/Newsletter

Neos Newsletter Sending Package

Primary LanguagePHPMIT LicenseMIT

Sandstorm.Newsletter

The project has been sponsored by Swisscom, and initiated by Web Essentials. Thanks for your support!

This is a tool which adjusts Neos in a way such that it can be used to send Newsletters.

Is is comprised of two parts:

  • a Go Daemon which does the actual Mail-Sending
  • a Neos package this package which provides the User Interface

This is a newsletter sending infrastructure based on Neos. The actual newsletter-sending is handled through Redis and a Go-Daemon, which can be found at https://github.com/sandstorm/mailer-daemon.

Features

  • Performant and distributed mail sending through SMTP or Mandrill
  • All Newsletter content is manageable through Neos
  • Allow to replace arbitrary content in the newsletter with custom recipient-specific fields.
  • Recipient-specific fields can be previewed in the Desktop preview mode.
  • Support for multiple languages
  • Allowance to seggregate the recipient list arbitrarily to tightly control whom newsletters should be sent to, using the jq query language
  • Custom receiver sources possible
  • Supports Unsubscribe lists in a privacy-preserving manner, not storing email addresses but their hashes
  • Parallel email sending possible by starting multiple Go daemons simultaneously
  • Auto-Inline CSS style sheets for maximum compatibility

Non-Features

The following things are *not yet implemented, but might be implemented in further projects:

  • Sign Up for new Newsletters

Prerequisites

  • Install the mailer sending daemon which is written in Go
  • Install Redis
  • Install jq and ensure it exists on the PATH.

Installation / Set Up

  • Install this package through packagist:

    cd path/to/your/NeosDistribution
    composer require sandstorm/newsletter
    
  • Ensure you have the Routes included, so that means Configuration/Routes.yaml should contain the following before the Neos routes:

    -
    name: 'Newsletter'
    uriPattern: 'neos/newsletter/<NewsletterSubroutes>'
    subRoutes:
      'NewsletterSubroutes':
        package: 'Sandstorm.Newsletter'
    
    
  • Create a neos page template, using the TypoScript object Sandstorm.Newsletter:NewsletterPage. Also, ensure to include the Sandstorm.Newsletter:SampleDataWidget somewhere in your page.

    As an example, you can use the following TypoScript snippet:

    page = Sandstorm.Newsletter:NewsletterPage
    page.sampleDataWidget = Sandstorm.Newsletter:SampleDataWidget
    

Receiver Sources and Receiver Groups

Internally, the system uses files for representing receiver lists. Each line in a file represents a single receiver, and is a JSON object containing arbitrary properties (where one must be at least the email address, of course).

  • A receiver source is essentially one source for receivers. Currently, we support both line-by-line JSON and CSV files; but you might want to create your own Receiver Source lateron.

  • If you use multiple languages, the receiver source also contains a rule how the lines are segregated into the different languages.

  • The receiver group is an additional subset of receivers inside a receiver source, so you could create a "male" or "female" receiver source if you like.

Usage in Neos

  • First, go to the Newsletter Receiver Management module and create a new receiver source; in our example choose the type CSV Upload*[]:

  • Then, upload the Documentation/example.csv file. It defines the fields firstName, lastName, email, gender and language and contains just three receivers.

  • If you have a languages content dimension configured, set the correct filters; e.g:

    • German: language == "de"
    • French: language == "fr"
    • (others): false (as the input file does not contain these languages)
  • (optionally) create a receiver group for "Male", with the filter gender == "male", and vice versa for female.

  • Now, in the Content module of Neos, create a new Document of type Newsletter. In the inspector, first select a Receiver Group. Optionally define email subjects etc; and create your content as you like.

  • If your content e.g. includes {firstName}, this will be replaced with the actual first name of the email recipient. You can preview this by switching to the Desktop mode in preview central.

  • Enjoy!

Getting Help

If you get stuck, feel free to contact @sebastian or @christoph.daehne in Slack at slack.neos.io.

License

This software is licensed as MIT.