Email template form for the mass mailer

I just got a message from another site that says:

Dear Membername,

Administration of the Mysite.com is glad to inform you that

========================

message text

-------------

Where is the template for this text.  I am about to use the mass mailer, and want to change or eliminate it.   I couldn't find a template file for this in settings/email templates.  Does anyone know where it is?

Rob

I believe this is the "Email template for message sending from the Admin Panel." from the admin/settings/email template

Ok thank  you, that seems to be it - but now I have another problem.  I just sent out a message to a site I have with a small test community with about eight members.  I am one of them and I have one other email address in there- but I didn't get any messages.  It now says the queue is empty.  Before, it said there were four messages.  But why four - there should have been eight.  I'd like to gget a message out tomorrow so if anyone has some insight for me it would be helpful.

Rob

Update: one of the guys in the test community just wrote that he got a message - but I didn't.   Does it not go out to the same domain that sends it or something?

I think, not sure becouse I got some similar problems, that you need to edit your user profiles and mark where say: Allow mass mailer or something similar. In join form don´t show this field but yes when you edit profile. Try and let us know.

I would like to use my own template: bg color, tables... but I only can add my logo in email templates. If any know... any way thank you.

mdroca - how do I do this?  Are you saying this is a profile field? - I don't see it.  Are you saying some members might have gotten this option unchecked somehow?  My test mailing worked - partly, but there is an anomaly - it only went to about half of them I think.

Isn't mass mailer only for people who specifically use the subscribe to newsletter feature and not everyone on the site?

No, I don't think so - at least I hope it is not.  When you send a message it asks you this question.   Have other people used this successfully here?  Did the message get out to all your members?

Crap!  I just went to send my email broadcast and it only put 50 members in the queue, so I quickly killed it.  I have more than 300 members.   I am now suspecting that this has something to do with the "age" settings which I have made optional.  Boonex requires that you state an age range for setting a message, and as usual they didn't think of "not stated" option.   Is there a way around this that someone could help me with.  I really need to get this message out today.

Rob

From the Mass Mailer, You type in the Subject and Body (text) that you want to send to your members.  Once you have completed it, you would then click submit. Once submitted you need to queue it from the "Messages" drop down option . You can choose Members and Subscribers or either from there and then click submit again. Here are some things to remember:

- It WILL NOT process ALL emails at one time. I dont know how may it sends at a time (like 20 or something) so its possible for you to see 50 queued, then come back later and see 20 queued, until its finished, which may take several minutes depending on the amount of members.

- Your members must have valid email addresses listed (if no email address has been added, those members will remain in queue.)

- Your members must have a "birthdate" entered in their profile. Mass mailer sends to everyone between 18-75 by default. (if no birthdate has been added, those members will remain in queue.)

I cannot check my site at the moment to tell you exactly where the email template for this:

Dear Membername,

Administration of the Mysite.com is glad to inform you that

however, it should be with the rest of them in the Admin Panel as stated previously.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Chris, thanks - that explains the "50" part - that was such a round number I was going to ask that anyway.  That is still a major usability issue in my opinion though - from the user perspective the "queue" would be all the message you submitted for processing.

The birthday requirement is a MAJOR problem for me though, and probably most business sites.  We worked so hard to make age "non mandatory" and this is a big setback that I though they would have considered.  Maybe there are obscure reasons you would send only certain messages to certain ages for some sites, but did they have to make it impossible for the rest of us to send messages as a result?

I need to know from you - or anybody, if there is a way to get rid of this age requirement so I can get this message out.  It is something of an emergency.

Rob

I understand Rob, but unfortunately I do not know of a way to disable the age function. There may be something in the database that will allow the  mass mailer age settings to be changed from 18-75 to something like 0-75. As stated previously, I cannot verify the database settings at this time.

Your site is quite a bit different than what Boonex planned for Dolphin be. Since originally it was meant as a 'dating' software and slid somewhat towards the 'social networking', I doubt very seriously they thought of anybody using the software as a 'business' platform.

Anywho, check some of the mass mailing tables in the database to see if your can see the age requirements and if you do, change the 18 to a 0 (zero). of course always make backups.... just in case :)

Chris

Chris - don't go there.  I don't want this thread to turn into a philosophy debate, and I already know will will jump in here to support your position.  There are LOTS of people here using this for business sites, and Boonex has done lots to make them much easier.  This is just a technical issue I need to solve.

