SW Deputy - Trialware notification and distribution program

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Trial Purchase User Guide Emailer Support
SW Deputy
Version 2.3

WOW! New low price - just $9

The Deputy automatically creates the files you need to distribute fulfillment or upgrade programs to your customers who purchased through your Stores at SWREG or RegNet, protecting your files using the customer's email address as User ID and their Order or Registration number as password. SW Deputy has a feature to avoid sending notices to "bozos" who, for example, were issued a refund or caused a chargeback. On the other hand, the Deputy makes it just as easy to distribute files to addresses not in the report (for example, those to whom you want to give away your program or extend a free upgrade period). SW Deputy also easily manages updating customer email addresses. And the Deputy now includes an integral emailer, sending a separate message to each of your customers. In short, SW Deputy saves you lots of time and aggravation for its minuscule price. The Deputy should run fine on any version of Windows from Win95 on up (including XP) without any special requirements.

Purchase Unlimited Version 2.3 Just $9, you will be sent a download link immediately via email if you purchase with your credit card. SWREG uses a Secure ordering system encrypted by industry standard SSL backed by a Trusted Third Party certificate which guarantees that the information is coming from and going to the SWREG server and nowhere else. Other purchase methods are also available, such as UK cheque, US check, Postcheque, International Money Order, Bank wire and even PayPal. Note: SWREG is our only authorized sales agent, anyone else claiming to offer SW Deputy for sale is doing so illegally, and will probably try to sell you an old, "cracked" pirated version. If you have a problem purchasing using Netscape, please try with Internet Explorer.

Source code is available at additional cost, contact us for pricing

Download free 10 day fully functional trial version

Note: If the installation process of the trial version complains that file mfcans32.dll and/or oc30.dll was not found, go to the Support group below and click on "Files" and download and extract mfans.zip and/or oc30.zip as applicable into SW Deputy's directory

Visit the SW Deputy peer Support group on Yahoo! Groups. In addition to requesting support, you can offer comments, tips, suggestions, report bugs, etc. When you purchase the unlimited registered version you will automatically receive an email address for direct support.

View ReadMe file.

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Recent Version History:
2.2 Now that SWREG has discontinued providing their "Old Reports", SW Deputy has been revised to use the new reports. Instructions have been updated below to relect this change.
2.1 Includes a Spell Checker in the emailer module. Messages to customers can now include attachments, and you can use a signature file.
2.0 Can be used with RegNet as well as the SWREG registration agent
1.4 Integral emailer, sends a separate message to each customer in the address file.
1.3 Added option to include customer name in email address file using CSV format

User Guide to SW Deputy
(click here to purchase unlimited version)

Creating the .htaccess file in the protected directory on the webserver
These instructions have been tested on an Apache Linux webserver.

The first step would be to create a file named .htaccess (don't forget the leading period) on the web server in the directory which you wish to protect. On my ISP's Linux Apache server I just type edit .htaccess to begin creating the file. Enter the lines in the box below, items in red and italics to be replaced by the values appropriate for your particular project:
== .htaccess file contents =====================================
AuthUserFile /home/yourUserID/public_html/protectedDirectory/.htpasswd
AuthName CompanyName
AuthType Basic
require valid-user
========================================================
If you are on a Cobalt server you may have to insert this line after the AuthName line:
AuthPAM_enabled off

Getting the customer report from your registration agent
SWREG: go to SWREG's authors' site at www.swreg.org/construction/
and go to their Show Orders page after signing in. After selecting your range of dates, for Format click on CSV, for Delivery Method choose Email and for Sales Breakdown use Full Data Set. Don't worry about selecting among your products, the Deputy will let you do that later.
SWREG's website will email the report to you. View it with Wordwrap off and copy the entire message BODY (but NOT message header) including field headers to the Windows Clipboard (ctrl-A followed by ctrl-C).

RegNet: go to RegNet's authors' site at www.reg.net/authors/default.asp
After logging in, select MyReports|View Report. For Format, choose comma delimited.
Check both Include Field Names and Include Customer Data.
After clicking Show Author Report, View it with Wordwrap off and copy the entire report including Field Names (column headers) to the Windows Clipboard (ctrl-A followed by ctrl-C).

