Secure PHP Development- P101 pdf

As you can see, as a Tell-a-Friend system owner, you can see how many friends
have been sent e-mails by the system (in the Friends column), how many sub-
scribed (in the Subscribed column), how many rejected subscription request by
unsubscribing (in the Rejected columns), and so on.
You can also see the top users who’ve given you new leads or possibly cus-
tomers. If you use promotions such as giveaways for the top ten originators, you
can simply review this report from time to time and see who your top customers are
who referred you to their friends.
Security Considerations
Here we decided to allow anyone to add Tell-a-Friend forms using the
taf_form_mngr.php application and restricted modify and delete privileges.
However, you might want to restrict add form privilege to a certain list of IP
addresses, in such case you have to modify the authorize () method in the
taf_form_mngr.php application.
Summary
In this chapter, you learned to develop a Tell-a-Friend system that you can use with
your e-mail campaign system, whether it’s in-house or outsourced via Internet ser-
vice providers. This tool can increase exposures and potentially increase customers
for your organization; it’s widely used by both large and small companies around
the world.
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Chapter 14
E-mail Survey System
IN THIS CHAPTER
◆
Designing a survey system
◆
Implementing a survey system
◆

Testing a survey system
BEING ABLE TO SURVEY your customers frequently is an important requirement for
business today. Thanks to the pervasiveness of e-mail, you can now perform most of
your surveys via e-mail.
Customers provide valuable information when they participate, which benefits
both the company and the customers.
In this section, you’ll design a simple yet powerful survey system that can be
managed by marketing personnel with a bit of HTML form knowledge. The system
functionality is shown in Figure 14-1.
Figure 14-1: Survey system functional diagram.
Survey Message to Customer
Survey System
Store Survey
Results
Dear Joe,
Please participate in the following
survey.
Are you happy with us [] Yes [] No
Are you sure [] Yes [] No
1
2
3
4
Survey Administrator
Manage Lists, Forms
Manage Surveys
Show Survey Reports
Submit
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A typical survey process can be described as follows:
1. The survey system sends an e-mail survey to the customer.
2. The customer fills out the survey from within the e-mail client program
and submits the results by clicking on the Submit button.
3. The customer survey results are stored in the survey database.
4. The survey administrator views the compiled survey result as a report.
In the following sections, you’ll develop a survey system that has the following
features.
Functionality Requirements
◆
Unlimited number of survey email (target) lists: Supports unlimited
number of survey email (target) lists. The survey administrator can create
many survey target lists.
◆
Comma-separated value (CSV) file support: Survey target lists can be
created from CSV files.
◆
Duplicate entry protection per list: When a list is added to the system,
the system should automatically detect duplicate entries within a list and
should only add one instance of any e-mail address. This will ensure that
when a survey is executed no user ever gets two or more survey forms.
◆
Unlimited number of questions: Supports an unlimited number of ques-
tions. However, questions can be only multiple-choice or text data not
exceeding the size limit used in the database. The survey must support:
text data, checkboxes, radio buttons, and drop-down menu selections as
answers for questions.
◆
Personalized survey form: Each survey form can be personalized using
the survey target’s first and last name.

◆
Simple reporting: A simple tabular report to allow the survey administrator
to collect valuable insight into the customer’s understanding and perception
of the company.
Now let’s look at the architecture of such a survey system.
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Architecture of the Survey System
Figure 14-2 shows the system diagram for the survey system you’re going to develop
in this section.
Figure 14-2: Survey system architecture diagram.
There are two types of users in the system: the survey administrator and the cus-
tomers who are the survey participants. The survey system administrator user is
able to perform the following tasks:
◆
Add or delete survey target lists. The survey administrator can add a new
survey target list using the list-management component of the survey-
management application suite.
◆
Add or delete survey forms. The survey administrator can add a new
survey form that can be used in a survey campaign. A survey form is an
HTML document that has all the survey questions in it. This form is sent
as an e-mail to the target list and the response is collected using the
response-management application.
◆
Add or delete survey campaigns. The survey administrator can add or
delete a survey campaign. Each survey campaign consists of an existing
Survey
Administrator
Survey Management

Application Suite
List Manager
Form Manager
Campaign Manager
Report Manager
Execution Manager
Response Manager
List
Form
Survey
Report
Response
Customer
Objects
Survey
Database
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