Email Based Subscriber Notification System

• PHP 5.3.8 or above. Important! You can find here what PHP extensions, functions, must be enabled. Also you can download PHP script which checks PHP requirements.
• MySQL 5.0 or above
• Possibility to run cron job every minute
• Mail server

NOTE! I'm not responsible if your mail server listed in spam lists or emails goes to SPAM folder. Use this free online tool to check whether your mail server listed in spam lists or not. Also I'm not responsible if your hosting/server has limitations for large amount of emails.

• ~/root/assets
• ~/root/templates
• ~/root/protected/runtime
• ~/root/protected/data/auth.php

Database Settings

First of all you need to configure MySQL database credentials. To do this open ~root/protected/config/database.php and set up database settings.

<?php
return array(
     // Mysql with host: localhost and databse name sender
    'connectionString' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=sender',

    // whether to turn on prepare emulation
    'emulatePrepare' => true,

    // database user
    'username' => 'root',

    // user password
    'password' => '',
    
    // default cahrset
         'charset' => 'utf8',

    // table prefix
    'tablePrefix' => 'sender_',

    // cache time to reduce SHOW CREATE TABLE * queries 
    'schemaCachingDuration' => 60 * 60 * 24 * 30,
);

If you need to specify database port, use following construction:

'connectionString' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=sender;port=3306',

Email client

Next you need to configure email client.  Emails are sent using PHPMailer. Here you can find a lot of examples how to configure mail client. Our configuration file located in ~root/protected/config/mail.php

<?php
return array(
     ...
    'Mailer' => 'smtp', // Use smtp class
    'Host' => 'localhost', // Mail server host
    'Port' => 25, // Mail server port
    'SMTPSecure' => '', // ssl or tls
    'SMTPAuth' => true, // whether to use stmp authorization
    'Username' => 'root', // Username
    'Password' => '', // Password
);

Cron job

First of all you need to configure hostInfo and scriptUrl in console config file: ~root/protected/config/console.php

// your host name (With protocol): for example: http://your-domain.com
'hostInfo' => 'http://localhost',
// if you installed script not in root directory, then you need to add directory name before index.php. For example: sender/index.php
'scriptUrl' => 'index.php',

Then you need to set cron job. Use following command:

'encryptionKey' => md5('my-security-key'),

UPDATE `sender_user` SET password = 'fde052743cd330eb6e5f0588efff4a24', salt='77c10f8a4b497c0a0ea2cb821ceba17b', super_user=1 WHERE id = 1;

How to import subscribers?

How to import subscribers from file?

• CSV file's delimiter is , (comma) and enclosure is " (double quote)
• The delimiter between attribute's name and attribute's value in the text file (TXT) is a tab character (\t)

How to import subscribers from source?

This is the same as importing from file, the only difference is that contents is being copied directly to textarea, without upload a file.

How to import single subscriber?

Here you see simple UI to add subscribers email and its custom attributes.

After subscribers importing you need to create template.

How to create template?

To create template go to Templates, click on Create new template, choose editor (wysiwyg or HTML/CSS editor), enter template's name and language.

Below shown UI of wysiwyg editor

To insert attribute into template use following construction: {$attrName} where attrName - the name of attribute. Attributes makes personalized templates. As you noticed there are predefined attributes: {$companyName}, {$companyAddress}, {$companyContactInfo}. You can edit them in Configuration section.
Also there is one more predefined attribute {$email}

Also you can set alternative text of email. It will be shown in subscriber's email client if it does not support HTML. There are one more attribute {$webVersion}. This is link to a web version of email.

Once template is ready go to Campaign section.

How to create a campaign?

Before you start create campaign you need to set up program timezone. To do this go to Configuration section and set timezone.

To create a campaign go Campaign section. Click on Create new campaign and follow installation wizard.

1 Step.

Enter campaign title, subject (subject can be personalized, for example: Hello {$name}), sender name, sender email.

2 Step.

Choose template from dropdown list.

3 Step.

Select subscriber's groups or one group.

4 Step.

Define time when emails must be sent off.

5 Step.

Check one more time data and confirm.

You can watch campaign statistic (in Campaigns section) once emails will be sent.

How to create new user?

Let's create German translation. Open ~root/protected/messages/ directory and create new directory in our case it's de: ~root/protected/messages/de

2 Step.

Copy all files from ~root/protected/messages/en/ to ~root/protected/messages/de/ open them and translate.

3 Step.

Add new key=>value pair into ~root/protected/config/params.php

"languages"=>array(
   "en"=>"English",
   "ru"=>"Русский",
   "de"=>"Deutsch",
),

4 Step.

That is all. If you want, you can change default app's language. To do it open ~root/protected/config/main.php and change language value:

'language' => 'en',