Author Topic: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders (Read 7097 times)

SarahG (FountainTribe) · June 02, 2009, 09:29:34 pm

How can I test this code? What do I need to upload to my CiviCRM folder? Are they any special configurations?

Thanks,
Sarah

alfred_nutile · June 02, 2009, 11:45:29 pm

You can try changing in the directory below you civicrm folder and run it from there.
patch -p0 < patchname

For example
cd /var/www/web/sites/all/modules
In here is the civicrm folder
patch -p0 < patchname
This should then find the file it is patching

civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Task/PDFLetterCommon.php

You could back it up ahead of time.

That should do it.
If it does not I will do a test on our server.
I did not write it but once me or the other person get a chance we will make it easier to install.

We also have the token module to add more tokens to this as well.
Like last Pledge etc

SarahG (FountainTribe) · June 03, 2009, 07:46:20 am

I am using CiviCRM with Joomla 1.5.10. Could you just upload the new civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Task/PDFLetterCommon.php file to this thread? Then I can just FTP it to my server.

Thanks,
Sarah

alfred_nutile · June 03, 2009, 07:54:05 am

why didn't I think of that ( -:

SarahG (FountainTribe) · June 03, 2009, 09:02:11 am

I am looking forward to downloading the PHP file.

SarahG (FountainTribe) · June 05, 2009, 08:31:08 am

I uploaded the file PDFLetterCommon.php to the folder <my joomla root folder>/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Task

But I do not see this as a choice in the "more actions" pull-down list after searching for a set of contacts. What am I missing? Do I need to "register" the new action?

Thanks,
Sarah

alfred_nutile · June 05, 2009, 08:46:39 am

I emailed the person on the team who made this.
Once I hear back from him I will write down decent install instructions.
Sorry about that.
Say by Monday?

farmrchrys · June 10, 2009, 08:11:20 am

I have also applied the patch but the snail mail option does not appear in the "More Actions" pull-down.

I'm no expert, but it does appear to me that the files civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Task/PDF.php, civicrm/templates/CRM/Contact/Form/Task/PDF.tpl, civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Task/PDFLetterCommon.php and civicrm/templates/CRM/Contact/Form/Task/PDFLetterCommon.tpl do not pre-exist in the CiviCRM 2.2 release but rather are added as new files by this patch. Also, the patch alters more than just adding the file PDFLetterCommon.php, so simply uploading that file to its required location would not be enough to enable the feature. It appears that the alterations the patch applies are also not enough to enable the feature and I'm looking forward to when the patch is fixed and works.

Even though it didn't end up working for me, here is how I did the patch:

On my Ubuntu development machine, I installed the Bazaar version control system (sudo apt-get install bzr). The patch and readme files are stored as a software project on the rivervalleytechcollective.org server. I assume that the most up to date patch will be located there. Once Bazaar is installed, from your terminal, type:

bzr branch http://projects.rivervalleytechcollective.org/bzr/civicrmsnailmail

This will download a directory named civicrmsnailmail into your home directory containing the patch and readme files. Copy the patch file from this directory and place it in your sites/all/modules directory.

In your terminal, change your working directory to sites/all/modules (in my case I typed cd /var/www/sites/all/modules).

Now run the patch program, but I added a switch (-b) to automatically back up all the files that the patch changes.

sudo patch -b -p0 < patchname.patch

In addition to adding the four new files, the patch alters:
civicrm/CRM/Contact/Task.php
civicrm/CRM/Mailing/BAO/Mailing.php

The patch removes this file:
civicrm/CRM/Contribute/Form/Task/PDF.php

Your original files are backed up with ".orig" appended to the filename. Patch will also create empty .orig files for the four new files. They're empty since an original file did not exist previously.

I think that's the way to apply the patch. If anyone has success in enabling the snail mail feature using this method, I'd be curious to know.

Chrys

alfred_nutile · June 10, 2009, 08:30:12 am

I will add this to the documentation once it is all cleared up.
The developer will be free tomorrow (6-10)
So I hope he can set it up for me (as I am waiting too) and then I can pass on and or simply the install.
I might even try again later today now that I see from your notes so more items I could try.

The ultimate is to make this a very easy install which I should have made more clear to the developer.

Sorry about that.

Donald Lobo · June 10, 2009, 09:15:28 am

hey albert:

wanna file an issue and attach the changes as a patch. we'll get this in for 2.3

thanx

lobo

alfred_nutile · June 10, 2009, 09:30:09 am

done
http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-4607
I also noted why this might be tough to install.
Seems I was using a patch to a patch.
But when I looked at the original forum post and patch I can see now this was a patch to get
2.23 working from the 2.2 file.

alfred_nutile · June 10, 2009, 11:07:00 am

(sorry let me rewrite this in a readable format)
For those who really want this now here is the install.
Else maybe when/if Lobo adds it into 2.3?
One
Grab patch 1 below and add it as a patch to 2.2 or higher
This is how I did it on our server.
Civicrm lives in the folder /var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules
so I cd to the folder modules right under civicrm
then I made a folder patch and downloaded the files to there.
So the layout is
/var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules/patch
/var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules/civicrm
and me at the command line /var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules
then run this
patch -p0 < patch/patch_pt1
Lots of output and done.

Two
If it is civicrm 2.23 or higher take the second file and drop it into the folder of civicrm that it needs to go into.
/var/www/drupal/sites/all/modules/civicrm/CRM/Contact/Form/Task
and remove the .txt ending

That should be it.
Now if I can only fix the cool token module we made.

Remind me never to complain about modules that lack documentation

man this is harder then coding

petednz · June 10, 2009, 08:57:00 pm

Alfred - you are doing a great job trying to share this with the community.

Above you have

Quote

If it is civicrm 2.3 or higher

should that have read 2.2.3 (and higher up should it say 2.2.2 not 2.2)?

alfred_nutile · June 10, 2009, 09:35:27 pm

thanks

it is such a key piece I think.
Every non-profit I have dealt with still does snail mail and still strugles with short term staff that do not know how to do mail merges.

I made a full address token to help with blank lines for the Full Address since that was a tough one.

tim g. · August 10, 2010, 03:18:13 am

I've been searching for four days regarding a branch of this topic and this is as close as I could get so far on what I am looking for. And this will be a lot closer than I'm thinking if this "print to pdf" solution also includes an activity that is generated which I can do a search on. ... I'll be testing this in a few minutes on the test database; so perhaps I'll answer my own question soon.

In any case, so as to make myself as clear as possible; here is the run-down :-) He Cares foundation desires to track snail mail that is sent to CiviCRM contacts.

Summary
Most of their future mailings will be modeled after this one. They want to:
a) Send out a snail mail letter asking for a donation to build a children's home.
b) Track and lookup how many people responded back to this letter.
c) Send one of three followup letters to this first mailing based on; did the prospective donor:
... respond back with a yes
... respond back with a "not at this time".
... not respond back at all.
d) track (or pull up numbers) regarding the number of people that responded back to those three snail mail mailings.

I've read over options for the last four days that lean mostly toward using "Activities" as a solution here. However I've read some things about CiviCase that make me wonder (until someone comes up with a CiviCampaign addition) if CiviCase wouldn't be able to track several parts of a Campaign to raise funds for a building.

Any advice or direction that you might offer would be appreciated; thanks.

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Author Topic: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders (Read 7097 times)

SarahG (FountainTribe)

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

SarahG (FountainTribe)

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

SarahG (FountainTribe)

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

SarahG (FountainTribe)

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

farmrchrys

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

Donald Lobo

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

petednz

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

alfred_nutile

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders

tim g.

Re: Using Snail mail for renewal reminders