BEE, a business unit of MailUp Group, has recently added a Commenting feature for BEE Plugin, the embeddable email & landing page editors for SaaS applications.
With this update, teams using BEE inside SaaS platforms can improve their collaboration by having a visual collaboration layer during the editing process. The new functionality serves as a single point for feedback and requests in the email design and editing process.
Note: On August 30, 2023, BEE changed its name to Beefree along with a rebrand. Now the BEE Plugin is called Beefree SDK. Check out beefree.io to learn more.
The editor greatly reduces back and forth conversations during email production (no more separate emails, chat, and versions and such) and speeds up production, cutting time-to-publish for every email campaign.
Once Commenting is turned on, contributors can add comments right inside emails and landing pages. Making the discussion context directly visible.
Comments are attached to elements like a button, an image, or a text block. Users can interact in threads to solve issues and reach consensus. Applications that embed BEE can use Commenting events to offer a notification system.
Collaborative Email Production
This update enhances collaborative email production through BEE Plugin, which already includes:
- Customizable user roles,
- Content locking,
- Versioning,
- Changes tracking.
Commenting will be included in a future update of BEE Pro, the hosted version of the editors.
Interactive AMP for email functions
AMP for email is the newest way to add interactivity to emails. A recent update for BEE Plugin saw the addition of interactive AMP capabilities to the Email Builder.
BEE shipped their first AMP-powered widget, enabling users to create AMP for Email image carousels with a simple drag-n-drop functionality.
The carousel looks best using images with the same size. However, it is possible to mix sizes in the slides: in that case, the logic that drives how the carousel is rendered is that the first slide will determine the ratio of the entire carousel. The slides that follow will be adapted to that ratio.
For each slide, users can:
- Set an alternate text, in case the slide doesn’t load or email client blocks images
- Set a link, so that clicking or tapping on the slide takes recipients to a specific destination
- Rearrange the slides position in the carousel, by dragging the slide card inside the content properties panel
- Change image or delete the slide, by using the controls in the slide card.
There are two additional properties for a carousel:
1: Autoplay, for automatic scrolling between slides, setting the interval in seconds between each slide (the autoplay stops if the recipient interacts with the carousel).
2: Dot navigation, to add a dot for each slide, so that the subscriber can jump to different images without the need to scroll using the arrows. The color of the dots can be defined by the user.
What is BEE?
For those who don’t know. BEE is of the most popular advanced responsive email editors. It uses drag-and-drop blocks and templates to compose responsive emails. Carousel is one of these responsive blocks. BEE doesn’t send email itself, instead, you can build emails to use with your own email marketing platform. The BEE Plugin embeddable email builder app is integrated with a lot of EPS and email sending applications.
Email Editor Roadmap
BEE is already planning to expand its collaborative features further. The upcoming Co-editing feature will allow multiple users to create emails and landing pages together and see each other’s updates in real-time. The final experience will be along the lines of the collaboration approach made famous by Google Docs.
Availability & Pricing
Commenting is available for BEE Email Builder and Page Builder users, even in the free version. While real-time co-editing is only available in the Business plan and custom-priced Enterprise plan.
BEE offers up 30% discounts for annual plans.
