GETTING STARTED...

Terminology

Downloading and Installation

• Click here to download the software.
• Copy the downloaded file to your Sellerdeck PC (if not saved there initially in the step above) and double-click it.
• Accept all defaults and proceed to the end of the installation.
• Run Soapbox by clicking "Start | (All) Programs | Soapbox" and click on the Star Icon labelled "Soapbox". The firewall on your PC may warn you that the program is trying to access the Internet. Access must be granted to continue.

Soapbox will appear as a full-screen program but will also dislpay as a star icon in the system tray (next to the clock).

Setup and Integration

In Soapbox...

• Choose a user name and password. This can be anything you like and will be required each time you log in.
• Enter some basic registration information. This is the information Codepath will use to register your free trial. (We will not pass this information to anyone else without your express written permission).
• Choose the version of Sellerdeck that you want to use Soapbox with.
• You will then see the Sellerdeck Site Management screen. Select the site from the list that you wish to use for the trial and click on 'Generate Key'. A license key will be generated for you. Click the 'Default Site' checkbox and click 'Save'.
• Confirm your login details as prompted then select 'Review Management' from the main menu and accept the prompts that advise you that Sellerdeck needs to be updated (see the Manually Referencing Soapbox sub-section below if you are advised to do so by the software at this stage). Once completed you are ready to add Soapbox into your chosen Sellerdeck Layouts or Templates as described below.

In Sellerdeck...

• Open or restart Sellerdeck and select the 'Design' tab.
• Select a product in the catalog tree-view and then select the layout for that product in the design window (** see below for help on how to do this).
• You can then insert the Soapbox layout anywhere you like within that product layout. Just position the cursor in the Layout code where you want the review links to be added and follow these simple steps as illustrated below...

	Click the 'Insert Layout from Library' button. In the window that appears, select the Layout Selector called 'Soapbox Layout'. Ensure Use Fixed Layout is selected and select 'Soapbox' (not SoapboxShort) from the list and click insert.
	The Soapbox layout will be added to your product HTML.
	Click 'Apply' and the HTML preview will now show the review links that your customers will see. Initially this will be 'Not reviewed. Be the First' but when product are reviewed by your customers this will change to show a star-rating, the number of reviews written and a link to read existing reviews or write a review. Simply repeat these 3 steps for each product layout within your catalog. (Please note: You do NOT need to repeat for each product, just for one product in each different layout style you have within your site. There may be just one, or you may have several different styles for displaying different categories of products. Talk to your Sellerdeck designer if you need help with this.) You also have the option of displaying the reviews for a particular product on the Sellerdeck product page as well as it being available from a link next to the product. For more information on how to achieve this, see the "Additional Setup" section below.

** An easy way to select the product layout is to click on the product image, or any other component of the product, then click the 'Navigate to Parent Layout' button, shown as item in the screen-shot above.

Once you're done, update your Sellerdeck site in the usual way. Please note, the first update after integrating Soapbox may take longer than subsequent updates as every product HTML has been changed to add the review links. Future updates will only update products whose review ratings have changed.

ADDITIONAL SETUP

Displaying Reviews Directly on the Product Page

To set up this feature, use the 'Review Placement' tab within the System Settings option from the main screen in Soapbox. Select the option to 'Display __ Reviews on my product page...'. The number you enter will be used to limit the number of reviews per product that will be displayed this way. (All reviews will always be available from the '__ Reviews' Link that appears next the the star icon). Other options available here allow you to choose in which order these reviews are listed (choose either by rating or date written) and also to set a low limit for the rating of the reviews shown to avoid poor reviews being displayed next to the product.

Once you have set your chosen options and updated/refreshed Sellerdeck from Soapbox, simply start/restart Sellerdeck and add the SoapboxEmbeddedReviews layout beneath the Soapbox layout (in the same way as you add Soapbox layout as discussed above, ensuring you check the 'Fixed Layout' checkbox when inserting, and the full review text will appear on your product pages. Finally just update your website from Sellerdeck.

