When uploading a photo in the ‘Multimedia’ tab of the Wizard, our software will automatically grab the center of the image to display on the finished obit/Tribute.  If the photo is more rectangular than square, this could result in the person’s head being cropped off or just the torso exposed:

To remedy this, you can select the ‘Edit Crop Thumbnail’ in the ‘Multimedia’ tab:

This will take you to our cropping tool where you can use the dotted lines and squares at the corners and the sides to adjust the selection box to re-size.  You can also move the square around with your mouse to center.  As you do this, you will see your new image appear in the ‘Preview’ box at the bottom right hand side of the page.  When you are satisfied with your new, cropped image, click, ‘Save’ and your new thumbnail will be displayed.

The final result is an image that is centered:

Administrators can now easily choose to display ‘No Services Scheduled,’ ‘Services Pending,’ or ‘Please check back for further information‘ under the Funeral Services section of the Wizard. You can also customize the default message.

This functionality resides in the same place you define Funeral Services within the ‘Funeral Services’ tab.

There are two new options among four choices:

1. NEW Do not display a Funeral Services section on an obituary.  If this is selected, there will not be a ‘Funeral Services‘ tab visible on the finished obituary/Tribute.
2. NEW Display a ‘Funeral Service’ section with the text ‘No Services Scheduled’ in the body.
3. NEW Display a “Funeral Service” section with the text ‘Services Pending. Please check back for further information‘ in the body.
4. Specify one or more Funeral Service events.  This selection provides you the opportunity to enter each specific service as you’ve been used to doing in the past.

To change the default wording of #2 and #3 above, go to Funeral Home Central, go to the Obituaries and Tributes area, and click on Set Obituary Defaults to customize.  Note: The custom messages will then appear on every obituary and tribute when you select the No Services or Services Pending option.

The new screen appears this way:

Here is how the information will display on the finished obituary/Tribute when the ‘Funeral Services’ tab is clicked:

No Scheduled Services (option #2 above):

Services Pending (option #3 above):

No Services Tab (option #1 above):

Customizing Text for ‘No Scheduled Services‘ and ‘Services Pending‘ options

To customize the text that appears when you select either the ‘No Scheduled Services’ or ‘Services Pending’ option, go to the ‘Obituaries and Tributes‘ area in Funeral Home Central and select, ‘Set Obituary Defaults‘:

Once there, you can customize the text that appears when visitors to the site click into the Funeral Services tab on the obituary/Tribute:

The Internal Reminder is a feature within the Wizard that allows directors to set-up e-mail “ticklers” relating to a family at the time an obituary is created. These customizable alerts can be sent to multiple e-mail destinations on the date of your choosing. For example, while creating an Eternal Tribute, a director might want to configure a reminder to contact the family’s religious leader in 3 months, including notes to self or staff, and have it sent to multiple people within the business. It’s a feature enhancement and thus optional to use.

Note: This tool is designed for Revenue Partners and for Funeral Home internal use only.

WHERE IS THIS FEATURE LOCATED?

You can find the feature within the Settings tab, in the obituary creation Wizard.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

A screenshot appears below. It’s constructed of four easy steps.

HOW DO I USE IT?

1.  Choose a pre-configured topic, or create your own by selecting “Use a Custom Name”

2.  Write an internal note (optional), or leave blank, to be included in the e-mail reminder.

3.  Choose a trigger date, the date you want to receive the reminder in your inbox.

4.  Choose the e-mail destination for the reminder. Separate multiple e-mails using a comma.

5.  Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

CAN I SET UP MULTIPLE REMINDERS TO MULTIPLE PEOPLE?

Yes! Click Save and add another.

HOW CAN I EDIT OR DELETE A REMINDER?

Your reminders are displayed at the bottom of the page (see example below). You can either Edit or Delete the reminder.

DO THE REMINDERS REPEAT THE FOLLOWING YEAR?

No, once a reminder is triggered, it’s not used again. However, you can always update the reminder with a new date after it’s been triggered.

WHAT WILL THE E-MAIL LOOK LIKE?

