Sequential email and/or autoresponder

[sraisz]

Our organization needs to provide a way to setup a series of emails that go out to a contact. This could either be through a signup online or by manually registering the contact after signing up on the phone or at an event.

The Drupal Autoresponder module does what we want but currently does not allow for manually adding users. Plus, it is not integrated with CiviCRM.

There are some patches I am looking at and there is also a workaround to log out and enter the emails as an anonymous user.

Another option is to use an external mailing service like IContact and use the Drupal Icontact integration module.

I would appreciate any suggestions for this need.

Are there any plans for a sequential email function in Civimail?

Many thanks to all the wonderful folks behind CiviCRM

[Dave Greenberg]

There is no such feature currently - but there is definitely a need. Lobo has blogged about the idea of integrating CiviCRM with the Drupal Rules module to address a wide variety of workflow automation features.

http://civicrm.org/node/676

If you're interested in working on this or sponsoring the core team to do so - let us know!

[sraisz]

I'm not a programmer. But I could possibly get some of our volunteers involved.

I am definitely interested in doing what I can. How would sponsoring the core team work?

[Dave Greenberg]

I am definitely interested in doing what I can. How would sponsoring the core team work?

Check out this document for an overview and example:
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Developing+with+the+CiviCRM+team

Lobo's blog lays out a broad "specification" for this work. If you're interested in moving forward with sponsorship - we would work with you to define a first iteration of the rules integration work that meets your primary use cases, and then provide a cost estimate. I'll ask Lobo to post a very rough ballpark estimate (probably will be a pretty big range at this stage) so you can get a sense of whether you might have budget for this.

[Donald Lobo]

A large part of this work will be more rules integration. We can target it so that the integration meets your needs in an early version. If i had to take a guess, i suspect this will be between 40-60 hours of work to get the first version running

lobo

[sraisz]

I apologize for the delay in response. I have been looking for potential funding for this.

I have now a possible source. Is there a process for trying to get a few of us who need this to chip in what they can?

[Donald Lobo]

you should contact eileen (http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1744) and check with her.

depending on the funding u already have and how much more is required, we can figure out if its a good project for "civicrm make it happen" (http://civicrm.org/blogs/eileen/making-it-happen)

lobo

[m^3]

Any news about this? We have long experience with drupal, but just starting with civicrm. We are very interested in getting some automation to sending emails, which way should we look currently?

[Dave Greenberg]

Version 4.1 (now in beta) includes automated "Scheduled Reminder" emails. This feature allows you to configure automated emails to go out based on changes in status of activities, or based on events (e.g. send all registered participants THIS mailing 3 days prior to an event).

This functionality was the result of a successful Make it Happen campaign - and can potentially be expanded to cover over scenarios.

Some integration with Drupal's rules module was also done to support moderation of CiviMail email sending workflow. This approach could also be extended.

You might want to start by spec'ing our your specific automation requirements.

[m^3]

Sound great. How could I check the functionality available, has anyone done any examples?

[Dave Greenberg]

Formal documentation for this has not been written yet (wanna help once you try it out :-) ). Some descriptions of the functionality at:
http://civicrm.org/blogs/lobo/recap-consulting-project-automated-reminder-emails-and-lot-more (for activities)
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Scheduled+Reminders+for+Events (for events)