Soapbox Fall Update

Howdy friend!

We're back with some more great new updates for Soapbox.

Better Notification Emails

In our continuing efforts to improve guest engagement, we have improved our notification system. From the beginning, we have tried to strike a balance between keeping guests engaged and spamming them constantly with emails. Hopefully these changes improve that balance even more. Here's how the system works now:

When a guest is tagged

When a guest is tagged in a comment and they are not online in the event, they get an email notification immediately. This behavior is the same as before.

When a guest is not tagged

If a guest is not online in an event and a new comment or post goes live, they will immediately get an email. If they do not follow up on the email and log back into the event, Soapbox will not send them another notification email about the event until they check in. (They will still get the nightly notification digest emails just to politely remind them that things are still happening in the event.)

If the guest does check back in to the event and then leaves, Soapbox takes that as an indication that they are still interested, so it will send them a notification email immediately when a new post or comment goes up.

Downloadable Guest Lists

We've added a new button on the guest list for hosts. Clicking the button will download your guest list as a CSV file, which you can load into a spreadsheet or an email marketing list.

The CSV file contains the name of the guest along with their email address, the date and time they joined the event, and the number of comments they posted. You can use the information to build out your email marketing list or even run games in your event (first to join, most comments posted, etc.). The guest list can be downloaded at any time, either during or after the event.

If there's additional guest information that would be useful, let us know and we'll see about adding it.

Image Upload Tweaks

We found that the image upload buttons were causing some confusion, so we simplified them. Now, if you want to upload a photo to use in a post, you can just use the icon that actually looks like a picture.

Bug Fixes

In the midst of these other major fixes, we also sneaked in lots of other little fixes:

• Tweaks to the post layout system so that images don't overflow the edges of the page. (This is surprisingly difficult to fix for all possible cases. If you see it happen, please drop us a line at support@soapbox.events!)
• If you delete a post from an event, and then save an event template, the deleted post no longer gets magically reincarnated when the template is loaded. Sometimes less magic is better.
• New and improved error reporting system powered by Rollbar. This is a system that works in the background to let us know about issues in the system so we can fix them as soon as they occur (and hopefully before you even notice!).

Roadmap

We have more big changes headed out soon. Here are some things we have in the pipeline:

• Speed optimizations to make large events load faster. (You Norwex gals like to stress our system with all your images, but we are up to the challenge!)
• Automatic reminder emails for guests before an event starts.
• Graphical refresh - new fonts and a cleaner look (already in progress - you'll love the new look!)
• Browser notifications - these should be great for keeping guests engaged.
• Live video

Personalized Demos

If you've been curious about trying Soapbox, but aren't quite sure how to get started, register for one of our personalized demos. We use a screen-sharing application to walk you through the system and show you how it can be used for your particular case.

Host Your Next Sales Party With Soapbox

If you haven't tried a sales party yet with Soapbox, now is a great time! Watch our little walkthrough video to see how it works and try out a free trial if you haven't yet. You can also join our public demo event to see what a sales party would look like from the guest perspective. We look forward to having you on board!