Overview
Most users will be familiar with email and the fact that you can either enter a specific address on an email or select one from your address book. You will also be aware that you can easily send one email to as many people as you like.

The Email utility in League Master is able to work in much the same way, except that the address book it uses is the Members Book and depending upon what type of email you wish to send, so it chooses which group of people to send emails to.

The first thing you must do is set up your basic email account details, which be similar to that found in Outlook, Outlook Express or any other email client you may be using. Having done that, you can now send emails.

From the Tools menu on the main League Master desktop, select Send Email.

1. Types of email you can send

Members
This will send an email to everyone in the Members Book, assuming they have a valid email address entered.
Players
This will allow you to send emails to only those players in your selected league.
Individuals
You can send an email to a specific person in the Members Book.
Leagues
One of the main uses of the system is to send the new league information to each player.
League Master
Any problems? Just send us an email about it.

2. Key sections of the program
Apart from the general menus and the tool bars, which are covered later on, the key parts of the program are the 5 tabs in the central section and the message window at the bottom.

To
This is where you select the type of email you wish to send, as listed above.
Queue
Having selected the type of email to send and having included any other information required (see below), the program creates all the emails and enters them into a queue. It then goes through the queue, sending each email in turn. If an email cannot be sent, then it remains in the queue.
Sent
Once an email is dispatched, it is placed in the Sent list, which can either be kept for future reference or deleted.
Errors
If an email cannot be sent due to it being invalid or not accepted by the server, it will be placed in the Errors list for further investigation.

Find out more about queues.

Activity Log
This is simply a log of the current send operation, allowing you to see the success or failure of any operations.

Message Window
Every email, regardless of what type it is, can have a message included on it. Simply enter your test in exactly the same way as you would any other email and it will be added, although the exact format or position may depend upon your email type selection on the To tab.

If you often send the same message to people, you can save your message as a text file, using the Save Message button, that can then be loaded any time you wish using the Load Message button. Alternatively, you can use a simple text editor such as Notebook to create your message separately from League Master and then save it to a location that can found when clicking on the Load Message button.

3. Sending test emails
Before you send a whole load of emails out, you may wish to be sure they are correct. You can do this in two ways:

Send Test Email
This will send the first email in the queue to your own email address, as set in Options, instead of the actual recipient. This will not only prove that the email system is working, but also allow you to see the layout.
Preview Email
If you only want to see what it looks like, then if you click the Preview email box as well, it will not actually be sent, but you will see what it looks like in a preview window.

4. Other Tools
Signatures
Just as you might do in other email programs, you can create a Signature which can be added to the bottom of the email. This is commonly used to include your name and return email address etc. and can be accessed from the Tools menu.

Passwords
In order for your players to access their contact details on the web site, they will need their user name and password - see Using League Master Online. Their password is initially a random 8 digit code which must be given to them, either directly or by post.

The email program allows you to easily send these passwords to players, either individually or included in league information. In addition, it keeps track of whether a password has been sent to a particular player.

You can also add some text which will appear with the password, if sent, as a short explanation of how to use the password and can be accessed from the Tools menu.