Greetings!

It's the "Salsa Highlight," your quick hit on what's new in Salsa to help get the most out of your online program. As always, you can find plenty more news, updates, and conversation throughout the week on SalsaCommons.org.

This week, we thought we'd unpack a common question: how do you configure a double opt-in signup page?

By default, Salsa signup pages land a new signer-upper on your list with only a single-step opt-in: that is, as soon as your prospective supporter completes the page, s/he is on your list. No fuss, no muss!

However, you can choose to require a higher level of supporter permission by instead having your signup pages initiate one of those "are you sure you want to join this list?" emails. Your list will grow more slowly, but may comprise more motivated supporters.

Step One: Require Confirmed Opt-In

When editing a signup page in your Salsa headquarters, you'll find under the "options" tab a checkbox called "Do not add without confirmation".

The first step to building a double opt-in signup page is simply to check this box.

But take care: "Do not add without confirmation" is a necessary but insufficient condition for a double opt-in process.

This checkbox changes the behavior of the signup page. Instead of placing your supporter's information right into your Salsa headquarters, it routes that information to a "holding space" where your organization won't see it until the supporter confirms the opt-in.

The next step is all about engineering that confirmation process.

Step Two: Create an Opt-In Reply trigger

You'll get your confirmed opt-in from a trigger.

It's just a regular Salsa response trigger containing a special link. Here's how to build it:

1. First, set the trigger type to "Reply Email": it's going to send back to the person who completed the signup page, of course.
2. Second, in both the HTML and the text content of the trigger, send this link to the supporter (replacing the value for YOUR_NODE_ADDRESS with whatever url stem your Salsa pages use):
   

   http://YOUR_NODE_ADDRESS/dia/processConfirm.jsp?supporter_KEY=[[supporter_KEY]]

3. Last -- of course -- associate that trigger with your double opt-in signup page under the follow-up tab.

That's it!

You should be able to test it out immediately, and see what the double opt-in process will look like for a new supporter.

Notice that you implement this behavior per page and not universally across your entire Salsa account, so you may need to repeat the process for several different signup pages.