CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I am new to the web admin game, I have installed CiviCRM and use it a lot, it's a GREAT program for what we use if for.

But, I want to use CiviMailer, and I am completely lost.  I can't even get the mailer to kick off with the manual URL.

I am running it on Joomla.  There is a great tutorial for Drupal, but I can't find anything on Joomla.  But, the manual addresses and all of the other URLs don't correspond at all with how mine is set up.

Any help would be excellent.  I have the SMTP set up and working, but I can't use CiviMailer.  I don't know how to do the Cron part (there is a cron scheduler on HostGator which I also don't know how to use).  I know I'm in over my head here, but I really need to get this working.

Please help.  Thank you.

Bounces go to the from: ? Wondering it hostgator forces that behaviour (php running in safe mode can create that problem).

As for the config, you should try to follow the steps as described in our book:
http://book.civicrm.org/user/basic-setup/email-system-configuration

and as you have been able to force send, you should be able to translate between drupal urls and joomla urls

Thanks guys, I'll start checking that all out.  I  use Google Apps for my email, which has a limit of 450 per day.  How can I throttle or split jobs with the CiviMailer?  Does anyone know how that works?

hi,

May I suggest you NOT to use gmail for mass mailing? It's simply not made for that, and they will change the limit and whatelse.

I would advise you to either manage your own smtp server or switch to a smtp provider that does work on big mailing volumes.

X+

hi,

May I suggest you NOT to use gmail for mass mailing? It's simply not made for that, and they will change the limit and whatelse.

I would advise you to either manage your own smtp server or switch to a smtp provider that does work on big mailing volumes.

X+

Good suggestion, but all of the rest of our emails are set up through the Google apps and the users are unwilling to change, or pay extra money to secure our own SMTP server.  Is there something free that I can do quickly?  A lot to ask I know!

Set your cron for whatever you want and then calculate how many emails per cron run. Yes, you could set it for 450 and then do cron once a day. Or, for example, set it to 225 and run cron twice a day.

I really appreciate your help on this.  So, do the split cron jobs show up as being split in the CiviMail section? Or is that behind the scenes they're split into bite size pieces?

All behind the scenes.

Thank you so much.  Now if I even knew how to begin with the cron job stuff.... I have read the tutorial at:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC40/CiviMail+Installation#CiviMailInstallation-SettingUptheCronJob

It seems like it would work, but I don't know what kind of file to put the script in or where the script goes.

I contacted my host and they said the preferred method was to use their cron scheduler.  In the scheduler, I get the options of how often to run and then a line for code, then I save it.  I have tried every variation of what I have been able to find in the the manuals and forums and I still can't ever get anything to kick off.  I think the one that should work per the sites I have seen is:

wget -O - -q -t 1 \ http://www.opoa.info/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/bin/deprecated/civimail.cronjob.php

However, I put that in 2 hours ago to run on the quarter and it hasn't yet kicked anything off.  Any ideas?

Thanks again for being so helpful guys.  After this gets working I'm taking you out for a cold one.