CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

We have recently run into an issue where we need to set a default value for mail merge tokens such as

First Name,
Last Name,
etc.

sometimes the contact does not have a value for the contact so we would like to specify a default value for these fields when we insert the token.

Currently, the most viable way of doing it is using a hook mentioned in this blog post:

http://civicrm.org/node/637

From an old documentation below (which was outdated), it stated that specifying something like {token | default_value} would merge in a default value if the token is empty.

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC33/Mail+Generator#MailGenerator-Nullvaluesanddefaults

Although this method did not work with the 3.3 branch, I like the approach better. I think there are enough interests out there to build this into a core feature.


I'd like to get started by looking at implementing the second way with some simple (scalar valued) tokens first and then perhaps creating more complicated syntax for other token merges.


Any comments and feedbacks are much appreciated!



Cheers!

hey chang:

a couple of thoughts and comments:

1. Can u make the "default" parameter passing generic so we can introduce other parameters as needed. We might want to go with a "name=value" type mechanism. If you can build this into the token parser that would be great and help follow on projects

2. For default, this is not gonna be an issue. But we need to avoid making any additional DB calls in the core inner loop of delivering email. Slows down mail delivery!

3. Make sure we pass these parameters onto the hook. Since we are doing this, we should also tell the hook the tokens we are interested in, so it can ignore the request if needed

lobo

a few things:

1. if you are not calling the DB, it should not affect the speed significantly.

2. Make sure u pass the default values to the hook also

3. for the main civimail workflow, changing it in the getDetails function is probably the most efficient (and minimal code changes). Will also need to fix here: CRM/Mailing/BAO/Mailing.php (line 1325).

ping me on irc if needed and we can discuss details

lobo

Sorry about resurrecting this thread, but this seems like the most recent discussion of this issue - it's an issue that it seems a lot of users are running into. Sending an email that's addressed to Dear , just looks bad. Considering all the great work that's been done on CiviMail, it's a real shame to make such an inelegant and "computer-y" impression right at the beginning of a message.

Not being a developer, I'm not sure what to do with the code from http://civicrm.org/node/637 or if it's even still relevant for 3.4.

And http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC33/Mail+Generator#MailGenerator-Nullvaluesanddefaults doesn't work for 3.4 either, unfortunately.

I'm assuming future developments will be on this thread - please correct me if there's somewhere else I should be looking.

Otherwise, any guidance much appreciated - thanks!