Rob

p.s.  by the way, I really can't imagine that dating sites need to limit the ages they need to send messages out to all that often.  If they are adult sites, they shouldn't have members under 18 anyway.  So they sometimes want to send messages to members between 30 and 40 for example?  Maybe, but it can't be that common - certainly not as common as the people who don't want revealing age to be a requirement in their sites.

I am not sure it this will help with your issue or not. It may require more extensive changes than this. I do not want to test this on my live sites, and i don't have a test site with fake accounts with various or no DOB entered. So this is just a guess.

Try editing administration\notifies.php

Around line 253 look for this.

function getQueueMessage() {
global $aPreValues;

if ( $_REQUEST['msgs_id'] ) {
$aSexValues = getFieldValues('Sex');
foreach($aSexValues as $sKey => $sValue)
$aSexValues[$sKey] = _t($sValue);

$aStartAgesOptions = array();
$aEndAgesOptions = array();
$gl_search_start_age = (int)getParam('search_start_age');
$gl_search_end_age = (int)getParam('search_end_age');


Change 2 lines to this.

function getQueueMessage() {
global $aPreValues;

if ( $_REQUEST['msgs_id'] ) {
$aSexValues = getFieldValues('Sex');
foreach($aSexValues as $sKey => $sValue)
$aSexValues[$sKey] = _t($sValue);

$aStartAgesOptions = array();
$aEndAgesOptions = array();
$gl_search_start_age = 0;
$gl_search_end_age = 1000;


See if that does anything to get around your age issue.

Oh. forgot to mention. When you go to queue the message, just leave the age as it is. My hope is that this little mod will queue it regardless of what the age is set for.

I'll have to dig deeper to actually remove all of the age options.

Dean - that was VERY cool of you to do that!   I just looked at my member database as noticed that about one third of my members have no birthdate entered, so I made a "management decision" to send out the message.  I will have to go back and send the message to the people without birthdays now.   I still need to resolve this obviously, and I think others will need this fix also.  I'm not sure how to test this though - I have a small test community so maybe I will try it there.

Rob

Sorry, Rob, wasn't trying to start any type of debates. Just stating what Boonex probably never thought about. So Here is your fix:

Log into your database and open the sys_options table

Click the browse and go to page 2. You are looking for 'search_start_age'

Click the pencil icon to edit that field. Change 18 to 0

Click Go

**  Optional: edit the search_start_age and change 75 to 100. Click Go

Clear your /cache directory except for the .htaccess file.

Go back into your mass mailer and you will see, when you queue the email it will now display Age: 0 as the start age.

NOTE: This change will be reflected globally when searching and displaying members as well.

This was really fun trying to figure out using a G1 Google Phone. :)

Chris

Cool - thank you Chris!

Sorry, I had arrived now at home, could not reply before.

If you use Deano´s tools and enter to members acounts with this tool, you can see 1 check box that I did not see before, here is 1 pic:

That is what I wanted to say.

If that's what that option does then to force everyone to be on the mass email list you go into the profile edit admin.  on the EmailNotify, open it up and put the default option to 1.  Then take it off the join form and edit profile form.  That way when anyone joins, the system will automatically subscribe them and they can't unsubscribe.

Wow - I am really grateful to everyone who jumped in here - this was the first time I have had what I would call an "emergency" here, but for some complicated business reason, I had to get a message out today.  I appreciate everyone who saw this was an SOS and responded with help.  Okweb also has a solution he wrote me about, but I haven't looked at it yet.   Thanks for your help everybody!

Rob

p.s.  I'm not using Deano's tools yet, but I do like the idea of being able to turn on and turn off individual members from receiving this - the mass mailer is not very user friendly.

Most likely the reason you have not noticed that check box before is because it is not available in admin accounts. Standard members have that option so they can stop getting mass emails from the sites admin.

Ok, I get it, that is the "email notify" field right?  But it doesn't appear on the admin edit profile fields section by default, so I have to get the Deano tools to be able to do that - is that correct.   Good idea Dean - but that should be part of D7.  I think they likely didn't put that there because they don't think admin should be able to override, but I disagree.