Email Module - how to do mail merge [SOLVED]

Archived from the Xataface Users forum.

tomhousley — Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:12 pm

Hello,

Installed the Email 0.1 Module succedfully.

I would like to be able create a ‘mail merge’ when I send out emails.

So, say I have a column in my ‘email_table’ called ema_firstname I would like to have each email sent out like:

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Dear Steve.....

Other mailing list software I have used, this is done by eg. putting the field in curly braces, and then this is parsed when it comes to sending. Eg.

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Dear {ema_firstname}.....

Is this built in? I can’t find any reference as to how to do ‘out of the box’ so to speak. Does it have something to do with the ‘Email Macro’ select on the email form?

Thank you, Tom

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shannah — Thu Oct 28, 2010 8:46 pm

Yes. This is built in. You should be able to see what the macros look like using the email macro function in the pull-down above the message body field. I don’t have any documentation about this, and I actually haven’t even used this in production myself yet, even though it has been there from the beginning. Let me know how it goes.

-Steve

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tomhousley — Fri Oct 29, 2010 12:39 am

Hi Steve,

I thought it would have something to do with the ‘Email Macro’ pulldown.

However, whatever I do with the pulldown, nothing happens…. It lists the fields in ‘email_table’… I have tried most obvious things I can think of but like my earlier post.. if I type into the message field ema_firstname (where this field contains firstname of recipient):

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ema_firstname {ema_firstname} etc...

When I receive the email, it is not converted into the first name, it comes through as it is typed above.

I would be really grateful for some pointers on this… Once I get my head around it, I will add it to the wiki, as I’m sure other could make use of this too.

Many thanks, Tom

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tomhousley — Fri Oct 29, 2010 4:41 am

Sorted it… added it to the Wiki… http://xataface.com/wiki/Email#toc17