batch processing. Batch processing is execution of series of programs or jobs on a processing unit without manual intervention.
As used herein, an email campaign refers to a campaign for marketing products, services, and offers through emails. Email campaigns are defined in a campaign management application. The campaign management application controls the complete marketing campaign processes including design, execution, coordination, optimization, and monitoring. The campaign management application includes user interfaces for gathering various inputs related to the email campaign such as a ‘name’ of the campaign, ‘start date’ of the campaign, and ‘end date’ of the campaign, etc. In addition to these inputs, an email template is also uploaded to the campaign management application for defining the email campaign. Release FP4.0 of SAP® Business ByDesign solution provides for the use of email templates for generating an email.
An “email template” as used herein is a mail body which includes a predefined text and one or more place holders. The predefined text within the email template is specific to the campaign. In an embodiment, the predefined text comprises hypertext markup language (HTML). The place holders within the email template hold the place for receiving a variable or any attribute personal to the recipient. For example, a place holder may represent a personal attribute such as recipient's name (e.g., ‘RecipientName’), Recipient Title or designation (e.g., ‘Title’), academic title, etc., to be used in the email campaign. In an aspect, the email template may be created using any third party HTML editor such as Microsoft® expression web, Adobe® Dreamweaver, etc.
In an aspect, the email templates are created at an external source (3rd party) using state-of-the-art tools as a file. The email templates may be stored as files (e.g., text files) comprising HTML texts. The stored email templates or files are uploaded into the CRM system. The externally created email template is then uploaded into the campaign management application and may be stored in a local file.
The stored email template may be selected and uploaded from the external device to the campaign management application where the email campaign is to be created. At the time of creating a new email campaign, an email template is selected from the local file based upon the campaign to be defined. For example, a customer relationship management (CRM) manager may select one of a CRM marketing email template to define an email campaign related to CRM marketing. Once the email template is selected and uploaded to the campaign management application and other inputs related to the email campaign is provided by a user (e.g., CRM manager), the email campaign is defined and saved. The saved email campaign may be executed based upon the provided input.
During execution, various issues related to the emails might be detected such as emails including viruses or emails including errors related to format, syntax, or content etc. However, as the email campaigns are executed automatically without user intervention, executing the campaign using the error prone email template would result in the generation and distribution of several thousands of erroneous emails to customers. It is therefore prudent to screen the email template for potential errors prior to executing the campaign and sending out the emails to the customers. One or more embodiments described herein provide for screening the email templates for errors automatically without user intervention. The following example embodiments illustrated with reference to
However, according to some embodiments of this disclosure, upon receiving a selection of an email template for uploading, the upload service 110 screens the email template for any errors prior to loading the selected template into the campaign management application 130. In an aspect, the upload service 110 is a part of the campaign management application 130. In an embodiment, the criteria for screening include, but are not limited to, scanning for malware, checking for conformance of placeholders with pre-defined format or syntax, and content check. Upon screening, if any error is detected, the error is notified or reported to a user. For example, an error message may be rendered on a user interface. The user may then rectify the notified error and upload the email template again into the campaign management application 130. In an embodiment, when the screening is performed successfully and no error is detected, the selected email template is uploaded to the campaign management application 130.
In an embodiment, a new campaign is created by defining certain parameters such as the campaigning period, the target group of recipients, templates for email creation, etc. As shown with reference to
The ‘target group’ 215 as used herein refers to a classification of recipients grouped on the basis of certain shared marketing attributes such as age, occupation, hobbies, income, gender, etc. The term “recipients” as used herein refers to either an account such as an organization, a contact person for an organization, or an individual having an email address, fax or phone number. Within the campaign management application, the target groups are assigned to a marketing activity, such that, when the activity is executed, the recipient list associated with the target group is forwarded to the campaign application for further processing.
In an aspect, upon receiving a selection of the field “target group” 215, a widow 222 showing a list 223 of stored target groups is rendered on the user interface 200. For example, selecting the target group “TGA” with 200000 members to its group and which is currently in an “active” state adds the target group “TGA” to the newly created campaign “CRM email campaign” in the new campaign window 210. The “active” state indicates that the target group is currently operative and can be selected. Specific target groups can also be searched using “find” 225 option provided in the graphical user interface 200 of the campaign management application 130.
