AY Track Web Server

[Corporate Edition Only]
If you install AY Track on the computer that is constantly connected to the Internet, you can configure it to work as a web server. The AY Track Web server can do the following:

Serve subscription and unsubscription forms.
Let you track clicks through and message openings.
Act as a simple general purpose web server.

You can use AY Track Setup Wizard to set up the HTTP server and test its functionality.

Alternatively, you need to select Settings->AY Track->HTTP from the main menu and activate HTTP service. If your computer already runs a web server, such as IIS, you will have to change HTTP port for AY Track.

AY Track serves files from the root directory, which is called WebRoot and is located inside AY Mail directory on the computer where AY Track is installed. If you want to change this location, click here.

AY Track translates URLs directly to files. For example, if the name of your AY Track server is www.yourtrackserver.com , the http://www.yourtrackserver.com/file.html URL will fetch the file.html file from the root directory. If the file is not found, AY Track returns the Not Found (404) error. The http://www.yourtrackserver.com request will fetch the index.htm file from the root directory. You can also use subdirectories.

You can instruct AY Track to redirect the client to URLs on other server. To create a redirection, you need to create a text file with the URL where you want to redirect. For example, if you want to redirect to www.aysoft.com, you create a file containing the following text (must be all in a single line):

http://www.aysoft.com/

You need to give the file the .loc extension (for example, you may name the file aysoft.loc) and put it under the web root directory. The URL pointing to that file will be redirecting to the URL listed inside the file. For example, if the name of your AY Track server is www.yourtrackserver.com , and you put the aysoft.loc file into the root directory, the http://www.yourtrackserver.com/aysoft.loc URL will redirect to http://www.aysoft.com.

AY Track also serves several special kinds of URLs:

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/test

This URL displays a test page

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/proc

This URL is used by AY Mail to handle subscriptions, unsubscriptions and clicks through. It records the supplied information and then redirects to the URL of your choice.

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/s/[form]

This URL dislays a subscription form. You need to substitute an actual form name for [form]. For example if you have a form entitled golf, your URL may look like

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/s/golf.

For unsubscriptions you can use a similar URL:

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/u/[form]

This URL works similarly, except that it displays the unsubscription form.

It is possible to add parameters to the URL. For example:

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/u/golf?email=person@address.com

This URL will unsubscribe person@address.com from the golf form in one click. AY Mail can generate such unsubscription URLs automatically with the Remove Macro.

If you want the subscription/unsubscription forms look and feel similar to your main site, you can use special .htt files. The .htt files are HTML files, but they contain a pseudo HTML tag <aytrack> which marks the place where subscription or unsubscription form must be inserted.

Normally you would create an HTML file which have a look and feel of your main web site, such as background color, logo etc. and then insert the <aytrack> tag where you want the form to be. You then need to rename the file to have the .htt extension and put it on your AY Track web server. The URL for this file is the same as it would be for any other file. For example, if you create a file named golf.htt and put it into your web root directory, the URL to access the form will be:

http://www.yourtrackserver.com/golf.htt

When AY Track receives a request for a file ending with .htt, it looks for the <aytrack> tag. If none is found, AY Track returns the Not Found (404) error.

The <aytrack> tag must have at least one parameter, but may have more. The parameters specify the form to be used, and also spelling of different form elements exposed to the user. If you wish you can replace them with local words and thus create fully localized form. It is possible to use HTML tags inside the values for these parameters.

The parameters are.

formid The id of the form prepended with letter s (for subscriptions) or u (for unsubscriptions). This parameter is required. If AY Track cannot find the form, it returns the Not Found (404) error.

email The text to use for the email address field title. If you skip this parameter, the word Email will be used.

required The text to be added to the data field names marked as required. If you skip this parameter, the text (Required) will be used.

optional The text to be added to the data field names marked as optional. If you skip this parameter, the empty text will be used.

submit The text to be put on the submit button. If you skip this parameter, the word Subscribe or Unsubscribe will be used.

welcome The title of the form at the first view. If you skip this parameter, the text Subscription Form or Unsubscription Form will be used.

success The title of the form after successfull submissions. If you skip this parameter, the text Thank you for subscribing! or You have been unsubscribed will be used.

failure The title of the form if user input happened to have errors. If you skip this parameter, the text <font color=red>Please correct!</font> will be used.

enter The text to be used in JavaScript form verification code to warn the subscriber that a required field needs to be filled in. The name of the field will be appended to this text. If you skip this parameter, the text Please enter valid will be used.

The examples of the <aytrack> tag:

<aytrack formid=sgolf email="Email" required=" (Required)" submit="Subscribe" welcome="Subscription Form" failure="<font color=red>Please correct!</font>" success="Thank you for subscribing!">

This example produces the subscription form for the golf form with normal defaults for subscription forms.

<aytrack formid=ugolf email="Email" required=" (Required)" submit="Unsubscribe" welcome="Unsubscription Form" failure="<font color=red>Please correct!</font>" success="You have been unsubscribed.">

This example produces the unsubscription form for the golf form with normal defaults for unsubscription forms.

Do not use any double quotes inside parameters, use single quotes instead. Do not insert line breaks in the middle of the parameters.