This fall, there were BIG changes in how automatic emails work in Flexmls.

These changes are part of FBS's ongoing commitment to minimize the number of emails blocked by spam filters, helping to ensure that automatic notifications of new listings reach their intended recipients. Here are the highlights of the changes: 

• New Terminology--The term Automatic Emails has been eliminated. They will now be called Subscriptions.
• Mandatory Opt-In--Users must opt-in for listing updates to begin. There is a one-time confirmation e-mail where the recipient must click to confirm that the message was received at a valid email address. This gives their consent to receive listing updates via email moving forward.
• New Expiration Rules--Email notifications still continue indefinitely if they are being actively clicked and viewed, but they will expire after 13 months if no notification email has been clicked on. Because the notifications require an opt-in, there is no longer an option for you to extend the email beyond this time.
• Improved Visual Design--The actual email sent to your contact will look better than ever.

These changes are described in detail below. 

New Terminology: Subscriptions 
Flexmls will no longer use the terminology Automatic E-mail. Instead, automatic notifications of new listings will be known as Subscriptions. Just as before with automatic emails, subscriptions will appear in the contact's News Feed. Also, just as before, you can create a subscription at the same time you save a search to a contact. Adding the subscription follows the same process as adding an automatic email. 

Confirming New Subscriptions When you create a subscription for an email address that has never received an auto email or subscription before, the first time there is a listing that matches the search criteria the email address will receive an email asking the contact to click a link to Confirm Email Address. Clicking the link will take them to a landing page where they can confirm that they would like to receive listing updates via email. The recipient will not receive email notifications of new listings for their subscription unless they click to confirm their email address. 

On the Confirm Email Delivery landing page, they will click Confirm and View Listings. After clicking, they will be taken to their News Feed where they will see all of the listings that were added between the time they received the confirmation email and the time they clicked to confirm their subscription. 

If your contact does not click to subscribe, you can send an additional reminder asking them to click to subscribe. To do this, go to the Contact Management screen under the Contacts menu, select the contact, and click Send opt-in request. Note: You can only send the reminder once, so it would be appropriate to contact the user personally before resending the Confirm Subscription invitation. 

Existing Contacts and Confirming Subscriptions 
Your contacts in Flexmls who already receive automatic emails will continue receiving notifications--there will be no break in continuity for them. There will be notice at the top of the listing notification email alerting them that by clicking to view the listings, they are opting in to the listing subscription service. If they do not click to view the notification emails 13 months, they will fall into the Expiration category detailed below. 

When do Subscriptions Expire? 
Subscription notifications will not expire unless the recipient goes 13 months without without clicking on an email notification for the subscription. After 13 months of non-use, email notifications for the subscription will expire. The particular email address associated with a subscription can expire independently of the subscription itself. For example, if the recipient does not click on the subscription link sent via email, but is otherwise active in the portal, then that email address will expire after 13 months of non-use. The email address will be considered lapsed and shown as Inactive on the Contact Management screen. No more listing updates will be sent to that inactive email address. However, since the user is active in their portal, they will still get listing updates to that subscription whenever they login to the portal. 

If a recipient never clicks on a subscription link via email and never signs into the Portal, the email notifications and the subscription will expire after 13 months. The email address will show as Inactive on the Contact Management screen and and no updates will be added to the News Feed. 

Note: Because your contacts opt-in to receiving subscriptions, you will no longer be able to extend the notification emails by 13 months. When you go to the Contacts menu and selectSubscriptions (the option formerly known as Automatic E-mails), there will be no option on the Subscriptions screen to extend the email notifications; if the contact has not clicked on any email notifications for 13 months, they will no longer receive listing updates at that email address. 

Subscription Emails: A New Look 
Although subscription email notifications sent to your contacts will function the same as automatic emails currently do, the emails will have a new, updated look. The name of the search will appear at the top of the email, functioning as a title. Additionally, the notification email will have a standardized business card attached containing your contact information, it will no longer use the business card selected in your portal preferences. This will ensure a clean, easy to read look whether your contact is viewing the email on a computer or mobile device. 

Subscriptions at a Glance 
As noted above, you can go to the Subscriptions page under the Contacts menu to view all of your Subscriptions. 

In addition, the first tab of the Contact Management screen also shows each email address associated with the contact and a summary of subscription notifications for that address. A bell next to the email address indicates that it is set to receive subscription notifications. The 'Last Subscription E-mail Activity' column indicates the last time the contact clicked to view their subscription. The 'Status' column shows whether that email address has been Opted-in (i.e. Confirmed), Opted-out, or is Inactive due to lack of use. Finally, the 'Action' column allows you to manually send an opt-in request. Remember, you can only click to manually send the opt-in request once, so it is best to contact the user personally before re-sending the opt-in request.