Newsletter

Has anyone used Universal Email for a Newsletter? How would you handle a user subscribing and unsubscribing to the newsletter.

What is the best way to do this?

I noticed that you had not gotten a response yet on this so I thought I would add something.

With the new features of UE4 you can send email 'blasts' that will send so many emails within a timed interval. This feature makes it so you can send out things like newsletters from your live server without overusing the resources available.

There are a few ways you could do this but the simplest would be to include a link in the footer of the message that links back to your site with an identifier for the user, like their id. You would then automatically update the record to indicate that the user is no longer subscribing or remove them from the db. Doing it like this would require using a tool like DataAssist to craft the update or delete page that the link in the footer will go to.

I upgraded to Universal Email 4.

After creating the email, how do I actually send out the email? I am using the database table from the User Registration. I want to send it through an Admin function or Form.

You would want to apply the Universal Email server behavior to a page that will be accessed when you want to send out the emails. For example, if you would like to login to your admin area and send the emails out from there you can create a new newsletter send page and apply the Universal Email server behavior to it. You could add in a form to the page and set the trigger to the submit button being pressed.

On this page you would need to include a recordset that selects all of the users from your users table who are active subscribers. Once you have the recordset crafted you can reference it within the Universal Email server behavior to have it send to each entry.

If you are not too familiar with using UE 4 then you should take a look at the getting started guide for it here:

universal-email_gsg.php

This and other information is available on the Universal Email support page.

Can someone post an outline of what I would do and what tool I would use to create a Subscribe to Newsletter from scratch (no existing database)?

For example:

1. Create Subscription form using Form Builder
2.

Thanks.

1) first create the subscription table.

2) Create the subscribe form. you can use Dreamweaver for this, or CSS Form builder.

3) Use the DataAssist Insert record behavior to add the subscription to the database

4) Use Universal Email to email the newsletter to the users subscribed in the database.

Hi,

I managed to get through steps one and two. I am stuck on three.

The form is in the primary dreamweaver template. I would like customers to be able to subscribe to the newsletter from any page.

I need step by step for step 3 because I am definately missing something.

Thank you!

johna1964

create a separate page that contains a copy of the form you will use on the template and apply the Data Assist Insert record behavior to that page. Set the trigger to use the submit button pressed.

when you add the form to the template, change the action to point to the separate page you created.

Hi Jason,

Thank you!

Okay the bindings panel has nothing to do with this?

I created a pages as per your last post. I added the record set using this page and attempted to add the insert record behavior, several times now, each wrong. The email address is not inserting.

I think it may be the Save Inserted ID in session:Store as: emailAddress (this is the column name) - I don't know what else it could be... I am not understanding what needs to go into this column.

I do not require the visiters to register in order for them to receive the Newsletter - if that even matters.

Please help.

Thank you again.

johna1964

Update: I understand now that you cannot apply server behaviors to a Dreamweaver template without future issues with childpages.

I was able to add the insert record using the dreamweaver insert record. I still don't understand why I am unable to add the insert record with DA.

Yes, you cant add the insert record behavior to the template.

this is why i suggested creating a separate page that had the form on it and the insert record behavior. Then copying the form to the template, and setting the action to post to the page you create.