PacmanDo

Yes, you'll notice that the bulkmail now shows far less accounts to send the emails to.

Thought you might want to see an email from Mandrill I just received:
 
Hello,

We're writing to let you know about some significant changes that will affect your Mandrill account.

Going forward, all Mandrill users will be required to have a paid monthly MailChimp account and verify ownership of all sending domains. Here's the timeline: Starting 3/16, all new Mandrill users will create accounts through MailChimp, and current Mandrill users can merge their existing Mandrill account with a monthly MailChimp account. Current users will have until 4/27 to merge their accounts.

Why we're making this change

The MailChimp team built Mandrill in 2012 as a transactional email tool. Mandrill has always been under the MailChimp umbrella, but it has functioned as a completely separate product. Mandrill is now becoming an optional add-on to paid MailChimp accounts. This is a strategic change we're making to close the gap between the two products and focus on the MailChimp marketing platform. MailChimp is designed for marketing, and Mandrill is designed for transactional messages. Each is powerful on its own, and offering Mandrill as an add-on makes MailChimp even more powerful for our small business and e-commerce customers. Our CEO and cofounder Ben Chestnut wrote more about the changes on the MailChimp blog.

What you need to know

The application's functionality and look and feel are not changing at this time. Here are the important changes that will affect your account:

Starting today, Mandrill will adopt MailChimp's Terms of Use and Acceptable Use Policy. These terms reinforce that Mandrill should be used for transactional email, and bulk email/email marketing campaigns should be sent through MailChimp. In addition, MailChimp's Privacy Policy, which has always covered Mandrill, has been updated. If you have any questions about our policy changes, please email legal@mailchimp.com.
To continue using Mandrill, all users will be required to have a paid monthly MailChimp account by 4/27.
All Mandrill users will be required to verify their sending domains and add SPF and DKIM records by 4/27. This is already in effect for new Mandrill users.
Starting 3/16, all new Mandrill accounts will be created and accessed through MailChimp.
Starting 3/16, the Mandrill mobile application will no longer be available for installation. It will remain functional for existing users until 4/27.
Our billing and pricing model is also changing. MailChimp will generate one consolidated bill that covers your MailChimp and Mandrill charges. Mandrill credits will be sold in blocks of 25,000 emails. Blocks will start at $20 per month. This goes into effect once your accounts are merged.
Any existing discounts, free credits, and free accounts will no longer be valid once your accounts are merged.
What you need to do

If you already have a paid monthly MailChimp account, you’ll be able to merge your accounts starting on 3/16. We’ll send detailed instructions at that time.
If you don't have a paid monthly MailChimp account and decide to create one, you can go to mailchimp.com and do so at any time. You'll be able to merge your accounts starting on 3/16. We'll send detailed instructions at that time.
If you haven't already done so, you'll need to add SPF and DKIM records and verify ownership of your sending domains. Here's an article explaining how to do that. Starting 4/27, Mandrill will not send any email from unverified domains or domains without valid SPF and DKIM records, including public domains like gmail.com and yahoo.com.
If you don't have a paid monthly MailChimp account merged with your Mandrill account by 4/27, then your Mandrill account will be disabled.

If you have questions or need technical support, please log in to your Mandrill account and click Support in your dashboard. We've made support available to all users on free and paid accounts.

We know this is disruptive, and we understand that it may affect your decision to use Mandrill. Please know that we carefully considered these changes. The new structure will allow us to create more flexible products and better serve our customers. Thanks for using Mandrill, and we hope to welcome you to MailChimp soon.

- The Mandrill team

@JEFF MACK, I'm not sure about the general practicality for users to have the ability to turn private messages from multiple members into a public affair at the click of a button.
But a button to invite all PM participants to an existing collab... that sounds like a good idea.

Thank you @Kevin Carwile your customer service is fantastic. You go beyond expectations and we appreciate it.
I'm going to have to check out your service packs to see if you have one that sends out happy birthday emails
 

​ECA's = Events, Conditions, Actions
I've built the rules framework to be entirely extensible by 3rd party applications. Rules includes "core" ECA's for things that all apps will have in common, but any specialty ECA's for 3rd party apps can be provided as an IPS extension to my rules app right inside the 3rd party app. And if the 3rd party app developer doesn't want to include ECA definitions for compatibility with rules, then myself or another developer could easily create an expansion plugin specifically for that 3rd party app to add ECA's to rules. Either way is fairly easy with the framework I've built.
Note For Developers: If you want to add any rules ECA's to your app ( beyond what rules will already provide ) and give users greater power over your app, then all you need to do is add a rules extension to your app from the developer center (you must first have the rules app installed to your dev site). The extension template that is added to your app will be well documented. I will also provide additional standalone documentation very soon.

Thank you Gabrielle.
 

Wow, possibly solves a problem for us that was initially stopping us from going to IPS. Thanks Kevin.

Adds the WhatsApp share service/link to IPS4.
Click on the WhatsApp icon after installing to share, then click the user/conversation in the app, and your text will appear. Edit the language strings to change the text.