This is an example of what you will receive, with your Home’s logo. The alert name in this example is: “Seasonal Grief Mailer(s).

As Tributes.com continues to change the obituary landscape with almost 2 million unique consumers per month who now rely on our brand for obituary related information, we also continue to bring new, dynamic funeral home partners like you on board every day.  Like your business, we also grow by word of mouth and referrals. We are extremely grateful for the excellent job our partners do communicating to their colleagues in the industry about the value Tributes.com brings to their business.

In appreciation of that effort, we are instituting a new referral program to formally reward our partners who help introduce Tributes.com to new funeral home partner prospects. Beginning July 1, 2011, we will pay $100 to any partner who recommends a funeral home that becomes a Tributes.com Premier partner.  This $100 will be paid after the first 30 days of the referred funeral home being operational on our platform.

To formally qualify for an incentive payment, please email us the following information:

• Funeral Home Name Funeral Home Location (city/state)
• Funeral Home Contact Name
• Funeral Home Contact Information (telephone number or email address)

After receiving this information from you, we will forward a confirmation acknowledging your submission and will promptly reach out to your colleague letting them know you have suggested we contact them. Once they having signed a contract and are live using the Tributes platform for 30 days, we will send you a check. There is no limit to the number of firms you may refer and ultimately be rewarded for.

PLEASE SEND EMAIL TO: john@tributes.com with your contacts.

Again, thank you for your business and the continued support.

Note: This feature is applicable for Revenue Partners only.

The E-mail Retrieval feature allows the Funeral Home to collect e-mail addresses of users who interact with any of your obituaries and give permission to be contacted. In addition to being able to promote your business, you will be able to provide the family owner with a list of e-mails generated during online interactions with the obit of their loved one.

By turning on this feature, users who choose to leave any type of condolence, set up alerts or reminders, or forward obituaries to family and friends will be asked whether they give permission to be contacted. There are two opt-in choices the user will see:

The first opt-in message, ‘It is ok for the family to contact me,’ appears when the user’s action is related to a specific obituary, and the default state is Yes. The second opt-in, ‘It is ok for the funeral home that handled services to contact me’ applies to all instances of consumer actions relating to your home (i.e. obit interactions as well as signing up for funeral home alerts) and the default state is Yes. If users opt-out, they will continue to see the opt-in messages in the future.

Turning the Feature On

Go to Profile Settings > Promotional Settings > Funeral Home and Family E-Mail Retrieval in Funeral Home Central, select the checkbox and click Save. If you do NOT turn the feature on, users that interact with your obituary records will NOT see the prompts and e-mail addresses will NOT be collected. The default setting is OFF. NOTE: Making this selection on a rooftop home with multiple locations associated to one website will turn this feature on for all rooftops; similarly, making the selection on a parent home will turn this feature on for all rooftops.

Viewing E-Mails

In Funeral Home Central go to Profile Settings > Funeral Home and Family E-Mail Retrieval

Select a date range and click Filter, or choose one of the pre-defined periods:

TIP: If you have transferred e-mails in the past, make sure that the new period is after your last transfer; otherwise you risk collecting duplicate e-mails. For example, if you last collected e-mails gathered between January 1 and February 28th, your next inquiry should begin March 1st.

Provided users have opted-in, you will see two boxes, the first displaying e-mails associated with your Funeral Home (with rooftops names, if applicable)…

…while the second box will display e-mails associated with a specific obituary, useful to a family upon request:

Click on the family record in blue above to obtain the complete list of e-mails associated to it:

TIP: You can quickly copy the e-mails by hovering the cursor over the text, triple-clicking your mouse in rapid succession until the field is highlighted and typing CTRL C. You can then paste the list into the body of a message you send to a family.

Downloading E-Mails

At any time, you can select the checkbox at the bottom of the search form to download an Excel-compatible CSV file.

