Program Settings

The System Font fields show you the current font selection for the various internal windows (including the configuration window you're looking at). The default is generally considered acceptable, but if you want to change the font, just click the button and a Windows font selection dialog will appear. Make your choices as you see fit.

The Log-in required and related user identification field on this line control whether or not the client software requires a user to log in when the software is first started, and if the login is automatic, which user should be logged in automatically.

If you're only running a single copy of the You're a Winner! client at your facility, then un-checking the Login Required check box (and thereby enabling automatic login) is probably what you want. If you're running multiple copies of the You're a Winner! client (on several tablets that are presented to the guest for registration at a larger restaurant for example) then you would want the login required button checked and you would create user codes for as many systems will be running the client software simultaneously.

The base window size radio button menu gives you some control over how big the window size for the administration windows will be. If the administration windows are too small to work with comfortably try adjusting this value.

If you are using the You're a Winner! client as a customer facing program where the customers self-register by either filling in the form or scanning the QR code then you probably want to restrict access to the other options in the program by setting a password for the registration window. If a password is not set then you can exit the registration window by pressing the Escape key, but pressing the Escape key when a password is set causes the system to open a small dialog box where you have to enter the password. If the password entered doesn't match the password recorded in this field then control will return to the registration window.

When the box labeled Log Internet Traffic is checked, the You're a Winner! client program will record all traffic sent to or received from servers on the internet, both the You're a Winner! main server and also MailChimp's servers. These logs can be helpful in determining the source of any communication problems that might occur, but impose a significant performance penalty and can use a large amount of disk space, so this box should only be checked at the request of technical support.

The fields labeled Your Organization Name and Organization Address display the name and address of your facility as the items were entered when the system registration form was filled out. These may be changed by clicking the Re-register button to the right. The information recorded here needs to be accurate for several reasons, not least of which is that draw summary reports and other demographic reports (to be included in future versions of the client program) will be sent to the email address indicated in the Management Email Address field.

The Re-register button allows you to modify the organization name and address fields that describe your organization. However, because this also requires that information be changed on my server, you will need to coordinate the change with me, which is why the dialog box requires that you obtain an authorization code. If you need to do this, call me and we will work it out together.

The field labeled Serial # contains the You're a Winner! client program identification code. This code is generated automatically by the client program when it is installed and uniquely identifies this copy of the You're a Winner! client. It's an important identifier in that it's used to renew your subscription and to identify your facility when customers scan the QR code on the customer registration window. The code is derived in part from the organization name and address information that you supplied when the client program was first installed.

The field labeled Management Email Address must be filled in with the email address of the person who should receive draw related notifications and analytic results. Typically this would be the general manager of the facility. It definitely needs to be a valid email address so that there is a permanent record of draw results recorded.

The section labeled Off-site Archiving controls whether your client archives the dataset on your computer to my server, and if so, at what time of day. The workstation field identifies which computer will create and send the archive file. If this field is left blank, no archive will be created. It takes a four digit number that corresponds to one of the computers running the You're a Winner! client program. If you're unsure what computers are defined, just type a period in this field and press the enter key and a small window will open that will list all the computers the program knows about. Simply highlight the computer you would like to use to create the archive and click the Select button to make your choice.

The line at the bottom of the configuration window displays the date on which the You're a Winner! client program will expire and the date the services associated with the program will expire. These two dates will always be the same for the You're a Winner! client program. They are changed when you renew your subscription and the program obtains a new access.txt.sig file from my server. The renewal/update process can take a few minutes, so if your expiry dates don't change immediately, wait for a few minutes, then display this configuration window again. If it doesn't update after 20 minutes or so, call me.

The Mailchimp Access Token is a 32 alphanumeric code that is accessible once you create your MailChimp account. To get your access token click the Get Access Token button to the right of the access token field and a new window will open where you can log in to MailChimp. Once you've logged in the content of the window will change and will display a box with the access token and a button below it. Click the button below the access token and the content of the box will change colour. Then click the Exit button at the top of the window and you should see the access token copied in to the field in the You're a Winner! configuration window. None of the other fields on this window will work until you have entered your access token.

