How to: Reconfirm users with udpates (ip + custom var)

MMCHardmetal

Dear all, maybe you have a solution for our following situation:

We have a multilingual page with multilingual newsletter subscribtion lists. As we have various sales offices in different countries we have imported for some of these offices users to some lists (no given IP adress and no double opt in process for these users). As of GDPR we have paused sending newsletters out etc. - now we would like to reconfirm these selected users.

Our "wish" case:
Our idea is to set status confirmed to 0 and add an custom field where these users may be selected for Mass action.

User enabled = 1
User confirmed = 0
IP = NULL (empty)
Example Custom field: User needs reconfirmation = 1

We want to send an email to these users where they can click a button by choice: agree - disagree
If they agree: User information should be updated (confirmed = 1, update given IP, (best case: needs reconfirmation 0))
If they disagree: Set the Status of "accept emails" to 0 or update any custom field (i.e. "delete this user" = 1)

Problem: Can not send emails to users which are "not" enabled or "not" confirmed
Don't know how to update the ip adress via confirmation link
(Custom field is not necesarry if before problems has a solution =))

Has somebody a solution for this case or maybe something similar? Any ideas?

Thank you in advance

jvstratum

Hi,

In v5 you can resend your confrmation mail to unconfirmed users with a Mass Action: https://www.acyba.com/forum/5-acymailing-how-to/69134-not-able-to-send-confirmation-email-again.html

MMCHardmetal

Hallo and thank you for your reply.
I understand to send the notification mail and/or the welcome message via mass action.
Unfortunately there is no way to add a second/temporary confirmation mail, that users can still register with the classic "confirmation" mail while processing existing users. It would make life easier if "newsletter" would be able to send via mass email. Anyway i'm ok to find a solution by myself.

BUT:
The most important thing: While re-confirming users, the IP address is not added or updated. Any solution for that?
And: Is it possible to update any custom field via a button in the email?

jvstratum

Hi,

You actually can send a confirmation mail similar to the original one. Just crete a mail and include the confirmation link as dynamic text. Next go to mass actions, select your unconfirmed users and add the mail you just created to the queue. Please follow the steps as provided earlier.

On the user history, you can see the IP attached to each executed actions. So each time the user modifies his subscription, you will see his current IP and some additional information on the user profile history. You can then see the IP used when he confirmed his subscription for example.

MMCHardmetal

That's what i've did. I just tried if with Acy5 and now i also migrated to Acy6. On Acy5 if i try to send it says "user is not confirmed" and won't send out that mail to unconfirmed users.
On Acy6 Queue tells me "Status: Planned" but won't send it and if i try to trigger manually it tells me "nothing to send"

E-Mail settings are correctly setup since a long time and all normal mails will be sent.

FYI:
Badly Acy6 has a lot (i mean really a lot) of disadvantages. Filtering method is really really really bad - can not filter by custom fields - even can't sort by it - can not even filter for all native accessible fields. Can not search in "all" lists for users or filter for them (always have to chose one list firts - why?). No custom view in user lists and newsletter-lists, no categorization in lists (only by tagging). Everything what you need for targeted marketing and daily work is really bad in Acy6. Even the interface is bad - i just made a lot of optimizations in the design to work with (why such a big font for example).
Result: I will stick with Acy5 - so i need a solution for this please

jvstratum

Hi,

The solution provided works in v5 but does not work in v6.

Did you use the mass action AND included the word "confirm" in the alias of your mail?

MMCHardmetal

Good morning and thank you for your patience.

I just slept over it and started again from scratch (deleted mail). I don't know where the bug was but now it works like a charm.

Now there's just the point left setting a custom var by clicking a button in the email or to just set the status to "don't receive any emails" - is this possible as well?

Best regards

jvstratum

Hi,

Glad that worked out for you.

You can try to use the subscribe by url to set the value of a custom field as described here: https://www.acyba.com/forum/5-acymailing-how-to/76680-how-can-users-update-a-custom-field-from-a-newsletter-link.html

MMCHardmetal

Trying to set the the var "declinedsub" to "yes" - link puts me to a popup window "the captcha is invalid, please try again".
May you edit that code which is not correct:
<a href="index.php?option=com_acymailing&ctrl=sub&task=optin&user={subtag:email|urlencode}&user[declinedsub]=yes[email]={subtag:email|urlencode}&user[declinedsub]=yes">DECLINE SUB</a>

jvstratum

Hi,

You might want to try to add the security key that you have in your configuration. You'll find it on the Security tab.

Add this key to your url like this:
&seckey=YOUR_SECKEY

And here's the documentation: https://docs.acymailing.com/v/old/developers/subscription-via-url

MMCHardmetal

Thank you for helping.
i just fixed that link and it will add the custom var to the user now. Unfortunately by accessing the URL as an unconfirmed user, it will send out a confirmation mail to the user again and shows the system message on the page like if you have recently subscribed - which both things are of course not optimal. Further: To add the security key as clear text is not recommended.

So to shorten the process because of too many problems with this component we will simply add the "unsubscribe" link - which is again not optimal but we're done.