HTML Layout (Optional). This is the HTML that will be used to display the review. The default can be used without any amendment but if you want to control the layout of the reviews then you can replace the text in this area with any valid HTML/CSS*. Simply use the placeholders [soapboxrating], [soapboxreview] and [soapboxreviewer]**, where you want the rating icon, review text and reviewer name (respectively) to appear, in the same way you would use an Sellerdeck variable. Clicking the 'Preview' button will open up a browser window to show you how a sample review will look.

* Note 1: The font, font size, availability of stylesheets and line breaking will be controlled by default by the prevailing HTML / CSS styles of the parent layouts used to build your product page. Again, these can be overridden here by explicitly defining fonts, styles or containers if required.

** Note 2: The square brackets must be used to enclose each placeholder and each must contain no spaces.

Inserting Soapbox into Product Fragments

If you have several similar products on a page, you may have a fragment at the top of the page with the details of the range of products, rather than have this repeated for each product. In this case you will probably prefer to have Soapbox collect reviews within the fragment, to apply to all the products on the page, rather than each individual product.

• Close Sellerdeck.
• In Soapbox's Configuration Settings screen, ensure you have checked the box in the "Other Options" tab labelled "Collect Reviews for ... Product Fragments".
• From the "Product Review Management" screen in Soapbox, click the 'Update Sellerdeck' icon in the top left.
• Open Sellerdeck and select the Design menu option (not the design tab) | Library | Layouts Tab and then expand the Soapbox Group
• Right click on the Soapbox Layout (should be the first item in the group) and click copy
• Rename the newly created layout (Soapbox Copy) to be called SoapboxForFragments
• Edit the new layout and on approximately line 11, replace the Sellerdeck variable ProductReference with ProductID and then replace ProductName with FragmentTitle. Click OK.
• Still within Design | Library, select the 'Variables' tab. Modify each variable within the 'Soapbox' group to have a checkmark next to the 'Place of Setting' for both 'Product' and 'Fragment'
• You should now be able to place the new SoapboxForFragments layout within the existing FragmentLayout on your site. (Please note that if you have any brochure fragments on the page, make sure they use a different fragment layout to any product fragments which reference Soapbox. The soapbox variables will cause an error on brochure fragments.)
• Upload your website from Sellerdeck

Manually Referencing Soapbox (Only necessary if advised by Codepath or by Soapbox)

Your main Sellerdeck site layout needs some code adding to the header to allow it to recognise Soapbox. If you are using an external site layout (from an Sellerdeck design company), or Soapbox cannot access your main site layout for other reasons, you will be advised at the end of the update procedure in Soapbox to view this help sub-section and add the Soapbox reference manually. Simply edit the main layout file (either using an external editor, or via the Sellerdeck design library) and add the following code anywhere in the <HEAD> section of the main layout HTML...

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="soapbox.js"></script>

...save the file, restart Sellerdeck and you are ready to continue. Please contact your Sellerdeck design company or Codepath if you are unsure if/how you should complete this step.

Enabling Rich Snippets Markup for Google (using the hReview-aggregate microformat)

Please see the PDF document here for help with this topic.

OTHER FEATURES

Invite Customers to Review

Encourage customers to leave reviews by driving them to the site with a review invitation email. Emails can be batch generated to all your recent Sellerdeck customers inviting them to review the products they purchased, and if you choose to, offer them an incentive for doing so. Product specific links embedded in the email means they are just two clicks away from writing a review.

How soon an email is sent after an order becomes 'completed', as well as the recipients and the content of the email can be configured from the 'Review Invitation eMails' tab of the System Settings screen.

