Skip to content

GitLab

  • Projects
  • Groups
  • Snippets
  • Help
    • Loading...
  • Help
    • Help
    • Support
    • Community forum
    • Submit feedback
    • Contribute to GitLab
  • Sign in
M
Mailing
  • Project overview
    • Project overview
    • Details
    • Activity
  • Issues 33
    • Issues 33
    • List
    • Boards
    • Labels
    • Service Desk
    • Milestones
  • Operations
    • Operations
    • Incidents
  • Analytics
    • Analytics
    • Value Stream
  • Wiki
    • Wiki
  • Snippets
    • Snippets
  • Members
    • Members
  • Collapse sidebar
  • Activity
  • Create a new issue
  • Issue Boards
  • Development
  • Mailing
  • Issues
  • #51

Closed
Open
Opened Sep 03, 2019 by totten@tottenOwner

CiviMail: Provide transparency about (non)recipient details

Two stories which are not-uncommon:

Story 1

Someone starts using CiviMail. They spend a bunch of time arranging for the list of contacts (e.g. migrating from a previous system) and then go to send a mailing. They start composing a message and realize that the number of recipients is way off. What's going on? They start searching Google, Stackexchange, etc trying to understand why. Eventually, they learn that there are a half-dozen rules about who gets included or excluded from a mailing. (Does the contact have an email address? Are they deceased? Have they opted-out of the specific mailing list? Have they opted-out of email generally? Have they had bounces? Does an extension - like GDPR - add more constraints?) But they haven't solved the issue yet: now they need to figure out which criteria are affecting them, to what extent, and how to adapt.

And of course people have this problem - the "New Mailing" UX only presents the affirmative list of active recipients. It doesn't give any hint or detail about the omitted recipients.

Screen_Shot_2019-09-03_at_12.58.40_PM

Story 2

A new user composes an email blast and discovers this incredible drop-down button with a list of tokens. They start throwing in tokens like there's no tomorrow. The blast goes out, and recipients complain: "Why are you sending me these weird messages with skipped words?"

And, again, of course people have this problem - the "New Mailing" UX lets you choose tokens without knowing if your recipient-data is up to the job.

Discussion

These two stories are thematically similar: in both cases, we have a long list of potential recipients, and we have obscure/hidden criteria which determines whether the mailing goes out successfully to the target audience.

In both cases, there needs to be more transparency - adding UI-elements/UX-mechanisms to communicate what's going on. For example, the data-table in the pop-up might be updated with more columns/icons/color-coding.

I've logged the issue because I think, at some point, there should be discussion around design/resourcing. I don't want to prejudge that by saying the UX mechanisms to resolve these two issues must or must-not be the same - they might be totally different, or they might be one data-table. Either way, I think it's good to have a record of the issue.

Related Links

  • https://chat.civicrm.org/civicrm/pl/nn5rjzwiz3fc78pgojmhubx89a
  • https://civicrm.org/blog/simonparkervitiligosocietyorguk/solution-all-recipients-not-showing-up-for-sending-mass-email
  • https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/5086/civimail-does-not-send-to-a-whole-group
  • https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/6346/after-import-to-group-individuals-in-that-group-not-showing-up-as-recipients-to
  • https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/26320/contacts-visible-in-mailing-list-group-not-on-hold-or-otherwise-dnd-but-skippe
  • https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/18199/in-mailing-all-recipients-are-not-showing/18201#18201
  • https://civicrm.org/extensions/zombie-check
Edited Sep 04, 2019 by totten
To upload designs, you'll need to enable LFS and have admin enable hashed storage. More information
Assignee
Assign to
None
Milestone
None
Assign milestone
Time tracking
None
Due date
None
Reference: dev/mail#51