Scheduled/Custom emails for single contacts

[Freya von Moltke-Foundation]

Hello everyone,

We are using CiviCRM 4.3.5. I am not sure if this is a feature that exists or not, but we would at least to use a feature like this.

As of now, we can only create scheduled emails to send to our contacts as groups. This means, if we have an event, for example, we can create a mass mail that would be sent to the entire group at a certain time. What we can't do is create a scheduled email for a single contact. What would be very functional and helpful, is if one could create an email and schedule it to be sent to the contact at a later date/time. So write an email during the week and schedule it to be sent to the contact on the weekend, for example.

Is this something that is possible? If not would it be useful to implement?   

[joanne]

You can do that in 4.3 with CiviMail by creating a mail group consisting of just the one person you want to send an email to. 

In 4.4 you can also do it via a scheduled email using the "limit recipients" functionality. I don't know if that was available in 4.3 as I skipped from 4.2 to 4.4.

In 4.5 you will be able send scheduled emails based on a contact (including custom) date fields so that for example you could send Happy Birthday emails to any children in your database.

[JonGold]

Agreed - I think the way to handle this is Scheduled Reminders.

* First, create a new activity type called "Scheduled E-mail" (Administer menu > Customize Data and Screens > Activity Type).
* Then set up a scheduled reminder (Administer menu > Communications > Schedule Reminders) on that activity type that triggers 0 hours after the activity time. 
* If everyone gets the same scheduled e-mail, just enter it; if people get customized (or partially customized) e-mails, make use of the Activity Subject and Activity Detail tokens.

Now you can create a new activity of "Scheduled E-mail" for a user, set the date/time you want them to receive it, and if necessary, customize the e-mail through the subject and detail fields.

[vantuykom]

In 4.5 you will be able send scheduled emails based on a contact (including custom) date fields so that for example you could send Happy Birthday emails to any children in your database.

Hi,
I have installed the beta of civicrm 4.5, but how can I schedule birthday mails?

[JonGold]

vantuykom,

Under "Schedule Reminders", set "Entity" to "Contact".  You didn't specify which beta you installed, but I just checked trunk, and it's in there!

[vantuykom]

:-) thank you!