The function is launched from the 'Actions' menu on the main screen. You will be advised of how many emails the current configuration will produce and, on acceptance, emails will be auto-generated within Sellerdeck's eMail management section of each relevant order, rather than being sent directly via your email software. This approach allows you to have a record of invitation emails stored within Sellerdeck.

e-mail Address Capture

Soapbox allows you to easily collect a list of the email addresses of all reviewers (who chose to provide their address) over a given period so you can easily acknowledge reviews, provide discount codes if you chose to offer an incentive and maintain communicationwith the customer.

Just select the reviews for which you want the addresses (use [ctrl]+click or [shift]+arrows to select multiple reviews) and then either click the Capture Email Addresses icon at the top or right-click and select 'Capture eMail Addresses' from the menu. The selected addresses will be copied to the clipboard. You can then paste these into any document editor or the email recipient area of any email software.

Please note that as reviews left cannot necessarily be reconciled back to a specific order, this is an address capture facility only which allows you to conveniently copy and paste a list of addresses into your chosen email software. Unlike the 'Review Invitation' emails, no email will actually be generated in the Sellerdeck eMail management section.

Profile Your Most Popular Products

As Soapbox integrates directly into the Sellerdeck database, the most highly rated products in your store can be determined and used to generate a 'Top Rated Section' (similar to Sellerdeck's Best Sellers list), focusing potential customers on your most popular products. How many products are in the list and the lowest rating allowed are both configurable from the 'Top Rated List' tab of the System Settings screen.

For layout consistency, this section uses some of the existing layout code for the Best Sellers list so if you have made modifications to how that is displayed, these changes will also be reflected in the Top Rated Section.

To Implement the Top Rated Section...

	Enable and configure the 'Top Rated Section' tab within the Soapbox Settings Option and then refresh Soapbox from within the Product Review Management option. (Please note that a Refresh rather than an update is necessary in this case).
	Restart Sellerdeck and check the layout properties of the newly created 'Top Rated Section'. Ensure that the "Main Product Area Layout" is set to "Top Rated Listing Page with Section Name at Top".
	Select Design | Library and add the Soapbox layout from the Soapbox Layout Group to the bottom of the Full Best Seller Layout using CSS from the Best Sellers List Entries Layout group.
	Optional: Once completed, you can optionally create a short summary of the Top Rated products in the sidebar of each page, again in a similar way to Best Sellers....
	Select Design | Library and add the Soapboxshort layout from the Soapbox Layout Group to the bottom of the Mini Best Seller Layout from the Best Sellers List Entries Layout group.
	Add the SoapboxSidebarTopRatedList layout to the sidebar of the main page layout. **

Each time Sellerdeck is 'Refreshed' from Soapbox (not 'Updated' as explained in the Review Management section above) the products listed in the 'Top Rated Section' will be regenerated.

** Larger sites may notice an increase in Sellerdeck's pre-upload processing time when the sidebar section is added to every page in the store as the dynamic content needs to be calculated for each page. An alternative is to create a layout for just the index and top level pages that includes the sidebar link, or instead have a static link to the top Rated section in the sidebar, rather than dynamically generating links to each Top rated product.

OTHER SETTINGS

Review Guidelines Link

Create and upload a review guidelines page, using Sellerdeck Brochure pages or any other HTML editor, to advise reviewers of what you consider to be acceptable review content. Specify the full URL link to the guidelines page against the 'Review Guidelines Link' prompt and a link will be displayed on the Customer Interface.

Please note: Due to sizing and other restrictions of the review window, the review guidelines link will be opened in a new window. For this reason it is advisable that your guidelines page does not have links back to your catalog (which will already be open in the window which launched the review link).

Start Application in Systray

The star icon is always visible in the System Tray when Soapbox is running. Checking this option will result in Soapbox starting in the System tray only, and not as a full screen interface. Right-clicking and selecting 'Show Soapbox' will then expand the program to full screen.

Show Review Management on Startup

If unchecked, the program shows the Main Menu screen when the full-screen interface is activated (see previous option). If checked the Review Management window is also opened.

Write debug info to log file

If you have any problems with Soapbox, Codepath may advise you to check this box to provide additional information to help resolve your problem.

