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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.
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