The created email templates are stored in the external device 120. e.g., in the ‘list of templates’ 150. In an embodiment, the email templates are stored as files in the list 150. The email template for creating the email for the email campaigns may be imported from the external device 120 to a local file. A particular email template may then be uploaded from the local file to the new campaign by selecting an “Add” option 226 in the new campaign window 210. Selecting the “Add” option 226 opens a file selector pop-up showing a list of email templates. Upon receiving a selection of a particular email template and prior to uploading, an API of the campaign management application is called which performs a screening of the selected email template. In an embodiment, the API may be the upload service 110 which performs the screening of the selected email template. In an embodiment, the email template is screened for errors including but not limited to scanning for malware, checking for conformance with code page, checking for conformance of placeholders with pre-defined format or syntax, and content check.
In an embodiment, prior to uploading the email template, the upload service 110 screens the email template for malware such as presence of one or more viruses. A state-of-art virus scan process may be adopted for determining the presence of virus. In an embodiment, virus check software is called to check the presence of virus within the email template. In an embodiment, a service of SAP® NetWeaver with a special virus checking profile for marketing campaigns is called for performing virus scan. Typically, behind the SAP® NetWeaver service a 3rd party virus check software may be called to check the presence of viruses within the email template. When one or more viruses are detected within the email template, an error message may be rendered or notified.
In an embodiment, the screening includes checking for conformance with code page. In an embodiment, once the virus check is performed successfully and no virus is detected, the code page check is performed. Typically, each character in the email template is stored as a sequence of ‘bits and bytes’ and a code page defines or encodes which ‘bits and bytes’ corresponds to which character. There are various types of code pages, e.g., universal character set transformation format 8 (UTF-8), Windows 1252, etc. The code page contains characters for various languages such as western European languages, eastern European languages, Cyrillic language, Hindi language, etc. In an embodiment, the code page UTF-8 is used for webpages and HTML. Therefore, a predefined code page for the email template may be specified as “UTF-8.” For checking conformance with code page, the upload service 110 determines whether the email template content is encoded according to the predefined code page.
Typically, the beginning of the email template file includes a specific byte order mark “BOM” to indicate the code page in which the email template content is encoded. For example, for UTF-8, the BOM is “EE BB BF.” The upload service 110 determines whether the file includes a BOM at the beginning of the email template file. If it is determined that the file includes the BOM, the upload service 110 proceed to determine whether the BOM is in accordance with a pre-specified BOM, e.g., “EE BB BF.” If the upload service determines that the BOM is not in accordance with the pre-specified BOM, a code page error may be rendered or notified.
On the other hand, if it is determined that the file does not include the BOM, the upload service 110 determines whether the selected email template includes a predefined HTML tag with a specified value. In an aspect, the upload service 110 searches for the predefined tag, e.g., tag <meta> within the HTML tags of the email template. When the predefined HTML tag is detected, the upload service 110 checks the value or content of the tag, i.e., content of tag <meta>. For code page UTF-8, the content of tag <meta> is “<meta content=“text/html; charset=UTF-8”>”. ‘Charset’ represents character set. The upload service 110 checks whether the ‘charset’ within the tag <meta> is equals to UTF-8. When the ‘charset’=UTF-8, it is determined that the email template content is encoded according to the predefined code page UTF-8. In case the ‘charset’≠UTF-8, it is determined that the email template content is not encoded according to the predefined code page UTF-8 and the error message 400 is rendered. When the code page error is rendered, the HTML encoding of the email template is changed by the user to UTF-8 and the email template is uploaded again.
