CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

*

News:

Have a question about CiviCRM?
Get it answered quickly at the new
CiviCRM Stack Exchange Q+A site
This forum was archived on 25 November 2017. Learn more.
How to get involved.
What to do if you think you've found a bug.



  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
  • Old sections (read-only, deprecated) »
  • Discussion (deprecated) »
  • Feature Requests and Suggestions »
  • Usability Improvements (Moderator: Dave Greenberg) »
  • Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups  (Read 2187 times)

Michael McAndrew

  • Forum Godess / God
  • I live on this forum
  • *****
  • Posts: 1274
  • Karma: 55
    • Third Sector Design
  • CiviCRM version: various
  • CMS version: Nearly always Drupal
  • MySQL version: 5.5
  • PHP version: 5.3
Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups
December 10, 2008, 12:19:23 pm
Hi there,

A client of mine came up with (what I think is) a great and simple idea for a bit of very usable functionality...

A shortcut menu item that goes directly to a form you can use to create an email for a particular mailing group.  (the idea is that you reduce the number of clicks and thinking that is currently required (I counted six clicks and a fair few moves around the interface) for a task that I imagine is carried out quite a lot by some clients.

Obviously not suitable for all mailing situations, but perhaps for the majority of them, and it is a good quick win, I think -  "look how easy it is to send mailings to groups".

Having a standard select dropdown would be good for a small number of lists which could then change to dojo for installations
with too many mailing lists.

I'll most likely work on this functionality very soon.  Before I start, any thoughts / suggestions / pointers on how to do this / increasing likelyhood and ease with which it could be added to a future release.

Cheers,
Michael
Service providers: Grow your business, build your reputation and support CiviCRM. Become a partner today

Dave Greenberg

  • Administrator
  • I’m (like) Lobo ;)
  • *****
  • Posts: 5760
  • Karma: 226
    • My CiviCRM Blog
Re: Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups
December 10, 2008, 04:30:56 pm
Micheal - Do you envision this as a shortcut into the CiviMail "New Mailing" Wizard - skipping steps 1 and 2 and going directly to Compose / Upload message step?

Or is this for "smaller" group mailings using the "Send Email to Contacts" task currently available from '-more actions-' dropdown in Find Contacts and other search interfaces?
Protect your investment in CiviCRM by  becoming a Member!

petednz

  • Forum Godess / God
  • I’m (like) Lobo ;)
  • *****
  • Posts: 4899
  • Karma: 193
    • Fuzion
  • CiviCRM version: 3.x - 4.x
  • CMS version: Drupal 6 and 7
Re: Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups
December 10, 2008, 10:00:04 pm
I'm hoping he means a shortcut to step 3 which I can see a really useful tool - especially if it let you 'step in' at step 3, with the option of stepping back to 2 or even 1 if necessary.
Sign up to StackExchange and get free expert advice: https://civicrm.org/blogs/colemanw/get-exclusive-access-free-expert-help

pete davis : www.fuzion.co.nz : connect + campaign + communicate

Michael McAndrew

  • Forum Godess / God
  • I live on this forum
  • *****
  • Posts: 1274
  • Karma: 55
    • Third Sector Design
  • CiviCRM version: various
  • CMS version: Nearly always Drupal
  • MySQL version: 5.5
  • PHP version: 5.3
Re: Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups
December 11, 2008, 04:21:11 am
Hi there,

I was thinking about the simpler smaller 1 click email version for the kind of every day email (e.g. "Change of venue for Children and Young People's meeting tomorrow") where someone wants CiviCRM to behave as if it were their email client/contacts book and isn't concerned about track throughs, opt outs, etc.

I can see how the more sophisticated version using CiviMail would be very useful for the kind of email that you want to make look pretty, schedule, use tokens, test etc, but it doesn't match my particularuse case.

Probably there is room for both - the CiviMail based option is good for experts - people that are into marketing, email communication and so on, but the simpler one is good for front line staff who aren't concerned with that kind of thing and just want to send an email.



Service providers: Grow your business, build your reputation and support CiviCRM. Become a partner today

Dave Greenberg

  • Administrator
  • I’m (like) Lobo ;)
  • *****
  • Posts: 5760
  • Karma: 226
    • My CiviCRM Blog
Re: Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups
December 11, 2008, 01:54:11 pm
Quote from: michaelmcandrew on December 10, 2008, 12:19:23 pm
I'll most likely work on this functionality very soon.  Before I start, any thoughts / suggestions / pointers on how to do this / increasing likelyhood and ease with which it could be added to a future release.

Michael - some suggestions on how to proceed with this (which I think is a cool idea btw):

* Implement the "Send Email to Group" widget as a block - similar to the existing Contact Search block (this way folks - at least on the Drupal side can easily enable or exclude it).
* Modify the Send Email to Contacts form / postProcess so that it can accept EITHER an array of contact IDs (as it does presently) OR a group ID. The form should provide a drop-down of mailing list groups if it's in 'groups' mode (rather than the read-only list of target contacts - which it displays for the batch "task). The GET param can pass the selected group (but the user could change and pick a different one prior to sending).

We should be able to incorporate this in core for 2.3. Would be good for you to file an issue for 2.3 as a placeholder once you have working code. It might need some tweaking prior to that release - but can work with you on that it needed.
Protect your investment in CiviCRM by  becoming a Member!
Pages: [1]
  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
  • Old sections (read-only, deprecated) »
  • Discussion (deprecated) »
  • Feature Requests and Suggestions »
  • Usability Improvements (Moderator: Dave Greenberg) »
  • Shortcut to send emails to mailing list groups

This forum was archived on 2017-11-26.