Navigation Path​

  1. To preview a message during the message creation process, click ​Preview​ in steps 2–4 of the message creation wizard.
    ⇒ The ​Message Preview​ window opens.
  2. To preview a message that is displayed in an overview, click ​View​ in the ​Actions​ menu of the message.
    ⇒ The ​Message Preview​ window opens.

Purpose​

This window provides several ways to preview and test your email message before sendout.

What can I do in this window?

  • View HTML and the plain text versions of your email.

  • Preview the subject line and the preheader of your email.

  • Simulate the effect of personalization placeholders and rules. This feature helps you to ensure that the personalizations in your message display properly when recipients open your email.

  • Send a preview of the message to a specific email address.

  • Download the preview as .eml file.

  • View how the HTML version of your email looks with images on and off.

  • Send a rendering test to see how your message renders in more than 30 popular email programs. The rendering is an extra feature that must be enabled for your Mapp Engage system.

Related Topics​

Personalization Settings​

When you open the ​Message Preview​ window, the initial preview does not contain any personalized content. To view a personalized version of the email, select a contact or enter attribute values. You can preview both types of personalizations:

  • Personalization placeholders

  • Personalization rules

Hint:

The ​Personalization​ area only displays if the selected message contains one or more personalizations.

Setting

Description

​Preview with Values​

Defines which information Mapp Engage uses to generate the message preview:

  • ​Contact Profile Values:​ Bases the preview on a Mapp Engage contact profile. You select the contact in the ​Contact​ drop-down list.

    • ​Contact:​ Selects the contact who Mapp Engage uses for the preview. The contact must exist in Mapp Engage. Click the  symbol to search for contacts on your system.
      To update the preview with the values that are stored in the contact profile of the selected contact, click ​Update​.

  • ​Custom Values:​ Bases the preview on the attributes and custom values you define in the ​Attributes​ area. Use this area to see how personalizations affect the display of your message.

    • ​Attributes:​ The ​Attributes​ drop-down list displays all placeholders that are defined in the email. To select an attribute, click the symbol. To select all attributes, click ​Add All Attributes​. To view a custom value in the preview, enter the value after the ​=​. For example, if you enter FirstName=Joe, the name Joe displays in the preview wherever the FirstName placeholder is used.
      To update the preview with the attribute values that you select, click ​Update​.

  • ​Random Group Member:​ Creates a preview of the email with the values of any random group member. To use this option, you must also select a group. You can only preview the message content for groups where you hold permissions 404 and 508. To reload the preview with new values, click the ​Next​ button. You can click ​Next​ as many times as you need until you are satisfied that all variations of the email appear as you want.

​Personalization Rules​

Determines whether the preview displays the results of the personalization rules.

  • ​On:​ Mapp Engage applies all the defined personalization rules to the content of the email preview. Only content that matches your personalization rules displays. This mode corresponds to the content that displays in an actual sendout.

  • ​Off:​ Mapp Engage removes all ​insert-if​ tags from the email and displays all available content. Use this mode to check all your content variations at once.
    For example, if you define a condition that inserts the phrase Dear Mr. or Dear Ms. based on the ​Title​ attribute. When you select the ​Off​ option, both phrases display in the preview email. Use the ​Off​ setting to verify the content that you define in your personalization rules.


Settings​

These settings give you more ways to use the message preview function.

Setting

Description

​Group​

Selects a Mapp Engage group. The group that you select affects the content of the preview and header information. This option is available for group-related system messages, but not for system-related system messages.

When you click ​Update​, the preview updates to include any group-specific content.

​Language​

Selects the language version of a system message to use in the preview. This option is only available for system messages.

​Show Images​

Defines whether the preview displays with or without images.

  • ​On:​ Mapp Engage displays images in the preview. This option shows you how your email appears if the email client of the recipient displays images.

  • ​Off:​ Mapp Engage replaces images in the preview with an empty frame. The empty frame is the same size as the image and contains and alternative text for the image, if available. This option shows how your email appears if the email client of the recipient suppresses images. Turn off images to you check whether you have entered alternative text for all available images.

​Recipient ​

Defines the email address of the person to whom the preview email is sent. You can send a preview to any valid email address.

The preview email includes ​Contact Profile Values​ or the values that you define in the ​Custom Values​ fields. The preview email does not reflect attribute values that are associated with the email address you enter here. In other words, what you see is what you send.

The preview email is not an actual sendout. Some message components are only generated and added during the actual sendout. As a result, the preview email has some limitations. For more information, see Send a Preview Email​.

Actions​

Action

Description

​Send​

Sends a preview email to any email address. Enter the email address in the ​Recipient​ input field. The recipient can be another system user or a person who is not registered in Mapp Engage.

The preview email is not an actual sendout. As a result, the preview email has some limitations. You can find a list of the limitations here: Send a Preview Email​.

​Update​

Updates the preview to reflect any changes that you make in the ​Message Preview​ window.

​Send Rendering Test​

Sends a rendering test.

​Send Rendering Test​ shows you how your message renders in a range of email clients and end devices.

For more information, see Inbox Rendering​.

​Download​

Downloads the message preview as .eml file. You can view .eml files in Outlook, Thunderbird, or any other email client.

Information​

Setting

Description

​Email Subject Line​

Shows the subject line that appears in the email inbox of your contacts.

​Preheader​

Displays the preheader of your email. A preheader is the first sentence or two of your email. The number of characters that an email client displays as a preheader text can vary from 50–140 characters. We recommend preheaders that are 85–100 characters long. The message preview area can display up to 130 characters of preheader text. In Mapp Engage, you can customize the preheader text of your email message. For more information, see Customise the Email Preheader​.