Subscription & Security Management

FlowDrafts provides self-service tools for managing your subscription and account security.

1. Payment Management

All billing is handled securely via Stripe. Admins can access the Stripe Customer Portal from the "Account" page to update credit card information, download past invoices, and view billing history.

2. Upgrades & Downgrades

You can change your seat count or billing cycle (Monthly vs. Annual) at any time:

• Upgrades: Adding seats is effective immediately and costs are pro-rated.
• Downgrades: Reducing seats takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle. If your active activations exceed your new limit after a downgrade, newest devices will be deactivated first.

3. Canceling Subscriptions

Subscriptions can be canceled at any time through the Stripe Portal. Your licenses will remain fully functional until the end of your prepaid period.

4. Password & Account Security

Users can manage credentials through the Settings icon in the dashboard. Deletion is only permitted if there is no active paid subscription.

License & Team Management

Admins manage their organization's deployment through the centralized web dashboard.

1. Seat Revocation

If an employee leaves or changes hardware, you can free up a seat by Revoking the device. This instantly stops the add-in from working on that hardware.

2. The Reroll Quota

To prevent abuse, firms get "Rerolls" (revocations) equal to their total seat count per month.

• Reset Cycle: Your quota resets automatically every 30 days.
• Initial Lock: Revocations are locked for the first 30 days of a brand new subscription for security.

3. CSV Reporting

Admins can export a list of all active devices to CSV. This report includes names, emails, and activation timestamps.

Device Activation & Synchronization

The add-in uses a hardware-bound activation system to link devices to your seat pool while maintaining privacy.

1. Activation Handshake

When a user enters the Company Code, the add-in sends the code and a unique device hash to our gateway. If a seat is available, the device is registered and an activation token is stored locally.

Metadata: During activation, users can optionally provide their Name, Email, and Team. This information is synced to the Admin Dashboard, allowing administrators to easily manage their team's license allocation.

2. Manual License Sync

If your device shows as "Expired" but you know the license is active, click the activation status button in the Ribbon or the Sync button in the activation window to force an update.

3. Sync & Restore Feature

If you lose your local activation file (e.g. after a computer refresh), the Sync feature scans our database for a previous activation matching your hardware hash and restores your session automatically if a valid license is found.

4. Trial Abuse Protection

Our system uses Hardware Anchoring for trials. A specific computer can only be associated with a free trial once.

Network Requirements

Whitelist these domains on Port 443 for license sync and updates:

• api.flowdrafts.com
• releases.flowdrafts.com
• flowdrafts.com

Staying Up to Date

To ensure maximum stability and compatibility in enterprise environments, FlowDrafts Private does not perform automatic background updates. This policy allows IT departments to test and validate new versions before organization-wide deployment.

1. The Update Nudge

The add-in performs a background version check every 7 days. If a newer version is detected on our servers, a subtle Orange Notification Dot will appear on the FlowDrafts icon in your Outlook Ribbon. This serves as a non-intrusive "nudge" to let you or your IT team know an update is available.

2. Manual Update Process

For individual users, updating is simple:

1. Download the latest setup.exe from your Account Dashboard.
2. Run the installer. It will automatically detect your current version and perform an in-place upgrade.
3. Your activation settings and campaign data will be preserved during the update.

3. Enterprise Updates

IT Administrators can deploy updates silently across the organization using standard deployment tools (GPO, Intune, SCCM). Refer to the IT Administrators guide for specific command-line flags and deployment strategies.

Managing Your Campaign List

FlowDrafts provides multiple ways to populate and manage your recipient queue, ranging from bulk imports to manual granular control.

1. Intelligent Data Ingestion

Copy and paste rows directly from Microsoft Excel. The add-in expects a tab-separated structure: [Company Name, Name1, Email1, Name2, Email2, ...].

Auto-Cleaning: The parser automatically normalizes your data, removing mailto: prefixes and handling common string formats like Name <email>. It also validates email structures and detects missing fields in real-time, allowing you to fix errors before starting your campaign.

2. ZIP Package Import

Import a FlowDrafts ZIP Package to restore a full campaign, including custom tags, settings, and firm-specific attachments exactly as they were configured.

Non-Destructive Editing

FlowDrafts includes a robust session-level Undo/Redo system to protect your workflow from accidental changes.

1. State Tracking

The add-in tracks every major change, including recipient imports, manual edits, tag configuration, and attachment mapping. This allows you to experiment with different setups without fear of losing data.

2. Keyboard & Ribbon Integration

You can trigger Undo/Redo directly from the Outlook Ribbon or using standard keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y) while the FlowDrafts pane is focused. The state is maintained independently for each email window you have open.

Dynamic Content Engine

Personalization is handled via a real-time string replacement. You don't need to type tags manually; the UI provides buttons for insertion.

1. Tag Format

FlowDrafts uses single-brace notation: {Tag}. This ensures compatibility with Outlook's HTML rendering engine.

2. Smart Tag System

• {Company}: The company name from your list.
• {Names}: Dynamically generated list of contacts.
• Custom Tags: Manually add as many custom placeholders as needed.

Smart Greeting Logic

The Greeting Service populates the {Names} tag based on your contacts.

1. Threshold Logic

If a company has contacts under your threshold, they are listed by name ("Hi John and Sarah"). If they exceed it, it switches to a collective term ("Hi All").

2. Grammatical Nuance

The engine supports Oxford comma toggles and custom conjunctions ("and" vs "&").

Firm-Specific Customization

FlowDrafts allows for granular control over how different companies are treated within the same campaign.

