flexible email
Examples
Here's an email that's configured to go out whenever you add an Event card.
First the +*send card must point to an email configuration card:
Second, that configuration card should set the email details:
How To
*send Setting
To have email sent out whenever cards in a particular set are added, configure the *send setting of that set. By default, it will be a Pointer to "|that set|+email config", which you can then fill out with who the email should go to, its subject and message, etc.
Let's say you want to configure an email to go out whenever someone adds an Event, with some event details. You'd go to the settings subtab of the Options tab of Event:
Events of interest to us
... create a new event 2009: Feb 19, Ignite Portland (Ethan, Lewis & John) ...There, you scroll down and click on "Add Event+*type+*send". You can then click to add an email configuration (those ending in "+email config" will have all the needed fields in place. See the example above.
Email Address Fields
The purpose of the *from, *to, *cc, and *bcc plus cards is, naturally, to produce a list of email addresses. This can be done in a number of ways:
- The value can be a simple email address, as in a Phrase card.
- Pointer cards can refer to other cards with email addresses
- Search cards can return cards with email addresses
- Most powerfully, the above can be used in combination. Eg, you can point to a search card that returns a list of email addresses.
Note that email addresses for wagn accounts are not yet stored in cards, but they can be accessed by administrative users as +*email cards. These cards are virtual cards (not stored as actual cards in the database) and thus can only be returned from searches using the :append key.Permissions
When emails are sent, all configuration cards are restricted to the permissions of the user who last configured them. So that, even though most users cannot view +*email cards, an administrator can configure an email to use such cards, and then any user with permission to create the triggering card will be able to email to those users.
If you don't want these emails to be visible to end users, you can use the *bcc setting.
Contextual Content
You can use contextual names to further customize your emails. Within each email configuration card, "_self" will be treated as referring to the card triggering the email. See +*subject and +*message in the example.
Tips
- You may have noticed that most of the inclusions are using the naked views; that's to prevent unwanted line endings in the email.
- Any of the address fields can be changed to be a Search or a Pointer, including ones that reference additional Searches and Pointer (up to three layers deep, not counting the +*to card itself).
Is there a ticket yet to "digest" email notifications (like watchers)? Maybe this isn't the right place for this, but if the ticket doesn't exist, I'll create an Idea ticket for it. -- Gerry
You mean to incorporate notification (watcher) email into the flexmail system? There's no ticket for that yet.
--John Abbe.....Sun Jan 23 06:12:53 -0800 2011
There sort of is a ticket for what John's describing: convert system emails to flexmail system. There isn't a ticket for making digests possible, but I've got ideas about how that might work and will try to get that recorded now.
--Ethan McCutchen.....Wed Mar 09 11:19:56 -0800 2011
ideas here: upgrade email system
--Ethan McCutchen.....Wed Mar 09 12:42:20 -0800 2011