Upon determining that the email template conforms to the pre-defined code page, the data stream of the email template is converted from the markup language (HTML) to an extensible markup language such as Extensible HyperText markup language (XHTML). During conversion, it is determined whether the email template includes any formatting error or error related to at least one of a format, syntax, and content of the email template. For example, it is determined whether the email template includes any tag not in accordance with the markup language syntax (e.g., HTML syntax). In an embodiment, a tag indicates or marks a start and an end of an element (e.g., a logical unit of information) within a document or a programming language. In an embodiment, the tag begin with the less-than character (“<”) and end with the greater-than character (“>”). The HTML tag indicates the start and the end of the logical unit of information within the hypertext markup language. In an embodiment, the HTML email template includes HTML tags and it is determined whether the email template includes any non HTML. In an embodiment, the tags not in accordance with the HTML syntax are called unknown tags or non-HTML tags.
When the email template includes any unknown tag, an error is rendered or notified to the user. In an embodiment, the upload service 110 parses the email template file content and searches for HTML tags. When any tag of the email file content is unknown (i.e., non HTML tag), the error is rendered.
In an embodiment, during conversion, it is determined whether the file contains any restricted tags or scripts. In an embodiment, the restricted tag comprises a link element (e.g., hyperlink) which points to a multimedia file. In an embodiment, the multimedia file includes at least one of an audio, a video, and text. In an embodiment, the restricted tag may be tag new with HTML 5, e.g., <audio>, <video>, <object>. In one embodiment, the restricted tag may be <script> tag. When the file includes the restricted tag or script, an error is displayed.
Upon conversion to XHTML, the document object model (DOM) tree representation of the email template (HTML) is created. In an aspect, XHTML is parsed into an extensible markup language (XML) DOM tree representation. Using DOM tree representation of the HTML, the HTML tags containing the placeholders can be easily, quickly, and correctly accessed or searched. The searched placeholder can then be easily checked, e.g., whether the placeholders comply with the predefined syntax. In an embodiment, the searched placeholders are compared with the list of predefined placeholders. When a placeholder does not comply with predefined placeholder syntax, an error message is rendered.
In an embodiment, the comments for rectifying errors are also rendered along with the respective errors. Once the errors are rectified, the selected email template can be uploaded again. Until the execution of the campaign the selected email template can be changed by just uploading a different template. In an aspect, in case the uploaded template contains errors (e.g. virus or invalid HTML code or wrong code page or wrong placeholder names) the template is rejected and corresponding error messages are rendered on the user interface.
In an embodiment, the content of the uploaded HTML file will be stored as XHTML in a node MAIL_FORM (not shown) of BO Campaign. In an aspect, the user manually enters the subject line for the uploaded email template. When the email template is uploaded, the description of the email template is displayed as hyperlink. Selecting this hyperlink opens a browser window and allows for preview of the email template. Once the error free email template is uploaded, other inputs related to the email campaign are provided to create the email campaign. The created email campaign “CRM email campaign” can be ‘saved’ or ‘saved and opened’ for viewing in the graphical user interface 200 of the campaign management application 130. The user schedules to execute the created email campaign and to send email to recipients. In campaign management application 130, the target group of recipients is grouped into packages. These packages are executed in parallel in batches of defined batch size to send personalized email to the recipients in the target group.
When the email template content is not encoded according to the predefined code page (802: NO), an error message (e.g., error message 400 of
In an embodiment, after conversion, the upload service determines whether the placeholders within the email template comply with the predefined syntax. When any of the placeholders does not comply with the predefined syntax, an error message is rendered. In an embodiment, the placeholder syntax check may be performed during conversion. In an embodiment, after conversion, the upload service determines whether the email template includes any restricted tag. In an embodiment, the restricted tag comprises a link element (e.g., hyperlink) which points to a multimedia file. In an embodiment, the multimedia file includes at least one of an audio, a video, and text. In an embodiment, the restricted tag may be tag new with HTML 5. e.g., <audio>, <video>, <object>. In one embodiment, the restricted tag may be <script> tag. When the email template includes any restricted tag, an error message is rendered. In an embodiment, the restricted tag check may be performed during conversion.
