Entelect Web Manager

Entelect Web Manager terminology

With reference to Entelect Web Manager, the following definitions apply:

• Categories refer to how Web Manager is used to categorise relevant divisions, sectors or groupings within your organisation or the community you wish to target.
• Subscribers or members belong to each of the above mentioned categories who typically subscribe to the relevant categories or services (such as calendar listings and directory listings) on the Web Manager enabled website.
• Users refer to an organisation's administrative or management users, each of whom have secure online role-based access to relevant back-office features.

Entelect Web Manager features

Referring to the functional diagram, Web Manager's functional blocks are further detailed in this section.

Front Office: Subscriber or Public Facing Zone

Front office (public facing) features of browser include site searches, engaging with bloggers, news viewing (headline, categorised and archived), enabling RSS feeds, new subscriber registration and payment (if applicable), secure subscriber login and personal data administration, gallery viewing, directory listings vieiwing or contributions, calendar viewing or contribution, social networking feeds such as Twitter and making contact with the website administrators by filling in contact forms. In addition, the subscriber gets e-mail newsletters, newsflashes and/or SMS updates.

Configuration: Entelect Zone

Depending on a client's requirements, Entelect's web engineers assist in configuring Web Manager at set-up. The majority of these setup parameters are subsequently controlled by the users, but for convenience are initially configured by Entelect:

• Initial site structure and setup: This includes initial menu structure, homepage layout, master pages templates configuration, implementing news and calendar controls, blogs setup, subscribers registration zone layout, content managed areas, blog zones, gallery positions, social network site connections, initial look and feel styling implementation, newsletter templates, SMS username and password, newsletter sender e-mail address,  credit card payment gateway and Entelect billing model setup.
• Fee structure setup: If applicable, dynamic subscriber fee structures and rules are set up on the back-end system. Dynamic rules can be based on age, gender or other criteria, so different fees apply for different subscriber profiles. In the event of subscribers making online card payments, either Entelect's merchant account is used or a direct connection to the client's card merchant account is made.
• Hierarchical structure setup: The Web Manager system allows for n-tiered hierarchical setup of organisations, so it needs to be established as a national, provincial or local office. A common database is typically shared between hierarchical organisations. Users have different data viewing roles depending on the level of hierarchy.
• Domain and e-mail registration: Setup includes the registration or transfer of the website domain address and any other pertinent domain specific e-mail addresses that need to be set up.

Back Office features: User Zone

The back office is set up to allow role-based access to users on the system who self-manage the website and related services. Some of these features include:

• Content management: Management of all content relevant to the site through best-of-breed web editors, which includes image and video feed management.
• Site configuration: Management of all configuration aspects of the site, e.g. adding pages to menu bar, customisation of menu item links and areas, and management of website styling (colours, fonts, etc).
• Search engine optimisation tools: Advanced SEO tools allow users (through the content management system) to manage page titles, meta descriptions and keywords, page headings and sub headings, keywords on pages and addition of RSS feeds, all of which are designed bringing more web traffic to the site.
• Management reports: A variety of management reports exist, which include subscription expiries, payments, member reports, newsletter sending success/failure reports, ad server reports, fees reports, web usage statistics, etc. All these reports are exportable to a range of standard formats, including Excel, PDF or CSV.
• Image gallery management: The online gallery is functional, fast loading and impressive looking. Back-end functionality allows the creation and maintenance of various albums, which includes images and comments. The system auto thumbnails images for fast viewing and limits full image sizes to avoid excessive bandwidth usage (although this is configurable if need be).
• "Contact us" forms management: Allows for compilation and management of "contact us" website forms, which can be categorised and set up to send e-mails to pre-defined enquiry e-mail addresses (helpdesk, management, etc). Prospective customers can enquire here without having to expose e-mail addresses to spam web spiders.
• Subscriber and member management: Online registration allows for subscriber input forms configuration and fee structure setup (if applicable). Fees setup is dynamic, meaning that different fees can apply for different membership types. Users can search for members or subscribers, which can be edited, and facilities can be made available for subscribers to update personal data through a secure login. The administrator (or designated user) can accept, reject or add new subscribers, while subscribers can pay online via credit card or make EFT transfers. Online receipts and confirmation e-mails are automatic and configurable in the back-end. Bulk uploads of offline subscribers data can be made via an Excel (csv) spreadsheet.
• Organisation management: Allows for administration of organisation details, users, fees, business or focus categories.
• User management: Administrative users can register new users, define what back-office functions they can access and also administer these users: e.g. deactivate or change passwords. This feature increases security and devolves site management to multiple users.
• Calendar management: A back-office controlled and easily viewable web calendar shows important dates and related information. The back-office allows easy creation, editing and deleting of calendar entries. Calendar entries can be in a featured section on the home page and loaded into the main calendar control. From a front-office perspective the calendar can also be set up such that the general public can register and post calendar items of interest. Such people would need to subscribe to the service. All postings are prior authorised by the calendar administrator, thus avoiding spam postings.
• Blog manager: Website bloggers can be created with individual access to the back-office system to administer their blogs. The back-office allows for easy publishing, editing and deleting of blog items as well as viewer comment moderation.
• Social networking integration: This facility allows direct integration to popular media and social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and related connectors. This is usually done at setup or through our helpdesk, but can be configured by advanced users.

