We've just recently rolled out big updates to our Newsletter and Mail Core modules and wanted to let everyone know about some of the cool new features that have been added.

Detailed Delivery Statistics

The big area of improvement is the all new Stats Browser (provided by the Email Core) that gives you a detailed look into your newsletter delivery.  This includes all new tracking that provides per-email open and URL click tracking, as well as integration with the Geo IP Module to give you a nice audience overview:

The detailed stats also includes:

- Per User open tracking -  see how many users actually viewed or opened your newsletter.  Note that this requires the use of a small tracking image in the email - users that do not allowed images to be shown in their email client may not be tracked as an "open".

- Per user click tracking - all the URLs in your newsletter that point to a location in your Jamroom site have a special tracking URL created for them - this allows you to see which users are clicking on what URLs.  The Mail Core tracks this and provides a special Recipient plugin to send newsletters to "Top Users" - i.e. users that have shown an interest in your content by clicking on a URL in your newsletter.

- Unsubscribe, bounce and suppression - If users unsubscribe due to your newsletter, they will show up in the Unsubscribes tab.  If there are bounced emails during your newsletter send, you'll see the Bounces number increment (Bounced support requires the Mailgun SMTP module be installed and configured).  "Suppressed" is the number of users that have set their notification preferences to UNSUBSCRIBE for your newsletter - in other words, these are users that have opted-out of your newsletter before the current newsletter.

These new detailed delivery stats are a big step up from the old Jamroom Newsletter module, and should really help you determine what content is most valuable to your users and audience.

Newsletter Module Updates

The Newsletter module has also been updated with some new features:

- Full Page HTML Support - you can now send full page HTML newsletters that include the proper header and footer sections.

- New Template Browser - it's easier now to create Newsletter templates and modify and save them.  This is a great way to save yourself time by creating a set of templates that fit your site style and design.

- New Queue Based newsletter send function - you no longer have to keep your browser open during a large Newsletter send - you can close your browser and walk away now if you want The core send function has been updated to be Queue based which means once you submit the newsletter, the send function is no longer "attached" to your browser and just does it's work in the background.  You can view the newsletter workers in your Dashboard -> Queue Viewer if you want to see detailed info on what they are working on.

The Newsletter module has been overhauled from top to bottom and should be a much more "complete" Newsletter module than the old Jamroom Newsletter module ever was.  Our goal is to help you find the right content for your users - with the new delivery stats and tracking, as well as the ability to make better newsletter designs we think it just go easier.

We'd love to get your feedback on the new features - join us in the Jamroom Support Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

and let us know your thoughts.

Thanks!

Along with the all new jamroom.net site redesign we rolled out today , we are also rolling out all new Jamroom "plans" that should not only simplify Jamroom licensing, but also make it much more affordable to run a fully loaded Jamroom .

We've simplified Jamroom into 3 plans:

1) Jamroom Hosted - Jamroom Hosted is the new name for the old "Jamroom Hosting", and is still our top of the line Jamroom service that includes everything you need to run as many Jamroom sites as you want: Unlimited Premium items, VIP Support and top notch dedicated Jamroom Hosting.

https://www.jamroom.net/hosting

2) Jamroom Premium - Jamroom Premium is BRAND NEW!  One thing we've heard from customers is that they really like how with Jamroom Hosted all premium modules and skins are included for the domains on your server.  But for whatever reason (usually the company they work for won't allow it) some users are just not able to use Jamroom Hosted and must host on their own server.

https://www.jamroom.net/premium

Jamroom Premium gives you UNLIMITED modules and skins on up to 2 sites (with more being easy to add at a big discount), so you get access to all the Jamroom Network premium modules and skins for both domains - saving over $1,000.  We're excited about Jamroom Premium and think it is a really good option for Jamroom power users that want to host Jamroom on their own server.

3) Jamroom Open Source - Jamroom Open Source is the new name for what has always been the "member" level - i.e. you are running the free Open Source Jamroom Core on your own hosting, and purchase premium modules and skins individually.  Nothing changes here.  Jamroom Open Source is a good plan for sites that are only using a small selection of premium Jamroom modules and skins.

https://www.jamroom.net/open-source

We have a nice new Products overview page here:

https://www.jamroom.net/products

as well as a pricing overview page here:

https://www.jamroom.net/pricing

that hopefully makes it all really clear in a succinct manner what comes with what plan.  You'll see that we are now using these 3 new Jamroom product names everywhere we can to hopefully make things easier to understand.