Running SW Deputy
If you haven't done so already, run the SW Deputy installation program you downloaded.
Now bring up SW Deputy on your Windows computer. If you remembered to copy the report from your registration agent to the Windows Clipboard, you will now see your list of products to select from, or you can select All. There will also be other Options you can select (when you exit, the Deputy will ask if you want to save any changes you made). Some notes on Properties/Options: It's OK to set the protected file mask to *.* because this is set first and will be overriden for the access and password files. For the "extra fields" it's a good idea to include the order # and name because that makes it easy to look up a customer since the email address file is in order by email address; also, the file contents are in CSV (comma separated) format so it's easy to open or append to in a spreadsheet.

When you click the button to Create the files, the results window will appear so you can scroll the MakePass.ksh and email address files created, as well as view the run statistics.
Before clicking the "Prepare notification messages Now!" button, let's perform the following task:

Uploading the script file to the webserver
Upload the MakePass.ksh script file that was just created into the webserver directory you wish to protect. Also upload the file(s) to protect if you haven't done so already. Linux/Unix can have problems with DOS/Windows text files, so in that directory run this Unix command: fromdos MakePass.ksh
Now run the shell command, if your webserver uses the Korn shell type (remeber Linux/Unix is case sensitive):
ksh MakePass.ksh. This will create the password file, set the proper chmod file access permissions for the files in the directory, and finally delete itself so there won't be any unencrypted passwords in the directory.
You can do a trial download using the test User ID and test Password you specified on the Deputy's opening screen (make the test User ID blank if you do not want to do a test).
For downloading, your customers will use their email address on their email receipt from your Registration Agent as their User ID (case sensitive), and the Order/Registration number as Password.

Sending out the email notifications
Now you can return to the Deputy and click the Prepare notification messages button. Or if you've quit Deputy, start it up again, ignore the No records processed notice, and click the envelope icon on the opening screen (or select from the popup menu that appears when you right-click). Either way will bring up a form to prepare your message to distribute to the e-mail addresses created in the above paragraph. The first time you run it you will have to enter your email address, company name (this one is optional), and outgoing (SMTP) mail server (for example, if your email address is myID@myISP.com, your mail server is probably mail.myISP.com - contact your ISP if you are in doubt). This will be saved so it will be filled in for you on subsequent runs. At the top of the form is the file with email addresses to use, you can use the buttons to the right to choose a different file or to view/edit the file with email addresses (if your ISP limits the number of messages you can send you can split this file into as many separate files as needed with any text editor).

You can optionally include attachments and use a signature file.

Now you are ready to enter your message subject and body. Click on the Spell Checker just to be sure! Finally, click on Send Now and the status bar will show the progress - a separate message is sent to each addressee so if someone replies to the message the other customers will not see the reply.

By the way, you can still use the Deputy's emailer described above even if you have nothing to do with software distribution, all you need is a text file with email addresses, one to a line. There can be other info after the email address if a space follows it. When you bring up SW Deputy, click on the envelope icon and select your text file from the top of the form which will appear.

Bozo Management
If someone on your report should not be sent a notice (for example, they paid with a stolen credit card or you issued them a refund), all you have to do is create a plain text file in Deputy's directory named bozos.txt, and list the email addresses to omit, one to a line. They will then be omitted from both the script file and the email addresses file created by the Deputy.

Extra Distribution Management
If you want to give away or extend the free upgrade period for certain people, just create a text file goodguys.txt in Deputy's directory and put each person on a single line containing their email address, a space, their order number (or whatever you want them to use as a download password), another space, and the applicable Store/Product including numbers (or All if you want to include them for all your products). For example, lines might look like this:
whoever@whereever.com 999999 1234Mystore
everything@enchilada.com 888888 All
The Deputy will automatically add these entries to the batch and email address files.

Change of Address Management
If a customer notifies you of a change of email address after they ordered your product, create a text file Address.txt in Deputy's directory and enter the address change lines like this, one pair to a line:
oldEmail@oldISP.com newEmail@newISP.com
The Deputy will still use the old address as the User ID for customer downloads because that is what is on their email receipt from your registration agent, but will use the new address to send the email notifications. So it's important to remind your customers to use the exact email address as on their original receipt for User ID.

Privacy Policy: HighRoad Software will not sell, rent or share your customer information.