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What is Subscriber Selection SQL?

This tab allows you to enter the SQL (structured query language) that tells the program who you wish to send emails to (i.e. your Subscribers or Customers).  For example:

SELECT Email_Address, ID, Name  FROM Customers WHERE Country="USA" AND SendHTML=True

Instructs the database to return the Email_Address, ID and Name fields FROM the Customers table, WHERE the Country field is set to "USA" and the SendHTML flag is set to True. 

I don't understand SQL!!!

Don't worry!  Basic selection SQL is not difficult to learn.  There are many books available, if you are a beginner then consider titles such as SQL for dummies! 

If you are using Microsoft (R) Access then here is a tip. 

1.  Create a selection query. 
2.  Run the query to ensure it brings back the expected results by going to Query -> Run
3.  When you are happy with it, go to View -> SQL View
4.  Access has written the SQL for you!  Simply highlight it and press CTRL + C to copy to the windows clipboard. 
5.  In the appropriate tab in Dynamic Mailer (ODBC) press CTRL+V to paste. 

What fields do I need to select?

As an absolute minimum you will need the Email address field, and the Unique ID (e.g. autoincrement ID) field.  If you require any other fields (e.g. First_Name, Surname etc) to appear in your email then you will have to specify those also. 

What are the 4 tabs for?

If the recipients of your email use a modern email client such as Microsoft (R) Outlook Express, then they can see formatted HTML (HyperText Markup Language) email - i.e. you can change font size, colour, tables, positioning, include graphics and so on. (see What is the difference between Plain Text and HTML? for a full explanation)

However, many people still used old fashioned mail clients that can only display plain text.  If you send them a formatted email they will actually receive the HTML code verbatim! 

Dynamic Mailer (ODBC) gets around this by including a Plain Text version of your email at the top, which is hidden in HTML compatible clients. 

However, if for example your users sign up through your website and are given a choice as to whether they want HTML or Plain Text email, then you will want to have one selection statement to specify HTML users, and another for Plain Text. 

For both Plain and HTML there are tabs for Test and Live lists.  We recommend that before sending your email to real (live) users, you send at least one copy to yourself (test) to proof read it.  No point in finding an error after you've sent it out to all your users! 

The SELECT statement you use will normally be very similar for both, however the test list SQL will have something like:

AND ID=100

For example. 

Click on "Test SQL Statement" to ensure that it is valid, and that it has brought back the data that you expected. 

Why do I need to confirm Email / Unique ID fields?

The software needs to know which field contains the Email address, and which contains the Unique ID field. 

When you click "Test SQL Statement" it populates the list with all the fields returned, and takes a guess at which field is which.  (i.e. it looks for the keywords 'email' and 'id').  You should make sure that the correct fields have been chosen.