Forcing BCC: when e-mailing
19 posts by 6 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: August 12, 2010 (RSS)
By Chris - January 26, 2010
Hi Jerry,
What you're already doing is probably a really good solution. I think this would be very complicated to automate completely.
1. Turning a web page into an email, complete with embedded CSS and images would be no simple task. Internet Explorer is saving you piles of work here.
2. Without a completely automatic solution, copying-and-pasting is about as fast as you're going to get.
3. You'd need to tell even an automated solution which return and from addresses to use, unless you're using the same ones every time.
Finally, actually sending emails is best done in batches and staggered over time, as djulia recommends above, but if you wanted to do this with any large number of emails from PHP, you'll also have to deal with your web server timing out and data persistence.
You'd need a custom plugin to have something run from within the CMSB interface.
That all said, nothing is impossible. I'm sure we could build you a custom plugin via our custom programming services, but I suspect you wouldn't save much time compared to the development costs.
I'll keep my brain and ears out for simpler solutions and let you know if I think of anything. I hope this helps!
What you're already doing is probably a really good solution. I think this would be very complicated to automate completely.
1. Turning a web page into an email, complete with embedded CSS and images would be no simple task. Internet Explorer is saving you piles of work here.
2. Without a completely automatic solution, copying-and-pasting is about as fast as you're going to get.
3. You'd need to tell even an automated solution which return and from addresses to use, unless you're using the same ones every time.
Finally, actually sending emails is best done in batches and staggered over time, as djulia recommends above, but if you wanted to do this with any large number of emails from PHP, you'll also have to deal with your web server timing out and data persistence.
I’d like to automate the process from CMSB so that once the eblast was created, it could be sent to the appropriate list without leaving the CMSB interface.
You'd need a custom plugin to have something run from within the CMSB interface.
That all said, nothing is impossible. I'm sure we could build you a custom plugin via our custom programming services, but I suspect you wouldn't save much time compared to the development costs.
I'll keep my brain and ears out for simpler solutions and let you know if I think of anything. I hope this helps!
All the best,
Chris
Chris
Re: [chris] Forcing BCC: when e-mailing
Thanks Chris,
Which I guess brings me back to the core issue here, which is a way to force the sender to use BCC instead of either of the other options and exposing the entire e-mail list.
Jerry
Which I guess brings me back to the core issue here, which is a way to force the sender to use BCC instead of either of the other options and exposing the entire e-mail list.
Jerry
The first CMS Builder reference book is now available on-line!
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
By Chris - January 26, 2010
Does anyone know of a mail client which can help prevent these kinds of mistakes?
I know Gmail has a Forgotten Attachment Detector which has saved me some embarassment.
I know Gmail has a Forgotten Attachment Detector which has saved me some embarassment.
All the best,
Chris
Chris
Re: [chris] Forcing BCC: when e-mailing
Hi Chris,
I’ve actually found some programs that force a BCC:
http://www.ablebits.com/outlook-blind-carbon-copy-bcc-email-addins/index.php
and the one mentioned above by flamerz
http://www.xellsoft.com/TurboMailer.html
I have nothing against using an 3rd party program, I was just hoping to incorporate all the functionality into CMSB.
All of these 3rd party programs rely on other external programs: Internet Explorer, Outlook or Outlook express, etc. for some of their functionality.
When implementing these solutions, there are sure to be issues of clients not having IE, or not using outlook and other restrictions that I’m sure will pop up on the client side that I was hoping to sidestep.
I think that the biggest issue will be creating an mailing viewer template that is secure, that can send batches of e-mails without the web server timing out and having data persistence issues, that gives the sender reliable information about success and returned e-mails, and that works.
I don’t necessarily see a major issue in attaching viewer generated HTML code to this viewer, but I’m sure that the devil will be in the details.
Just under example 4 in a post on http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
that dealt with sending HTML email with mail(), there was a mention of http://pear.php.net/package/Mail_Mime
I really wish that I understood more about all of this.
Just some thoughts. Every organization deals with this issue and it might be a beneficial plugin for all.
Thanks again for all you do for us.
Best,
Jerry Kornbluth
I’ve actually found some programs that force a BCC:
http://www.ablebits.com/outlook-blind-carbon-copy-bcc-email-addins/index.php
and the one mentioned above by flamerz
http://www.xellsoft.com/TurboMailer.html
I have nothing against using an 3rd party program, I was just hoping to incorporate all the functionality into CMSB.
All of these 3rd party programs rely on other external programs: Internet Explorer, Outlook or Outlook express, etc. for some of their functionality.
When implementing these solutions, there are sure to be issues of clients not having IE, or not using outlook and other restrictions that I’m sure will pop up on the client side that I was hoping to sidestep.
I think that the biggest issue will be creating an mailing viewer template that is secure, that can send batches of e-mails without the web server timing out and having data persistence issues, that gives the sender reliable information about success and returned e-mails, and that works.
I don’t necessarily see a major issue in attaching viewer generated HTML code to this viewer, but I’m sure that the devil will be in the details.
Just under example 4 in a post on http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
that dealt with sending HTML email with mail(), there was a mention of http://pear.php.net/package/Mail_Mime
I really wish that I understood more about all of this.
Just some thoughts. Every organization deals with this issue and it might be a beneficial plugin for all.
Thanks again for all you do for us.
Best,
Jerry Kornbluth
The first CMS Builder reference book is now available on-line!
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
By Dave - January 27, 2010
Hi Jerry,
>I really wish that I understood more about all of this.
Basically, you can send the email from the server or the desktop (be that a browser, outlook, or some other desktop email program).
If you send it from the desktop (also called the client) then we don't have a lot of control over what happens. All that we get to do is hope the list of emails gets sent or copied into the right place in the desktop program and everything works as it should.