Review page Launch Method

The Javascript "window.open" method allows the size and position of the window that the customer uses to read or write reviews to be controlled by Soapbox. This method displays the window as a 'pop-up'. If you are concerned about customers being confused by pop-up blockers, you can optionally have the window created as a new HTML page using the "<A href" notation instead of a popup. This type of window is less controllable with regards to it's size and features but will not be blocked by any pop-up blockers. Try both methods or check with your Sellerdeck Designer to see which you prefer.

CUSTOMIZATION

Use Your Own Rating Icons

If you want to personalize the star rating icons to images of your own choice, just follow these simple steps...

• Browse to the folder c:\program files\codepath\soapbox\images.
• There are 12 image files you need to replace; "sbrRating0.bmp" through to "sbrating10.bmp", and "sbSingleStar.bmp". Replace the original images with your own taking note of the footnote warning below **. A copy of the original images is stored in a sub-folder called 'OriginalImages' for your convenience.
• Remove the same images from the Additional Files upload list within Sellerdeck.
• Update Sellerdeck from the 'Review Management' screen then restart Sellerdeck.
• Update your website from Sellerdeck

All images within the Administration Application, and on your Sellerdeck website will now be updated with the new ones. Finally just zip and send the images to soapbox@codepath.co.uk, stating your Site Key (found in the "Sellerdeck Site" window within Soapbox) and we will update the images that your customers see when reading and writing reviews (as these are located on our server).

** IMPORTANT: Each image must match EXACTLY the pixel size of the original and be in the BMP file format. This is not a HTML restriction but is due to the optimized storage method used for the image in the Soapbox application. 1 Pixel difference from the original will cause errors. If you wish to use images of a non-standard size then please contact us for advice.

Review Link Formatting

The 'Review Placement' tab, within the System Settings option, allows you to format the alignment of the main Soapbox links. The alignment is relative to the HTML container that the Soapbox layout has been added to. For example, if the Soapbox layout was added to a <DIV> element on your page, then the layout will be aligned within that <DIV>.

You can also decide whether you want the links to appear on 1, 2 or 3 lines. This can be useful if you have narrow a multi-column layout.

Finally you can change the font sizes and colours of the links using some basic CSS styles to make them stand out more than other elements of the same type within your site. Here’s an example that will make the text links larger. Please note that it is a sensible precaution to take a snapshot of Sellerdeck before attempting any design changes if you are not accustomed to doing so.

In Sellerdeck, select Design | Library | Layouts Tab, then

a. Select Web Page Outer Layout | Sellerdeck Stylesheet and double click-it. In the code window that appears, starting on a new line, at the end of the existing code and leaving the existing code unchanged, copy | paste the following code and click Apply when you’re done. (Note: you can adjust the number 12 towards the end of the code higher or lower to increase / decrease the font size.)

.soapboxlinks table,.soapboxlinks td,.soapboxlinks a{font-size:12pt}

b. Still within the Layout tab of the Design Library, expand the Soapbox group and double-click the “Soapbox” Layout (item 1 in the list). You should now see a code window. If there is a line about half way down the existing code that reads...

<SPAN class="soapboxlinks">

...then you're done! Soapbox has already been configured to accept css styles. If the line does not exist, add it as a new line 2 (under the <br><br> line) and then add the following line as a new last line at the very end of the code...

</SPAN>

Click Apply.

This will increase the size of your link but you can alter the Stylesheet code (part a) as much as you like to get the effect you want.

IMPORTING REVIEWS

If you have existing reviews that you may have been sent by email or that you have posted on a page on your website, you can have these imported into Soapbox. Simply add the reviews into a MS-Excel spreadsheet or CSV file in the following format, email it to us and we will add the reviews for you! Row 1 should contain the column headings as listed in the "Heading" column below. Rows 2 onwards should contain each review.
If you have reviews in any other file format such as XML, please supply us with a sample for review