Example of family e-mail list in Excel (we are working on providing you with the user’s name as well):

Sort by “Funeral Home Service Provider” should you want to isolate the e-mails by rooftop:

TIP: When e-mailing consumers on behalf of your business, you are encouraged to remind them: (1) how you received their e-mail address; (2) that they chose to receive it; and (3) provide a simple method to unsubscribe, functionality that is built into your e-mail messaging systems such as Constant Contact.

In response to requests from our funeral home partners, we have recently added new Background Themes for our Eternal Tributes and new Themes that display within the obit text on Basic Obituaries.

For Eternal Tributes, we’ve added new themes such as Hunting, Fishing, Teacher, Nurse, Wheat, Baseball, Kids, Fall, and more:

For Basic Obituaries, we’ve added new themes which appear within the text on the finished obituary. These include many different sports, music and religious themes:

Note: This feature is applicable for Revenue Partners only.

Donation Information: Within the Wizard in the Obituary tab when creating obituaries and Eternal Tributes, you will now have the ability to configure Donation Information. This new feature includes a pre-configured selection for the American Cancer Society and The Jewish National Fund as part of a new strategic alliance Tributes has formed with these important non-profit organizations, as well as a custom selection which allows for the configuration of 255 characters of descriptive text (i.e. ‘In lieu of flowers, the family requests that you make a donation to UNICEF.’) and an optional link to a corresponding donation form or informational page on the Internet. Visual samples are below which include a screen shot of the new setting in the Wizard, as well as an example of an active link in an Eternal Tribute.

Custom Charities: You can set up – and store for future use – multiple custom charities. The Charity Selection fields in the Obituary tab in the Wizard have been updated as reflected in the image below. Upon entering a custom charity you can simply click the “Store this custom charity” box and the Charity and all associated information will then be available for selection in the ‘Stored Custom Charities‘ drop down box when creating future obits/Eternal Tributes, eliminating the need to re-enter the charity information over again.

Here is a screen shot of how the finished Obituary/Tribute will look with the Donation Information populated:

When printing obituaries and Eternal Tributes, you will notice that you now have more control over the information being printed and the resulting format. We have also launched the new ability for Tributes Revenue Partners to create a 3″ x 8″ obituary bookmark, which can be laminated and distributed during services.

When you click on the printing link in the left column of any obituary or Eternal Tribute (see screen shots below), you will now be presented with the following six printing options:

1. Obituary: Prints the obituary, including prominent placement of the funeral home and service information.
2. Guestbook: Prints Memory Book entries (only).
3. Photos: Prints all of the photos contained in the Life Images picture slideshow (only). Only available for Eternal Tributes.
4. Life Stories: Prints LifeStories entries (only). Only available for Eternal Tributes.
5. Full Obit: Prints the full record: obituary, memories/condolences, stories and photos.
6. Bookmark: Prints a modified 3″ x 8″ version of the obituary, including a small photo. Please note: You may need to temporarily edit the text to ensure that it fits properly.

Sample Printed Obituary:

Sample: 3″ x 8″ Bookmark

Note: This feature is applicable for Revenue Partners only.

Send Flowers Link: You can now specify whether you’d like the “Send Flowers” promotion to appear more prominently by including it within the obituary text instead of the placement that’s historically been available only in the lower left hand side of each obituary / Eternal Tribute. Alternately, you can opt to include the link in both locations or only in the lower left hand side as has previously been available. To modify your flower ad configuration, just go to Promotional Settings under your Profile Settings in Funeral Home Central (see screen shot below).

Here’s an example of the flower promotion configured to appear within the Obituary copy in the Obituary tab:

Our charitable giving program continues to win favor among our partners and consumers.  Visitors will now have the ability to make a charitable donation on our partner obits if a charity has not been selected and you approve of this enhancement.

The unobtrusive link, “Make a Charitable Donation,” displays up on the left-hand side as illustrated below — only if a charity has not been selected during the Wizard creation process. The link will open a window on the Tribute page where a guest can choose from a growing list of national charities.

If you would like this feature turned off, simply let us know. Otherwise you need not do anything. In the future, you can turn the feature off by going to Profile Settings > Audio & Gift Selection > Charitable Donations, as illustrated below.