This Spotler MailPro release brings the most significant improvements to the system pages. New functionalities and refinements have been introduced, giving you more flexibility and control. Many plugin settings can now be managed directly in the software, without support or technical intervention. In addition, several fixes enhance overall stability and usability.
In this article you will learn more about:
Subscribe plugin
The Subscribe plugin has been expanded with new options and improvements that make subscription management easier and more secure. Previously, technical support was required to adjust settings, now this can be done directly in the plugin interface. Several enhancements also prevent duplicate subscriptions and block bot activity.
Direct Subscribe
The most important addition is the new Direct Subscribe option in the plugin settings. When Direct Subscribe is enabled, new contacts are automatically placed in the subscribe group without confirmation via a confirmation email. Previously, this required manual PHP code adjustments by Spotler MailPro support. With this update, you can manage and verify their settings yourselves.
By default, Spotler MailPro uses a double opt-in process. If you want to use the Direct Subscribe option, you must enable it in each plugin individually.
Subscribe frequency
The frequency limitation for subscriptions, previously hardcoded in PHP, is now available as an adjustable setting within the plugin. By default, a maximum of five subscriptions per twelve hours is enforced to prevent abuse and repeated confirmation emails. This value can now be customized in the plugin settings.
Other improvements
To avoid repeated confirmations and spam, a safeguard has been added to block duplicate subscriptions. Existing contacts will not see an error message but will be redirected to the “thank you for subscribing” page. Behind the scenes, this prevents duplicate welcome emails. Additional bot protection has optionally also been implemented. If a visitor fails verification, a separate confirmation page will then appear. The text of this page can be fully edited in the system page settings. Finally, all legacy opt-in plugins (opt_in1, opt_in2, opt_in3) have been deprecated. All clients who made use of these opt-in plugins have been informed.
Edit_data plugin
The edit_data functionality has also been improved to prevent misuse and enhance usability. Limitations that were previously hardcoded are now configurable, and confirmation pages are better secured against unwanted data edits.
Extra confirmation page
An extra confirmation page has been added to the edit_data plugin. This means that the edit data request email is not triggered directly anymore when clicking on the edit_data link. The page now shows a button to request the email for editing the data, this will prevent anyone or anything, most importantly security software, from accidentally triggering the edit data emails. The texts of this page can be edited through system page texts 1098 and 1099.
Direct Edit option
The new Direct Edit option allows contacts to modify their data directly, without an identity verification step. This feature was highly requested, as the verification step was often experienced as unnecessary. Previously, only support could disable this via PHP adjustments. Now, this setting can be easily toggled on or off in the plugin configuration.
Other improvements
To prevent repeated edit requests, a limit of five requests per twelve hours has been introduced. After reaching the limit, contacts must wait twelve hours before submitting a new edit request. Error messages are displayed automatically using system page texts 1247 and 1248.
Overall_subscribe plugin
The improvements to the overall_subscribe plugins align closely with those in the Subscribe and Edit data functions. Duplicate subscriptions are blocked, frequency limits have been added, and confirmation pages now optionally include extra bot protection. Keep in mind settings and system texts are configured at an overall level instead of per campaign.
Full release notes
All plugin changes
- When a recipient is already a member of the campaign, but not the specific group, the contact is allowed to subscribe to the group instead of receiving an already exists message
- Introduced a direct subscribe option in the subscribe plugin settings
- Introduced a direct edit_data option in the edit_data and overall_subscribe settings
- Block consecutive subscriptions to stop contacts from receiving multiple Subscribe confirm/welcome emails
- Optional confirmation page and bot protection to prevent unsolicited subscription confirmations
- Block consecutive edit_data requests to stop contacts from receiving multiple edit_data emails
- Confirmation page to prevent unsolicited requests for editing data
- Introduced subscribe frequency limitation as adjustable subscribe and overall_subscribe plugin setting
- Disable all legacy Subscribe (opt_in1, opt_in2, opt_in3) and Unsubscribe (unsubscribe1, unsubscribe2) plugins
- Users with access to system pages can now copy all plugins, including default plugins.
- Split the System Page text for the “Ok” button into multiple so that different plugins are not relying on the same plugin text
- Plugins can be disabled through the plugin settings, giving more control over active configurations. If a plugin is disabled, a standard error message will automatically appear.
- Introduced a redirect URL option for the Unsubscribe plugins
- The redundant Edit mode setting has been removed from all plugin configurations
Additional changes
- Support added for all available plugin languages within the Countdown Timer
- Default renderer of the Countdown Timer set to English
- Precalculation implemented to speed up Email Digest recipient determination
- Performance improvements increasing Flow Builder speed
- Replaced name with first name and surname for logged in users to prepare for Spotler ID adoption
Bug fixes
- Fixed translation issue where “template ID” was incorrectly displayed as “template”
- Resolved incorrect translation of the email field value
- Prevented users from editing the available values for the lang field
- Fixed errors about missing field translations when adding an extra language to a campaign
- Fixed the Hebrew edit_data plugin that didn’t work
- Fixed errors when viewing or inserting Overall confirm mailings
- Fixed an error when trying to update a contact to an existing contact in overall_subscribe plugin
- Fixed an issue where contacts were not deleted from event groups in the backend when deleting an event
- Fixed some Collection filters not working correctly as conditional content
- Fixed very slow sendout speed when using the randomize sendout order for SMS
- Fixed issue where Landing Pages could incorrectly overwrite the user@example.com address
- Prevented REST API calls from unintentionally overwriting user@example.com
- Fixed issue where example.com addresses without contact ID 1 could not be modified
- Resolved problem where the mail_a_friend plugin could display the wrong address when user@example.com was overwritten