Communications and Marketing: User Zone

An important part of any organisation is the ability to communicate and market to subscribers (members, followers, potential customers, customers, suppliers or business divisions). Some features on offer through Web Manager include:

• Directory listings: This facility allows users to post and list products, clients, references, and other content items on the website. Powerful search and listing display features allow users to easily navigate between listed items, allowing for sorting by configurable parameters such as name, date, type etc. From a front-office perspective, this module can be setup for the general public to register and post items to the directory listings (for example classified listings). In this instance before an item is accepted for posting the directory listings administrator edits and authorises postings before acceptance on the site.

• Entelect advertising server: To bring more click-through traffic to sites, users can create and post configurable banner adverts on other websites or HTML newsletters. Reports show the volume of traffic every advert generates (click through reporting), from which site location and specified over configurable time periods. This technology can be used as a revenue generation mechanism.

• Entelect Active community news exchange: News items can be shared seamlessly between clients using Web Manager, who are categorised by Entelect according to industry or user groups. Users can decide with whom to share, auto publish, edit or decline news articles that have been created by other Web Manager partners (typically in the same industry or web community). This is a powerful way of quickly disseminating relevant information to Entelect partner communities, such as the rapidly growing sporting community at Entelect Active.
• SMS and e-mail newsflashes: These can easily be distributed in bulk and personalised to subscribers, subscribers by category, custom lists or repeat mailing lists (csv) that can be uploaded.
• Newsletter: Allows for the e-mail distribution (and posting on the website) of selected news articles in a template-based HTML newsletter to subscribers (by category). The website administrator has control over newsletter layout and content, and can use a variety of pre-defined templates depending on what user category is being targeted. The newsletter manager allows articles to be selected for e-mail newsletter inclusion and ordered accordingly. Bulk e-mails use best-of-breed technology and are designed to avoid spam filters. Unsubscribe and personalised e-mail options also exist.
• News article publishing on website: News items display on the website in the following areas: homepage headlines, category specific pages, news articles, custom newsletter format and news archives. Back-end functionality allows quick capture, editing, deleting and archiving of news items in pre-defined categories. Different roles can also be created with news, viz. authors, editors and publishers.
• News archiving: Allows for archiving a list of previously distributed newsletters or individual articles - still available on the website, but archived via an indexing system.
• Bulk e-mail success reporting: This includes a historical success/failure report on newsletters, articles or newsflashes sent. It allows for maintenance of invalid subscriber e-mail addresses.

Add-On Modules

Additional add-on software modules include:

• Entelect Survey Publisher: Enables surveys to be constructed on the website using a wide variety of survey fields such as text inputs, checkboxes and dropdown lists. Features include full back-office configurable reporting using filters, graphing, analysis and data downloading.
• Retail Manager: This is a sophisticated, self-managing online store with full retail and delivery management capability. Over and above online payment facilities already offered on Web Manager, refer to Retail Manager for additional features.