The field labeled QR Codes expire after XX days is used to determine the amount of time the QR code that appears on either the table tent cards or the registration display is valid for. It is possible for customers who want to "stuff the ballot box" to take a photograph of the card or display then print the photograph and scan the QR code from the photograph without actually visiting your site, which would then distort the analytics of how frequently customers visit. Each QR code encodes the date of its generation along with some security information and the generation date is passed back to the You're a Winner! client program running at your site. This field indicates how long to accept the scan to create a visit tag. Leaving the value at zero sets the validity for only the day the card/display was generated. Setting the value to 1 for example will accept scans of a card/display generated yesterday to be valid today. Setting the value to a short period means that tent cards must be generated and placed on tables frequently (i.e. a value of zero means that tent cards must be generated each day). Conversely, setting a longer period may result in essentially forged entries being accepted.

The series of check boxes labeled Bonus entries are earned for is used to determine whether or not bonus visit tags are given to customers who provide information in the three fields identified - the customer's birthday, anniversary and postal code/address information.

To use You're a Winner! with MailChimp you need to create a subscribers list in MailChimp and you need to identify which list the You're a Winner! client software should synchronize with. Each list in MailChimp has a name and you'll need to enter the list name here. This is easy to do. First, click the button to the right labeled Get Lists/Templates and wait for a few moments. After the drop down control is populated, choose the appropriate list from the ones displayed.

You also need to create email templates for the various emails you'll be creating with the You're a Winner! client program and you need to identify which template is used for which purpose. In the field labeled Template for winner notifications you choose the template that represents the email you will be sending to the winner(s) of each periodic draw. If you need to retrieve the current list of templates defined in MailChimp, click the button to the right labeled Get Lists/Templates and wait for a few moments.

The field labeled Template for consolation notifications contains the name of the template that represents the email that you will send to all the active subscribers who didn't win the draw. If you need to retrieve the current list of templates defined in MailChimp, click the button to the right labeled Get Lists/Templates and wait for a few moments.

The field labeled Contest operating mode has two possible values - Test and Live. The selection of either of these modes controls the description that appears on the buttons to the right of the selection and also controls whether the fields relating to automatic draw generation at the bottom of this display are enabled or not.

In Test operating mode the You're a Winner! client program generates emails as it normally would but it sends the emails to the email of the person indicated as the management contact in the field Manager List Reference. When in test mode the program won't automatically generate a contest run, but you can execute a contest run by clicking the button to the right labeled Run Test Contest Now.

In Live operating mode the You're a Winner! client program generates emails to the actual intended recipients of the emails. When in live mode you can manually run a contest by clicking the button labeled Run Live Contest Now. This contest run will be over and above the contest runs generated automatically and controlled by the contest scheduler that appears at the bottom of this window.

The check box labeled Track Birthdays controls whether the You're a Winner! client will collect birth dates on the contestant registration window and whether the client program will generate birthday greeting emails. If this box is unchecked then the birthday template field, the send birthday email button and the time period before sending birthday emails will all be disabled.

The field to the right of the check box selects the template to be used to create the birthday greetings emails. If you need to retrieve the current list of templates defined in MailChimp, click the button to the right labeled Get Lists/Templates and wait for a few moments.

The check box labeled Track Anniversaries controls whether the You're a Winner! client will collect anniversary dates on the contestant registration window and whether the client program will generate anniversary reminder emails. If this box is unchecked then the anniversary template field, the send anniversary email button and the time period before sending anniversary emails will all be disabled.

The field to the right of the check box selects the template to be used to create the anniversary reminder emails. If you need to retrieve the current list of templates defined in MailChimp, click the button to the right labeled Get Lists/Templates and wait for a few moments.

The field labeled Email Subject Line is used to set the subject line for all emails generated by the You're a Winner! client program so the subject line should serve to identify your business and possibly not much more than that. Something like "A message from <your business name>" might be a good start.

The field labeled Email "From" line is used to set the name of the sender of the emails that your subscribers will receive. If you as an individual are well known as the representative of your business then I'd recommend you use your own name. Otherwise, something like "The staff at <your business name>" would work.

The "Reply To" email address field is used to set the reply to email address in the emails you send out. This should be a real email address that you or your staff actually monitor, just in case a subscriber decides to notify you that they want to unsubscribe and do so by sending a reply to the original email rather than just clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. You could also get emails as replies that are requesting further information, making reservations and similar things, so you definitely want real, human eyes on the mailbox this directs to.

