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Author Topic: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1  (Read 1918 times)

Michael McAndrew

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Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
March 29, 2011, 11:50:55 am
Hi guys,

Have come across two conflicting forum posts from 2008:

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,5556.msg24360.html#msg24360
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,3140.msg13844.html#msg13844

My experience is that you can't do this (as Lobo suggested) but I wanted to raise the following use case.

We have a smart group which is called Newsletter.  The criteria for this smart group is Individual.  The use case is that we want everyone who is added to CiviCRM to be added to the newsletter, so when someone signs up for an event, they get added to the newsletter, if we add someone manually they get added to the newsletter, etc.

But we also want to give people the chance to subscribe to the newsletter as an action in itself, and the obvious way to do that is via the mailing/subscribe page.  But the smart group won't appear here even if we tell it to (because of the query described in http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,5556.msg24360.html#msg24360).

There's an argument that says you shouldn't need to subsribe to a smart group, but that doesn't apply in this use case.  And why give the option for a smart group to be public if it isn't ever going to be displayed? - let people set that themselves via the admin interface.

Hence I am saying that we should remove the clause that removes smart groups from being public.

Yay or Nay?
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Donald Lobo

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
March 29, 2011, 03:40:22 pm

i'd vote nay in this case :)

It just makes things more complex and explaining the "exception" thing to most users is a bit non-trivial

In your below case, wont most contacts who sign up always be part of the "Individual" smart group, and hence will receive the newsletter

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
March 30, 2011, 02:57:20 am
as usual trying to find a way around things in a non-technical way - can you have then sign up to a standard group X - and you email those in Group X, and a Smart Group of all those not 'added' or 'removed' from Group X? Or some such convolution?
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Michael McAndrew

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
March 30, 2011, 04:39:52 am
"wont most contacts who sign up always be part of the "Individual" smart group, and hence will receive the newsletter"

Quote
wont most contacts who sign up always be part of the "Individual" smart group

The point is that we want an easy route for newsletter sign up for people that aren't involved with the org in any other way.

i.e. we want our newsletter to consist of everyone that heard about the org, found the website, and now wants to receive the newsletter AND everyone else who interacts with the organisation in any other way (e.g. signs up for an event).

that is a pretty common use case, no?

IMO the simple way to do this is have a smart group that also allows public sign up.

Thanks for the suggestion Peter's, but it doesn't go down well with the admins of the site because (as you say) it is super convoluted and something weird that admins have to remember.

IMO making smart groups obey the Is Public option makes things less complex :)

Either that or you should remove the Public drop down from smart groups (but that would be bad IMO).

Quote
explaining the "exception" thing to most users is a bit non-trivial
- explaining that a smart group is a saved search is suprisingly non trivial in most cases.  what extra would you have to explain to them? at the mo, you have to explain that a smart group is a saved search minus anyone that has unsubscribed from that group. so you would just have to add "and anyone that signs up via a public page if you make this a public smart group".
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Donald Lobo

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
March 30, 2011, 06:29:07 pm

i dont understand why a simple smart group of All Individuals does not capture this use case. Ping me on IRC and we can discuss

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
March 31, 2011, 12:58:29 am
Hi,

Not sure I'm  offering the same suggestion than one of the other smart participants, but why don't you

1) create a regular "manual registration to the newsletter" public group
2) let people register in it using the normal subscribe form
... there isn't any 3, as they are individuals, they are already in the smart group newsletter and life is good.

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Michael McAndrew

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
April 06, 2011, 04:33:37 am
Hey Xavier,

I do like your suggestion.

Only downside is that you have an extra group on the back end which could be confused with the real smart group by the less enlightened.  Especially if the name of it is something that would also be suitable to display on the public site like 'Subscribe to our newsletter'.

Still not sure what is wrong with my suggestion though :)
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Roman Zimmermann

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
April 06, 2011, 04:57:49 am
Isn't it possible to create a smart-group where with (Pseudocode): $search_criteria OR is_in_group('manual signup') ?

Michael McAndrew

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
April 06, 2011, 05:31:33 am
Quote
Isn't it possible to create a smart-group where with (Pseudocode): $search_criteria OR is_in_group('manual signup') ?
yes :)
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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
April 06, 2011, 05:51:28 am
Quote from: michaelmcandrew on April 06, 2011, 05:31:33 am
Quote
Isn't it possible to create a smart-group where with (Pseudocode): $search_criteria OR is_in_group('manual signup') ?
yes :)

So AFAIK it's possible to implement this use-case with a smart-group that is a superset of a "normal" group, like mentioned above. There is no need to let people subscribe to a smart-group at all ;)

Michael McAndrew

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Re: Subscribe to a smart group on civicrm/mailing/subscribe?reset=1
April 06, 2011, 09:23:00 am
The problem with that is that you then end up with two groups in the backend with confusing / similar names

* "monthly newsletter subscribers (use this to send mailings)"
* "monthly newsletter" (you can't warn people not to use this in the title because it will be exposed in the front end).

So my solution is expose one smart group (criteria: individuals) in the front end.  Much neater IMO.

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