If you are a Jamroom Super Pack owner OR have spent $199 or more on premium Jamroom 5 modules or skins, you have automatically been upgraded to Jamroom Premium for FREE!  

This is our way of saying THANK YOU for your support of Jamroom and the team, and by being in Premium you can now install ALL premium Jamroom Network modules and skins on up to 2 domains (and if you would prefer to stay on the Jamroom Open Source plan, let us know and we can change you back)

We've also lowered the price of VIP Support from $29 per month to $19 per month - bringing it inline with the cost of the lowest price Jamroom Hosted plan.

If you have any questions about the new plans, please let us know - we'd love to get some feedback on what you like (or don't like):

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

Thanks!

New jamroom.net Design

Today we are excited to roll out the new jamroom.net design!  We've been working hard on a new design over the last couple months, and we think the new simpler layout should make it easier for users to not only find what they are looking for, but also hopefully make it a bit more intuitive.  We've simplified the number of site pages from the previous design, and have gone for a more unified look and feel with new icons and images.

One of the first things you will notice is the new Profile Dashboard that at a glance gives you access to:

- Your Jamroom Hosted servers

- Quick access to Support Tickets for getting help

- Access to your Jamroom Sites and Licenses

- Latest updates from Jamroom Developers and marketplace (click on a marketplace icon to view the changelog!)

- Latest Forum Posts

The goal is to make it easier to see "what's new and happening" at a glance without having to click around as much.

We will be tweaking and updating things here on the back end over the next few days as we encounter any issues (or change our mind on how something is working) - if you see any issues, please let us know and we can get it fixed up ASAP.

New Hosting Features

We've also taken the wraps off some new hosting features:

1) FREE SSL certificates for domains - we've just rolled out a new feature where you can enable SSL on your site with a single click of a button - for free!  No more having to purchase an SSL certificate and go through all the steps creating and sending in the CSR and Key file, etc. - now you can just click the "Enable Free SSL" button in your domain config and you're set.

The certificates used are provided by Let's Encrypt - this is a free SSL certificate provider backed by the EFF which has the goal of making it easy to get SSL running "everywhere".

If you would still like to use a 3rd party SSL certificate (or an extended validation certificate) we of course can still set this up for you on your server - just contact us via ticket and we can help.

2) Used disk space is now show for each domain - in your hosting dashboard you can now see how much disk space each domain is using, which can help you figure which of your domains is hogging all the disk space.

3) The Jamroom Hosted Free Trial is now 14 days - feedback from new Jamroom users was that the 7 day trial period was just a bit too short, and that frequently the trial was over BEFORE you had a chance to really test out the system.  We've upped the free trial length to 14 days now, and will send you a reminder email during that time to see if you need any help with Jamroom.

We also have a new server monitoring solution that is currently running "in beta" that will give us a lot of detailed info on how each of our Jamroom Hosted servers is running.  Some if you have already seen the results of this, where we have gone in pro-actively and tweaked things on your server to ensure Jamroom is running as fast as it can.

We'll have more info coming in the next month or so about this new monitoring system, so be on the watch for that.

If anyone has any questions about the new site design or the new Jamroom Hosting features, make sure and join us in the Support Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

and we can help.

We hope you enjoy the new design and features!

After 3 months of development, beta testing and bug fixing, we're finally taking Jamroom 5.3 out of beta!

Jamroom 5.3 includes hundreds of updates, changes, fixes and improvements - all designed to make running a Jamroom site easier than ever.

For details on the new changes make sure and check out the Jamroom 5.3 kickoff blog post:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/blog/74/jamroom-53-kickoff

We'd like to thank everyone that has provided feedback during the Jamroom 5.3 beta - your input and suggestions were appreciated and have resulted in the best Jamroom yet.

As a team we're going to take a few days to "unwind" from Jamroom 5.3, then we will back to moving things forward.  We have already put together a list of the ideas we want to incorporate in the next version of Jamroom - we will be posting those in the future to get feedback and input from the Jamroom community.

We hope you enjoy Jamroom 5.3!

Thanks!

- The Jamroom Team