A little bit of everything in this new version, including upgrades to notifications, reports, Tip Jars and Gift Subscriptions. We even fixed some typos.
Probably the biggest change is that Gift Subscriptions now live on your own site (if you are on the Luna plan), and you'll get more notifications from Outpost.
✉️ Added new email notifications to you, e.g when people convert to paying via an Outpost Action email
🎁 Moved the Gift Subscription page for Luna clients so it shows up on the client's own site at /gift-subscriptions/
📭 Added some email notification settings
📫 Fixed some bugs in the daily reports
📊 Added new info to the reports, including what new subscribers converted from an Outpost Autoresponder
🧧 Added new çontrols for the display of the Tip Jar page on Luna sites
👷♀️ Some necessary backend stuff that's too boring to list here
🅾️ Fixed some typos in the default Action templates (Thanks Missing Witches!)
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Lots of work going on with the Tip Jar and reports, and, fittingly, NASA's picture of the day has the title Bringing More Power to Space Station. Yes, indeed, that's what we are doing!
✨ Updated the reports to include more information, and let you know what Autoresponder Actions have converted free members into paying members, and kept readers who canceled auto-renewal as paid subscribers
✨ Added the ability for Outpost publishers to cancel and restart their Outpost subscription
👨👩👧👦 Updated the Staff page to let sites edit and delete staff users
🛑 Added a way for Outpost subscribers to cancel and restart their Outpost subscription
🐛 Fixed some bugs in the report undercounting new paid subscribers
🎨 Added tools to let you change the appearance of Outpost-powered tip, gift subscription, Intelligent CTAs, and User Preference buttons. Controls include button color, font, font size and text color.
🐛 Refactored some backend code, including making retention offers work better for users with soon-to-expire subscriptions
🐞 Fixed some data errors in Outpost Daily Reports
We also simplified and upgraded how sites connect to Outpost to make it simpler:
✨ Updated Connections page to hide API keys and to add clarity to items on that page
✨ Added Stripe Connect/Disconnect button/action.
✨ Auto create needed Stripe webhooks/connections when using Stripe Connect at sign-on
And, just a mid-winter mood booster, here's a photo of Snoopy in his astronaut outfit. All that training in dogfights versus the Red Baron came in useful, it seems.
We've finished a lot of plumbing and built what we think is an easy way to sign up for Outpost's Space Station level of service. This includes the Best Damn Autoresponder for Ghost, Plausible Analytics, Tip Buttons, and analytics reports.
These features aren't just nice - they make sites more money than they cost. We're excited to be launching a self-serve system that we think will be of help to Ghost sites of all sizes, after more than a year of working with some of the biggest sites using Ghost to publish.
Our final tweaks before launching:
✨ Changed behavior at sign-on so that the Outpost Autoresponder triggers work off users' Ghost sign-up date. So if an existing user signed up a week ago, they would not get an email sent 3 days after a new user signs up. They would get the one sent to users 10 days after sign up.
✨ Added a new sign-on feature to help sites easily add Plausible Analytics and Tip Buttons via a draft post in Ghost
We're getting so very close to Outpost 2.0, which will be open to self-signup for Ghost publishers of all sizes.
We've been hard at work at lots of plumbing changes, and we added a whole new coat of paint. Now with this update live on production, we're just testing, and making final tweaks before we announce and release Version 2.0 to the world.
🚀 Slight technical changes to make complimentary subscriptions work better with Ghost
🚀 Built new on-boarding flow for Space Station users
💻 Simplified connecting accounts to Plausible Analytics
🎊 New look for Outpost Control Center
🛸Substantial architectural changes to Autoresponder to make it simpler to edit templates and track how well each Autoresponder Action performs
This is a rather small update, but we're getting close to the full public launch. Ao I guess today's NASA image-of-the-day is appropriate, despite the small update.
✨ Changes to the report template to make them a bit prettier, including icons in the email that look like planets, not Pokemon balls. Who knew that the Death Star was the inspiration for a Pokeball?
✨ UI changes to the Outpost Control Center
🐛 Fixed some issues with sign-up process for new Outpost clients
This was a big summer update for Outpost. The Autoresponder got a whole new look and feel, dividing them into better sections and making it simpler to use.
We added a whole new way to handle cancellations so that annual subscribers who cancel auto-renewal long before their auto-renewal date get treated differently from those who cancel close to the expiration date.
We also built a way to put your Plausible Analytics dashboard into your Outpost Control Center, and started pulling some info from Plausible into the Outpost Reports.
The reports also now have data on donations that come in via Stripe, and more info including open rates on Outpost Autoresponder Emails.
We highly recommend checking out the new Outpost Control Center and turning on new options.
New Autoresponder Features and Changes:
✍ Added new variables to use in the Autoresponder emails, including Subscriber First Name, Subscriber Full Name and Subscriber Email Address
✍ Show site owners, in the writing interface, the email variables you can use in the Autoresponder email templates
✴ Added new Autoresponder flow to let site owners know when complimentary subscriptions are about to expire, let them choose to renew or not, and send non-renewing subscribers through an upsell/notification flow
🚛 Re-organized the Autoresponder tab in the Outpost Control Center into better sections
💲 Made it simpler to choose what discounts go with which Autoresponder Action email
🆓 Added a new Autoresponder welcome email for complimentary subscribers (different from the one for free and paid)
Data Features:
📈 Integrated the Plausible Analytics dashboard into the Outpost Control Center
✍ Added more info to the Outpost Reports, including web traffic stats from Plausible, donations, cancelations and more
Other features:
✨ Added a way to create Complimentary subscriptions with lengths from months to 50 years
🏢 Added an option for sites to set their physical address (rather than Outpost's) as the email address at the end of Autoresponder Action emails to be CAN-SPAM compliant
Housekeeping:
🧹 Streamlined the Outpost Control Center homepage by removing options to start a new post or newsletter
🧹 Cleaned up the Add Members tool
🐛 Fixed a bug that was preventing full member sync on sites still on Ghost 4.x
💤 Deprecated the ability to send bulk emails to members or groups of members from Outpost (Ghost now allows this)
