Newsletter Builder v2.02 Released!

I know you can copy and paste a list of email addresses from another newsletter application, but is it possible to import subscribers' details from, say, an Excel file?

Hi Nigel,

Yes, you can import emails by selecting them in excel and then copying and pasting them into the textbox. There's no automated import of .xls or .xlsx files, though.

Hope that helps, let me know any questions.

Hi Nigel,

This isn't a feature that is currently built into CMS Builder but we could create a custom add-on able to do this.

If you would like us to look into this for you send an e-mail to consulting@interactivetools.com with your requirements.

Thanks!

A couple of follow-up questions:

1. I know it isn't possible to import email addresses, etc, but is it possible to export them as an Excel file?

2. I have a client who is interested in both your membership and newsletter add-ons. Can they be combined, so people only need to sign-up with one form, for both membership and the newsletter, at the same time? If so, is this quite straightforward, or will it involve commissioning Interactive Tools?

Cheers,

Hi Nigel,

If you wanted to export the e-mail list you would have to buy the Export CSV plug in, this creates a CSV that is compatible with Excel. You would also be able to use this add-on to export any other section as well. You can read more about it here:


http://www.interactivetools.com/add-ons/detail.php?CSV-Export-1005


It is fairly straightforward to create a single form that can save a users details for both membership and the newsletter. Both addons come with example code that you could combine into a single form and you wound't need to commission us to set this up for you.

Thanks

Thanks, Greg.

Hi All,

I just installed Newsletter Builder 2.02.

Great job! This is certainly an impressive piece of work.

So far I’ve got only a few issues, a few questions, and some possible ideas for future releases. (I’m just starting to climb up the learning curve.)

THE ISSUES (undoubtedly my fault):
1) I’ve created a number of test newsletters and all of them show in the archive record list, but the on-line links all point back to the archive.php file and show the latest newsletter.

2) When I click on the “This default newsletter content can be edited under: Newsletter Settings” link in the email, I’m taken to: http://thecmsbcookbook.com/?menu=_nlb_settings instead of http://thecmsbcookbook.com/cmsAdmin/admin.php?menu=_nlb_settings

THE QUESTIONS:
is it possible to send emails directly from the email address field in the ‘accounts’ database records (or from any other multi-record database)?

Is it possible to import and use the code from an external viewer as the body of the newsletter (as I’ve been doing up to now) instead of the code that has been created in the wysiwyg editors in the “Settings” and “messages” editor?

SOME THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN HANDY FOR ME (DOCUMENTED IN RECIPES IN THE COOKBOOK) HAVE BEEN:

Adding CAPTCHA verification to the sign up form to cut down on records created by bogus requests from folks with too much time on their hands. Cookbook Recipe: IMPLEMENTING CAPTCHA ON THE WEBSITE MEMBERSHIP PLUGIN
______________

Adding a field in the subscriber database to show where the subscriber subscribed from. (In my case a street fair, an exhibition, the web site, facebook, etc.) The “subscribe” links for different sources add the appropriate value to a “where from” field in my newsletter database. Cookbook Recipe: DOUBLE OPT IN MAIL LIST IN CMSB
______________

When a newsletter subscriber has unsubscribed from the list, instead of deleting their record, I check a “removed by subscriber” check box. That way I can generate reports for the client based on how many subscribed, or unsubscribed in a give time period. Cookbook Recipe: UNSUBSCRIBE FROM YOUR SIGN-UP LIST AUTOMATICALLY
______________

Since my client is an membership based organization, I've also added “converted to membership” functionality to the newsletter list, to facilitate reporting while eliminating duplicate emails. Cookbook Recipe: MERGE/PURGE NEWSLETTER MAIL LISTS WITH CMSB AND THE WEBSITE MEMBERSHIP PLUGIN

______________

Best,

Jerry Kornbluth

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for your feedback! Here's some responses:

>1) I've created a number of test newsletters and all of them show in the archive record list, but the
>on-line links all point back to the archive.php file and show the latest newsletter.

For emailed newsletters you can use #archive_url# for the url of your web archive viewer and #message_num# for the message num.

For the newsletter list in your archive viewer, the generated code should add the newsletter number to the end of the url:
<?php foreach ($archivedNewsletters as $record): ?>
<?php $isSelected = ($record['num'] == $latestNewsletter['num']); ?>
<?php if ($isSelected) { print "<b>"; } ?>
<a href="?<?php echo $record['num']; ?>"><?php echo htmlencode($record['subject']) ?></a><br/>
<?php if ($isSelected) { print "</b>"; } ?>
<?php endforeach ?>

Can you let me which one is causing the problems? And if you started with an earlier version you may need to update the generated code for the archive viewer.

>2) When I click on the 'This default newsletter content can be edited under: Newsletter Settings' link in the email,
>I'm taken to: http://thecmsbcookbook.com/?menu=_nlb_settings
>instead of http://thecmsbcookbook.com/cmsAdmin/admin.php?menu=_nlb_settings

That content is just meant to be a hint for developers where to look for settings, you can safely remove it. I've just unlinked it for the next release and left it as text so it's more clear.

>THE QUESTIONS:
>is it possible to send emails directly from the email address field in the 'accounts' database records (or from any other multi-record database)?

No, but it's idea we have on the (long range) radar. For now one workaround would be the manually export the email list from one database and import it through the "Import Emails" menu under plugins. This import feature will only import emails not already in the database, so it's safe to do multiple times, but you would have to do it manually to keep things in sync.

>Is it possible to import and use the code from an external viewer as the body of the newsletter
> (as I've been doing up to now) instead of the code that has been created in the wysiwyg editors
> in the 'Settings' and 'messages' editor?

Not really, but the next release (coming very soon) supports multiple email templates. Email readers can be really picky, so you often need to custom design templates and HTML for them differently than you would for a regular web page.

Also, I noticed some of your cookbook recipes added custom fields, if you add any custom fields to the newsletter schema and then upgrade, they might get removed when the schema's are updated (but won't be removed from MySQL). If that happens just click on section editors, look for the fields with type 'none' and re-add them.

Hope that helps, let me know any other questions. Thanks!

Hi dave,

Thanks for getting back so quickly and thoroughly.

So far...

When I go to archive.php, the source shows <!-- STEP2: Display Record List (Paste this where you want your record list) -->
<b>Latest Newsletters</b><br/><br/>

<b> <a href="">www.thecmsbcookbook.com Newsletter #003</a><br/>
</b> <a href="">www.thecmsbcookbook.com Newsletter #002</a><br/>
<a href="">www.thecmsbcookbook.com Newsletter #000</a><br/>

<!-- /STEP2: Display Record List -->

Jerry Kornbluth