The Winner Server Computer Name field is used when you are using tablet computers to collect visit registrations. You can find more information on running multiple computers to register visits here. If you are using the tablet computer browser interface then you need to tell the system which computer will act as the server for the web interface. You do so by supplying the computer name of the machine that will act as the server for the tablet computers in this field. You get the computer name by right clicking the Computer icon in Windows 7 or the This PC icon in Windows 10, choosing Properties, then copying the content of the Computer Name field.

Each visit tag that is recorded in the You're a Winner! client program has a date associated with it, and visit tags can be made to be valid for a specified period. This field is where you enter the period of time that tags are valid for. I'd recommend 180 days as a starting point, but you might want to extend that further. I wouldn't make it much shorter though. Once all visit tags have expired for a subscriber they won't be included in further draw results either as a winner or as a consolation email recipient, which means that they won't receive any emails (except possibly birthday and anniversary emails if you've enabled those) from the You're a Winner! client program. Of course, if they still have active status on MailChimp then any emails you send to the contestants list directly from MailChimp will include those expired participants.

You can have the You're a Winner! client program select more than one winner for each draw. This field is where you tell the client program how many entrants to flag as winners. The remainder of the list will get the consolation email.

You may well want to have multiple winners per draw if the prize you are offering is relatively low cost/value and if your participants list is relatively large. For the sake of argument, assume that you're budgeting $.10 per email for a prize and you've got a thousand active participants. If your prize is a $25.00 gift certificate you could tell the system to pick four winners each draw and still be within your budget, and you'd generate a fair bit of interest on the participants' part. It's entirely up to you how much you want to budget for prizes for each draw, and therefore how many winners you should have the client program select.

The field labeled Display date on registration screen controls whether the You're a Winner! client software displays and allows the operator to modify the visit date on the subscriber registration window. If you are using the client software as a customer facing display (i.e. the customer self-registers, either by entering the required fields manually or by scanning the QR code on the registration window) then you do not want to have the customer modifying the visit tag date. If they could, they could "stuff the ballot box" by creating a tag for each day in the valid period. However, if you have an employee entering registrations from ballot cards or something similar then you'll need to allow the employee to change the visit date if they're entering ballots from a day other than the current date.

The field labeled Collect postal/zip code controls whether the You're a Winner! client software displays a field where the contestant can enter their postal/zip code. Doing so causes the client program to count each visit tag twice for that contestant, thereby doubling their chances of winning. As a business operator, having the contestant/client's postal code allows you to generate geolocation maps of client density and frequency. Generating these maps is in my road map for future enhancements to the You're a Winner! client software.

The field labeled Customer can create personal I.D. code is used to control whether a data entry field appears on the registration window that allows your customers to create their own identification code which they can then use on subsequent visits to your facility instead of entering their email address each time they visit. This functionality would be applicable to those customers who either don't have or choose not to use their smartphone to register and record visits.

When the customer registers they can add an identification code in this field that the client software will check in its local database for uniqueness, and provided it's unique the system will record it and use it as an identification value. It's more convenient to enter something like "RONC" in the email/ident field (the first field on the registration window) than it is to enter "ronald.b.christie@christiesoftware.ca". The only restriction on the customer I.D. code is that it cannot contain an @ character, since the presence or absence of an at sign is how the system determines whether it's looking at an I.D. code or an email address.

The field labeled Send birthday email XX days in advance of birthdate is used to indicate to the client program how many days in advance of the customer's birthday the program should start trying to send the customer's birthday greetings email. You should note that you can send birthday and anniversary emails through MailChimp's automation feature and the automation feature has the advantage that MailChimp's servers are always running, whereas the You're a Winner! client program is running only when you load and execute it, so if you shut down the client program overnight or on weekends your birthday greeting email may not be sent when you expect it to be.

That said, the client program will start trying to send the birthday greeting email from the day you specify (so if you have a customer with a birthday on March 22 and you have this field set to 3 for three days in advance then the client program will start trying to send the birthday email on the 19th) and will check each day between the 19th to the 22nd. If the email hasn't been sent, it will send it. If the client program hasn't been run on any of the 19th, 20th, 21st or 22nd then the birthday email won't be sent at all.

The field labeled Send anniversary email XX days in advance of anniversary is used to indicate to the client program how many days in advance of the customer's anniversary the program should start trying to send the customer's anniversary reminder email. You should note that you can send birthday and anniversary emails through MailChimp's automation feature and the automation feature has the advantage that MailChimp's servers are always running, whereas the You're a Winner! client program is running only when you load and execute it, so if you shut down the client program overnight or on weekends your reminder email may not be sent when you expect it to be.