1. Per-Company Tag Overrides

Change tag values for specific firms using the override button on any company row.

2. Firm-Specific Attachments

Map unique files (like a specific PDF invoice) that will only be sent to that specific company.

Individual File Mapping

Unlike standard mail merge tools, FlowDrafts can attach unique files to each individual recipient in a campaign.

1. Row-Level Association

The Attachments module allows you to map local file paths to specific recipients. This is handled via a dedicated dialog (📁 icon) where you can add or remove files for each queue item. These are added in addition to any general attachments in your template.

2. Precision Path Persistence

FlowDrafts maintains the link to your local files throughout the preparation process. When you export your campaign to a ZIP package, the add-in physically bundles these files and converts them to relative paths, ensuring they work seamlessly when imported on another team member's computer.

Campaign Processing

Once validated, you have several options for how your campaign is executed.

1. Real-Time Preview

The Email Preview tool provides a representation of how the email will look using actual data from your list. Please note there may be slight rendering deviations due to the WebView2 environment; for an exact preview of the final Outlook rendering, we recommend sending a single trial email to yourself before starting the full campaign.

2. Ghost Draft Prevention

During batch processing, Outlook may occasionally create transient "ghost drafts." FlowDrafts implements a specialized deferred routine that monitors your Outbox and automatically removes these orphaned items from your Drafts and Deleted Items folders once transmission is complete. By utilizing a UTC-based DASL query, the routine can precisely identify items by their creation timestamp across any mailbox location and in any timezone, ensuring your workspace remains clean globally regardless of whether you are sending from your default account or a shared mailbox.

3. Automated Disk Hygiene

To maintain system performance and security, FlowDrafts employs a multi-layered cleanup system for campaign assets:

• Instant Session Purge: When a campaign window is closed, the session-specific temporary folder (located in your Local AppData) used for template generation is immediately deleted from your device.
• 24-Hour Safety Net (Imported Data): A background routine runs on Outlook startup to identify and remove any orphaned directories in the ImportedAttachments folder (located in your Roaming AppData) older than 24 hours (calculated via UTC for global compatibility in any timezone), ensuring zero long-term disk bloat from imported ZIP packages.

4. Throttling & Intelligent Flow Control

During sending, FlowDrafts implements a multi-layered reliability system to handle high-volume campaigns and large attachments:

• Safe Batching: The add-in maintains a 2.1-second delay between each email. This ensures compliance with Microsoft 365 rate limits (30 msgs/min) and prevents server-side throttling.
• Self-Throttling (Backpressure): Every 5 emails, FlowDrafts inspects your local Outlook Outbox. If more than 15 items are pending, the add-in automatically pauses sending until the Outbox drops below 5 items. This protects your computer's performance and prevents Outlook from "choking" on large 5GB+ data transfers.
• Extended Finalization: After the last email is processed, the add-in monitors your Outbox for up to 5 minutes, ensuring every item has been fully handed off to the server before finalizing the campaign report.

5. Execution Logs

During and after execution, FlowDrafts maintains a detailed Campaign Log. Clicking the "Logs" button in the Ribbon opens a history of every attempt, recording the timestamp (stored in UTC to work in any timezone and converted to your local time), company, recipient, subject, and success/error status for every individual email.

The FlowDrafts Safety System

To prevent accidental mass-mailing, FlowDrafts includes a multi-layered verification engine.

1. Structural Validation

The add-in flags errors for missing email addresses, invalid formats, or placeholder text. It also detects Duplicate Emails and Duplicate Companies.

2. Email Size Validation

The size validator calculates total payload weight, including template attachments and a ~35% overhead for Base64 encoding. It blocks sending if an item exceeds your server's MB limit.

The Path-Switching Lifecycle

The Export function transforms a local setup into a portable package for your team.

1. Package Contents

• template.oft: The Outlook template.
• campaign.json: Your recipient list with relative file paths.
• /attachments/: Copies of every unique mapped file.
• /messages/: Pre-rendered .msg files for every company.

2. Cross-Computer Portability

Upon import, the system automatically converts relative paths back into absolute paths for the new computer.

Data Sovereignty Mandate

FlowDrafts is built on a "Local-First" philosophy for high-security environments.

1. Zero-Cloud Processing

Your recipient data and email content never touch our servers. All parsing, personalization, and execution happen 100% within your local Outlook instance.

2. Encryption

Local activation tokens are encrypted using AES-256, with keys derived from your hardware hash (CPU and Motherboard IDs).

3. Binary Trust & Integrity

Every FlowDrafts build is digitally signed with a Microsoft Azure Trusted Signing certificate. This ensures that the code has not been tampered with since it was built and that the identity of the publisher has been verified by Microsoft. This eliminates "Unknown Publisher" warnings during installation and provides an enterprise-grade trust chain.

Offline Capabilities & Readiness

FlowDrafts is designed for professional environments where internet connectivity may be intermittent or restricted by corporate firewalls. It is the only mail merge solution that supports full offline preparation.

1. Local Validation

The add-in performs a local check of the encrypted activation token every time Outlook starts. If a valid token exists, the UI is enabled immediately without requiring an internet ping.

2. Offline Campaign Preparation

You can prepare your entire campaign (including pasting recipients, configuring custom tags, and mapping unique attachments) while completely disconnected from the internet. All state is saved to your local machine.

3. Connectivity Grace Period

If the add-in cannot reach the licensing server (e.g., no internet, traveling, or firewall restrictions), it enters a 72-hour grace period. During this window, all features remain fully functional. Access is only restricted if the device fails to sync for more than 72 consecutive hours.