Mass Mail logging

[Wolfie]

Would be nice to be able to view a log of all members who received (and who SHOULD have received but didn't) a mass mail along with why.

Listing why they got the mail would tell which groups were selected and any other criteria (last visit, join date, etc).

Listing members who didn't get it would include those who should have gotten it based on the criteria but didn't either because they opt out or because the mass mail was canceled.

Obviously, this should be optional, as there are boards that are entirely too large for this to be a benefit to. But for small boards that want to make sure that certain members are getting the mails (or would have), this would be very useful, especially if there is reason to believe that something isn't working properly.

I'm thinking that an option (forced unchecked) when creating/editing the mass mail should do it, where the admin can tick it to enable logging for that mail.

[Robulosity2]

Hey Wolfie

I have a post here that has SMTP logging for IP Board (They created it for me) so at least you get confirmation message was handed off, and what was given to them. I use SMTP instead of PHPMail to do it as well, so you can also get a report system for Exim or what ever that can help.

In my case I have an alias for outbound mail that ONLY sends outbound mail, if it bounces it's redirected to another account that I have dumping into a CSV so I can do bounce trending and error reporting.. Also helps me clean up bad addresses which can get me black listed.

(And Yes, I know it doesn't completely give you what you want :P but hey its a start)

[bfarber]

Showing why they got the mail would be useless. They got the mail because they matched the criteria you selected.

I could understand seeing why someone *didn't* get the email (i.e. "this user joined before xyz date").


What about sites that have 100,000 users? I'd think such a log would get pretty large pretty quick (even just sending the mass mail once).

[Wolfie]

Showing why they got the mail would be useless. They got the mail because they matched the criteria you selected.

I could understand seeing why someone *didn't* get the email (i.e. "this user joined before xyz date").

What about sites that have 100,000 users? I'd think such a log would get pretty large pretty quick (even just sending the mass mail once).

I already took into account the large boards.

Obviously, this should be optional, as there are boards that are entirely too large for this to be a benefit to. But for small boards that want to make sure that certain members are getting the mails (or would have), this would be very useful, especially if there is reason to believe that something isn't working properly.

I'm thinking that an option (forced unchecked) when creating/editing the mass mail should do it, where the admin can tick it to enable logging for that mail.

It would probably be best as either a per-mail event or as a 'debug but don't really send' option. When it's telling you how many people it will (or is supposed to) send to, it would be nice to know who is in that list in case someone should be getting it but isn't. Then you can figure out why and try to correct it.

[bfarber]

Personally, I like the idea as a debug option. I don't know how useful that would really be to an average board owner, but it would be useful to our tech support if nothing else.

[Wolfie]

Could it be made to output to a file instead of the database? Could make it easier to examine if it can be downloaded and then opened up in a text editor or something. Just a thought in trying to keep the database clean of something like this.