Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By gversion - October 26, 2011

Hello,

Has anyone developed a newsletter plugin so that the Admin can send emails (text/HTML) to registered users? This could integrate with the Membership plugin.

Thank you,
Greg

Re: [gversion] Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By gkornbluth - October 27, 2011

Hi Greg,

Exactly what would you want the "plugin" to do?

Jerry Kornbluth
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Re: [gkornbluth] Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By gversion - October 27, 2011

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for the message.

I suppose there could be a new menu link in cmsAdmin (called "Send Email") that takes the Admin to a WYSIWYG editor. The Admin can then write an HTML email and beneath the WYSIWYG there could be a simple textarea box for Text Only emails. After clicking "Next" the Admin can then select which members/users should receive the email based on certain profile criteria (e.g. ticked a certain checkbox like "I agree to receive the newsletter" but also Ll filter users based on certain membership fields, like all members that have Country set to United States). The plug-in then confirms how many recipients there will be and on confirmation sends the email (using sendmail).

A log of sent emails would be great too.

There's obviously a lot of features this type of plug-in could have but a simple one to begin with would be a great start.

What do you think?

Greg

Re: [gversion] Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By gkornbluth - October 27, 2011

Hi Greg,

I think it sounds really interesting.

Don't have a great deal of time to think on it right now, but now that the thread has begun, maybe others will weigh in.

Jerry
The first CMS Builder reference book is now available on-line!







Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php

Re: [gversion] Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By Jason - October 27, 2011

Hi Greg,

You could create a simple version of this plugin by creating a multi-record section where you would create your emails, have a drop down with recipients that you would select, etc.

Then you could write a simple plugin that uses the record_postsave hook to send the messages (ie, when a record is saved, send the email.). To make it even more functional you could have a checkbox called "sendNow". So a user would have to check that box and hit save for the message to be sent.

Hope this helps get you started. If you are interesting in creating a more complex newsletter plugin, please send an email to consulting@interactivetools.com and we can go over some options.
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Re: [Jason] Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By gversion - October 27, 2011

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the advice. I am certainly going to look further into this and will probably be in touch again for your consultancy service.

In the mean time, can you please tell me how I can see a list of all the available developer's plugin hooks?

Thank you,
Greg

Re: [gversion] Email/Newsletter Plug-in

By Jason - October 28, 2011

Hi Greg,

If you are using CMS Builder v 2.09 or above, click on Admin -> Plugins.

At the bottom of you plugins list you should see this:


Plugin Developers! Click here for a list of plugin hooks


This will give you a list of all the hooks available in your installation.

Hope this helps
---------------------------------------------------
Jason Sauchuk - Project Manager
interactivetools.com

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