Embodiments enable using state-of-art HTML editors to create email templates for marketing campaigns. Valid placeholders can be easily selected and inserted within the email templates. The created email template is stored on a server or on an external 3rd party device where it is created. One of the stored email templates can be selected and uploaded to a campaign management application for defining the email campaign. Typically, the email template is assigned to an application business object, e.g., marketing campaign. The email template is screened prior to uploading it into the campaign management application. The criteria for screening includes, but is not limited to, scanning for malware, checking for conformance with code page, and checking for conformance of placeholders with pre-defined format or syntax. In an aspect, the screening is performed automatically and upon determination of any error, the error is reported to the user. Therefore, the erroneous email templates are not uploaded and the errors can be rectified at upload time itself. Further, there are no issues later during execution of the marketing campaign which helps in batch processing where marketing campaigns are executed automatically without human intervention.
Some embodiments may include the above-described methods being written as one or more software components. These components, and the functionality associated with each, may be used by client, server, distributed, or peer computer systems. These components may be written in a computer language corresponding to one or more programming languages such as, functional, declarative, procedural, object-oriented, lower level languages and the like. They may be linked to other components via various application programming interfaces and then compiled into one complete application for a server or a client. Alternatively, the components maybe implemented in server and client applications. Further, these components may be linked together via various distributed programming protocols. Some example embodiments may include remote procedure calls being used to implement one or more of these components across a distributed programming environment. For example, a logic level may reside on a first computer system that is remotely located from a second computer system containing an interface level (e.g., a graphical user interface). These first and second computer systems can be configured in a server-client, peer-to-peer, or some other configuration. The clients can vary in complexity from mobile and handheld devices, to thin clients and on to thick clients or even other servers.
The above-illustrated software components are tangibly stored on a computer readable storage medium as instructions. The term “computer readable storage medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media that stores one or more sets of instructions. The term “computer readable storage medium” should be taken to include any physical article that is capable of undergoing a set of physical changes to physically store, encode, or otherwise carry a set of instructions for execution by a computer system which causes the computer system to perform any of the methods or process steps described, represented, or illustrated herein. A computer readable storage medium may be a non-transitory computer readable storage medium. Examples of a non-transitory computer readable storage media include, but are not limited to: magnetic media, such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROMs, DVDs and holographic indicator devices; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and execute, such as application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”), programmable logic devices (“PLDs”) and ROM and RAM devices. Examples of computer readable instructions include machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-level code that are executed by a computer using an interpreter. For example, an embodiment may be implemented using Java, C++, or other object-oriented programming language and development tools. Another embodiment may be implemented in hard-wired circuitry in place of, or in combination with machine readable software instructions.
A data source is an information resource. Data sources include sources of data that enable data storage and retrieval. Data sources may include databases, such as, relational, transactional, hierarchical, multi-dimensional (e.g., OLAP), object oriented databases, and the like. Further data sources include tabular data (e.g., spreadsheets, delimited text files), data tagged with a markup language (e.g., XML data), transactional data, unstructured data (e.g., text files, screen scrapings), hierarchical data (e.g., data in a file system, XML data), files, a plurality of reports, and any other data source accessible through an established protocol, such as, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), produced by an underlying software system, e.g., an ERP system, and the like. Data sources may also include a data source where the data is not tangibly stored or otherwise ephemeral such as data streams, broadcast data, and the like. These data sources can include associated data foundations, semantic layers, management systems, security systems and so on.
In the above description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however that the one or more embodiments can be practiced without one or more of the specific details or with other methods, components, techniques, etc. In other instances, well-known operations or structures are not shown or described in details.
Although the processes illustrated and described herein include series of steps, it will be appreciated that the different embodiments are not limited by the illustrated ordering of steps, as some steps may occur in different orders, some concurrently with other steps apart from that shown and described herein. In addition, not all illustrated steps may be required to implement a methodology in accordance with the one or more embodiments. Moreover, it will be appreciated that the processes may be implemented in association with the apparatus and systems illustrated and described herein as well as in association with other systems not illustrated.
The above descriptions and illustrations of embodiments, including what is described in the Abstract, is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the one or more embodiments to the precise forms disclosed. While specific embodiments of, and examples for, the embodiment are described herein for illustrative purposes, various equivalent modifications are possible within the scope of the embodiments, as those skilled in the relevant art will recognize. These modifications can be made to the embodiments in light of the above detailed description. Rather, the scope of the one or more embodiments is to be determined by the following claims, which are to be interpreted in accordance with established doctrines of claim construction.