That said, the client program will start trying to send the anniversary reminder email from the day you specify (so if you have a customer with an anniversary on March 22 and you have this field set to 3 for three days in advance then the client program will start trying to send the anniversary email on the 19th) and will check each day between the 19th to the 22nd. If the email hasn't been sent, it will send it. If the client program hasn't been run on any of the 19th, 20th, 21st or 22nd then the anniversary email won't be sent at all.

The field labeled Live contest runs every XX days controls how often the You're a Winner! client program will execute the random draw generation process. As the window indicates, entering zero in this field disables the automatic generation process completely so the only way to get a draw generated is to click the button labeled Run Live Contest Now. If you wanted the client program to generate a random draw every two weeks, enter 14 in this field.

The fields labeled Contest will next run on indicate the date and time when the next draw generation process will start. When the draw generation process completes the client program will add the number of days indicated above to the date in this field to arrive at the new next date.

The field labeled Contest runs on Workstation contains the numeric identifier of the workstation that you want run the random draw process on. This field must be filled in for the automatic random draw generation process to work. If you're not sure of the value that should exist in this field, type in a period character and press the Enter key. A table will open that lists all the Windows computer names of all the machines that have ever run the You're a Winner! client program. Highlight the machine you want and click the Select button. If the machine you want isn't listed, chances are that you've never run the You're a Winner! client program from that machine. Load the client program on that machine and go to the configuration page on that machine, do the same thing again and chances are it will list the machine you want.

The check box labeled Anniversaries/birthdays handled through MailChimp, when checked, disables the You're a Winner! client program from generating birthday and anniversary emails. You can send birthday and anniversary emails through MailChimp's automation feature and the automation feature has the advantage that MailChimp's servers are always running, whereas the You're a Winner! client program is running only when you load and execute it, so if you shut down the client program overnight or on weekends your reminder email may not be sent when you expect it to be.

The field labeled Anniversary/Birthday reminders last sent on is a status field that shows you when the You're a Winner! client program last checked the anniversary/birthday dates to see when reminder emails should be generated.

When you click the Get Lists/Templates button the You're a Winner! client program will open a communication channel with the MailChimp server and will download the names of all the subscriber lists you have defined under the API key you're using and all of the templates you have defined under that same key. These names are then used to populate the drop down controls that you use to identify the subscribers list and the email templates that the You're a Winner! client program will use.

The button labeled Run Test/Live Contest Now (the label changes depending on the operating mode that's currently selected) will cause the You're a Winner! client program to execute a random draw and generate and send the relevant email messages. The difference between test and live mode is that in test mode the client program sends all the emails (winner notifications and consolation messages) to the management contact email rather than the actual email addresses of the contestants. In test mode the management contact will get one winner notification message and one consolation message but they will be formatted with the draw names as they would be when an actual contest is run.

The button labeled Send/Test Birthday Reminders (the label changes depending on the operating mode that's currently selected) will cause the You're a Winner! client program to do the following:

1. if the operating mode is set to Live then the client program checks for birthday greeting messages that have not yet been sent and if if finds any, sends them,

2. if the operating mode is set to Test then the client program will generate a birthday greeting message to the management email address using the birthday on file for the first subscriber record in the database (when sequenced by email address), irrespective of when that date is and what the subscriber status is. This means that if you want to test a specific date or name, create a subscriber with an email like "1123@example.com" and set their status to INACTIVE, and provided you don't have any earlier 11... email addresses in the database, the program will use that record to create the test email.

The button labeled Send/Test Anniversary Reminders (the label changes depending on the operating mode that's currently selected) will cause the You're a Winner! client program to do the following:

1. if the operating mode is set to Live then the client program checks for anniversary reminder messages that have not yet been sent and if if finds any, sends them,

2. if the operating mode is set to Test then the client program will generate an anniversary reminder message to the management contact using the anniversary on file for the first subscriber record in the database (when sequenced by email address), irrespective of when that date is and what the subscriber status is. This means that if you want to test a specific date or name, create a subscriber with an email like "1123@example.com" and set their status to INACTIVE, and provided you don't have any earlier 11... email addresses in the database, the program will use that record to create the test email.