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Messages reception confirmation for bulk notifications to members

Started by cburnat, October 17, 2009, 03:18:13 AM

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cburnat

We have a need to issue administrative notifications from time to time to a special class of registered users and we wish to ensure that these members have received them. Could SMF allow certain individuals registered with the site (i.e. a subgroup) to be targeted with a common message  using perhaps their mailbox on the forum (or any other available means), and records when they log in to read the message.
Many thanks.
Regards
chris

Arantor

Well, you can use the Personal Message to Membergroups mod to send a message to the subgroups.

Tracking that they've actually read the message is a little more difficult and potentially raises privacy issues though.

cburnat

Thank you for your reply. And so we are almost there thanks to your work.  I had not considered the privacy issue you raised...  We could obtain agreement for this verification process from members at time of joining the organization, or perhaps provide for an "opt-out" toggle in their profile or elsewhere? 

Arantor

Sure, that'd cover it.

In terms of the PM actually being read, as I said that raises privacy issues. As you may be aware, SMF itself doesn't provide a method for PMs to be read by any users other than the sender and recipients, and as a matter of policy we do not advise upon how this can be done, normally, and that includes generally avoiding discussion on the PM table structure and code, though of course it's all there in the code.

I'm going to check with the team and see what their view on it is, and if there isn't an issue, I will look at writing a mod for flagging up whether a given message has been read or not (it would only be the sender who would be able to see this, of course)

cburnat

Thanks again.

"I'm going to check with the team and see what their view on it is, and if there isn't an issue, I will look at writing a mod for flagging up whether a given message has been read or not (it would only be the sender who would be able to see this, of course)"

This would be ideal.  Flagging up to the sender would be perfect, the sender will most likely be one of the admin for the site, acting on instructions from the Board.

Arantor

Well, I'm still waiting for final clarification, but what I'm thinking of is perhaps changing - slightly - how sent items are handled, i.e. leaving users who haven't read it in bold, users who have read it in normal. Would that be suitable?

cburnat

Great idea! I am trying to picture where the selected users (members of the subgroup) are shown when sending a bulk email to them.   I check the page for your mod but could not find a screenshot for outbox showing individual members, would you kindly clarify this.
Thanks
Regards
chris

Arantor

Assuming you've saved it in sent messages, it's displayed in there.

Specifically you need to enable saving messages in your sent folder (Profile > Personal Messaging > Save a copy of each Personal Message in my outbox by default), then go to My Messages > Sent items, after sending a message and it will display in there, much as it would do for the inbox.

cburnat


Arantor

Well, I've just spoken to other members of the team and no-one seems to have any issue with doing this.

I have some code already partially written to display this, though it needs finetuning and testing before I submit it as an actual mod to the mod site.

cburnat

Arantor, this is great news, we are very appreciative of your work and look forward implementing your very elegant solution.  I am sure others will also benefit from this feature.
Regards
christian

Arantor

I've written this mod, was actually simpler than I thought it'd be.

I'm submitting it to the mod site now, http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2228 when it is approved (yes, even Customizer team mods have to go through the usual process of mods being checked by other members of the Customizer team to ensure mods adhere to the rules)

It won't be publicly available before that, though.


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