Software differences or bugs, user error, and many other issues can affect the outcome. Different internet providers may throttle or limit outgoing email in different ways. And unless everyone uses the same mail program different desktop programs will format and send emails according to their own standards.
On the server we can make a program to do whatever we need, including hard-coding it to only BCC users or send a separate copy to each user. If a users email is in the To: line it often have more luck getting through the spam filter.
There's still the issue of volume. If you're sending a couple hundred emails you're probably fine. More than that and you need to watch for PHP script timeouts and other issues that may interfere with the outgoing mail. Web hosts have their own limits of outgoing mail as well.
On top of this, each email client that receives an html message formats it differently. See:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/entry/677/image-blocking-in-email-clients/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
There's technical documents called RFCs that (are incredibly dry reading) and describe how it all works. From a technical perspective you can put anything you want on the from, to, and cc lines (bcc never appears) in the same way you can put whatever you want in the subject. Behind the scenes the email addresses that the message is sent to are unrelated to that. So I can, for example, send you a message from bill.gates@microsoft.com in a few lines of PHP.
So there's no blanket solution. If you want to build something I'd start by trying to create a viewer that puts HTML into a variable and then mails you (just you) that html. If you can get that working right then you can add some code to load all the emails and loop over them mailing each one. It will take a bit of experimenting, though.
So there's some background on how it all works. Hope that helps! :)
>I really wish that I understood more about all of this.
Basically, you can send the email from the server or the desktop (be that a browser, outlook, or some other desktop email program).
If you send it from the desktop (also called the client) then we don't have a lot of control over what happens. All that we get to do is hope the list of emails gets sent or copied into the right place in the desktop program and everything works as it should.
Software differences or bugs, user error, and many other issues can affect the outcome. Different internet providers may throttle or limit outgoing email in different ways. And unless everyone uses the same mail program different desktop programs will format and send emails according to their own standards.
On the server we can make a program to do whatever we need, including hard-coding it to only BCC users or send a separate copy to each user. If a users email is in the To: line it often have more luck getting through the spam filter.
There's still the issue of volume. If you're sending a couple hundred emails you're probably fine. More than that and you need to watch for PHP script timeouts and other issues that may interfere with the outgoing mail. Web hosts have their own limits of outgoing mail as well.
On top of this, each email client that receives an html message formats it differently. See:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/entry/677/image-blocking-in-email-clients/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
There's technical documents called RFCs that (are incredibly dry reading) and describe how it all works. From a technical perspective you can put anything you want on the from, to, and cc lines (bcc never appears) in the same way you can put whatever you want in the subject. Behind the scenes the email addresses that the message is sent to are unrelated to that. So I can, for example, send you a message from bill.gates@microsoft.com in a few lines of PHP.
So there's no blanket solution. If you want to build something I'd start by trying to create a viewer that puts HTML into a variable and then mails you (just you) that html. If you can get that working right then you can add some code to load all the emails and loop over them mailing each one. It will take a bit of experimenting, though.
So there's some background on how it all works. Hope that helps! :)
Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
interactivetools.com
Re: [Dave] Forcing BCC: when e-mailing
Dave,
Thanks for the input and explainantion.
I guess there's lots more homework to do.
Best,
Jerry
Thanks for the input and explainantion.
I guess there's lots more homework to do.
Best,
Jerry
The first CMS Builder reference book is now available on-line!
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
I need to be able to send an email blast to registered users (members). Surely there is a simple way to accomplish this from within CMSB, especially with the Membership plugin? Most Open source CMS's do this, why can't CMSB? I would think that this should be part of the core.
Re: [affinitymc] Forcing BCC: when e-mailing
Hi affinitymc,
So far the easiest approach that I've found is to set up some list viewers that create e-mail address lists based on various criteria using where statements and simple if statements.
Then I've copied and pasted the resulting email address lists into the BCC: field of the e-mail.
In another approach I created some spiffy looking eblast viewers and then emailed those using the File>send>page by email function in IE 7 or 8 and the BCC: field.
There's a post of mine just today (Using an absolute URL in PHP "require" and "include") where Chris describes how to encrypt any e-mail addresses in the body of the email using the CMSB spambot email protector addon.
All of this is documented in my CMSB Cookbook http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com
I've been thinking that some of the code in the emailOnApproved plugin might help to send the e-mails directly from CMSB.
That said, I really like the eblast viewer template approach, and the extra few steps are pretty quick.
Hope some of this helps.
Jerry Kornbluth
So far the easiest approach that I've found is to set up some list viewers that create e-mail address lists based on various criteria using where statements and simple if statements.
Then I've copied and pasted the resulting email address lists into the BCC: field of the e-mail.
In another approach I created some spiffy looking eblast viewers and then emailed those using the File>send>page by email function in IE 7 or 8 and the BCC: field.
There's a post of mine just today (Using an absolute URL in PHP "require" and "include") where Chris describes how to encrypt any e-mail addresses in the body of the email using the CMSB spambot email protector addon.
All of this is documented in my CMSB Cookbook http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com
I've been thinking that some of the code in the emailOnApproved plugin might help to send the e-mails directly from CMSB.
That said, I really like the eblast viewer template approach, and the extra few steps are pretty quick.
Hope some of this helps.
Jerry Kornbluth
The first CMS Builder reference book is now available on-line!
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
Take advantage of a free 3 month trial subscription, only for CMSB users, at: http://www.thecmsbcookbook.com/trial.php
Thanks Jerry. I have your Cookbook. However I've asked the folks at InteractiveTools to supply me with a quote for a php script that my non-techie clients can use.
Cheers,
Brian
Cheers,
Brian