Author Topic: Storing "Interests" against contacts (Read 1447 times)

Chris Burgess · April 15, 2008, 06:08:09 pm

We have 50 (~) issues which we'd like to post on our site to let people stay notified of updates on those issues.

Initially we figured we'd set up custom data for "interests" (custom data group) and "issue: xxx" (custom field) for each issue, then send CiviMail from an advanced search result set.

However, CiviMail seems to want a pre-defined mailing group, so we'd have to generate smart groups off the custom data values.

It seems that generating opt-in groups for each issue and letting people subscribe / unsubscribe is a cleaner way to achieve this - saves on a smart group query and reduces the data we need to store.

Would there any remaining advantage to the former method?

(I'm thinking I may then add a custom tab which DISPLAYS the interests for a person, so that staff who don't have view/edit on the groups tab can still be shown the interests ...)

Dave Greenberg · April 16, 2008, 11:41:18 am

Seems like both options are fairly equivalent. One advantage of the custom field + smart group solution is that it allows you to know that someone is interested in Issue A (by looking at their selections in your custom data group tab) even if they've opted out of receiving mailings on the topic (i.e. they've opted out of the associated smart group). Also, the custom field option might make it a bit more intuitive to do searches / create smart groups that are combinations of issues as / if needed. (Of course you can do this for mailings in either configuration by selecting multiple recipient groups, etc.).

Chris Burgess · April 16, 2008, 12:39:35 pm

Thanks, Dave, really helpful input!

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Author Topic: Storing "Interests" against contacts (Read 1447 times)

Chris Burgess

Storing "Interests" against contacts

Dave Greenberg

Re: Storing "Interests" against contacts

Chris Burgess

Re: Storing "Interests" against contacts