Difference between revisions of "Addresslists and newsletters"

Revision as of 12:56, 22 July 2010

Addresslists are useful for:

1. Sending newsletters
2. Categorize contacts because you can filter on them too
3. Quickly select the members in this list in a regular e-mail

Creating an addresslist

To create a list go to:

Addressbook -> Administration -> Addresslists

Click on "Add" in that tab. Enter a name and click on "Apply" to save it.

Now you can add contacts in the addresslist dialog:

Or you can check multiple lists at the "Edit contact" dialog:

Filtering on addresslists

Once you created some addresslists a filter appears at the left in the addressbook. This is useful to quickly view the contents of a list:

Sending newsletters / mailings

An example e-mail template

To send a newsletter you must first create an addresslist and an e-mail template. After that go to:

Addressbook -> Newsletters

The Newsletter status screen will open:

To start a new mailing click "Send mailing":

Select a template if you have created one and select the list to send the newsletter too. Now simply compose your e-mail like you would do with a normal e-mail and click at send.

Datafields in the template will be replaced with data from the addressbook so you can created personalized e-mails.

A background process will send the e-mails. It will send it slowly so it won't bring the server down.

Note:You can also simply select the list from the addressbook at the e-mail composer. This is useful for small lists only.

Using a special SMTP server

If you want to use a different SMTP server to send all mailings you can set the following config variables:

$config['mailing_smtp_encryption']="ssl";//empty, ssl or tls
$config['mailing_smtp_server']="smtp.bulkmail.com";
$config['mailing_smtp_port']="25";
$config['mailing_smtp_username']="";
$config['mailing_smtp_password']="";

Document merging for sending paper letters

To create a merged document to send a letter by regular mail you need to make an export to CSV first and then use that as a datasource for OpenOffice.Org or Microsoft Word.