Re: Send in Your Feedback on CiviMail Improvements for 1.9
Wes Morgan <wmorgan <at> pirg.org>
2007-09-08 23:13:37 GMT
On Sep 7, 2007, at 9:56 PM, NPOGroups List Manager wrote:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. [civicrm-dev] Fwd: [civicrm-mail] Send in Your Feedback on CiviMail Improvements for 1.9 -- "Donald Lobo" <
donald.lobo <at> gmail.com>
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Date: September 7, 2007 7:38:55 PM MDT
Subject: [civicrm-dev] Send in Your Feedback on CiviMail Improvements for 1.9
<snip>
We'd like this release to really take CiviMail to the next level - so
we'd like to hear from folks who are currently using the component and
have additional feedback about things we can do to make it better. We
can't promise to get all your ideas into the release of course - but
we suspect there's some really easy changes that will polish things
up. As usual, patches and VERY SPECIFIC suggestions are most warmly
received.
</snip>
One thing that would really help us a lot is the ability to associate mailings with issues and campaigns. This might be best implemented as a generic grouping system similar to the one already in place for contacts. It could even be the same one (especially now that they're nestable--though that won't be in 1.9 I assume).
For the U.S. PIRG use case, we would setup issue areas like Energy, Preservation, and Health Care. Then we would setup campaigns as sub-entities of these issue areas. So under Energy we might have the "25% Renewable by 2025" campaign or the "Double the Gas Mileage Standard" campaign. We would then associate mailings (and probably contacts too--to indicate what issues they were interested in) with these campaigns and issue areas.
This would need to be separate from the association of which groups the mailing was sent to, as it deals with the content of the message, not the recipients. But otherwise, I see no reason why it couldn't be as simple as allowing mailings to be placed in groups (and respect the various ACLs involved) as CiviCRM currently implements them. But maybe it would save clutter to instead implement separate "issues" and "campaigns" entities so they could be more directly treated as such.
You would then want the ability to associate not only CiviMail stuff with these issues and campaigns, but also CiviContribute stuff, CiviEvent stuff, contacts, etc. I guess another potential implementation idea is to allow custom fields to be associated with these other entities as well. The sample data that CiviCRM comes with sets up that "Demographic" custom group for contacts where you could define their "most important issue." Obviously you'd want the system to understand that this is the same data set as the "issues" you're associating contribution pages, mailings, and events with.
This all makes me think there should just be a generic "entity" and "relationship" system used throughout CiviCRM. Any entity should be able to have 0 or more relationships with any other entity. This would cover groups (contact entities would have a "member of" relationship with a group entity), issues and campaigns (mailing entities would have a "tactic in" relationship with the campaign entity), organizations (individual entities would have a "member of" relationship with organization entities for CiviMember, for example).
Sorry, that got a little far-reaching. :) What do you all think (about the basic issues and campaigns in CiviMail piece or the larger thing in the paragraph above)?
<div>
<div>On Sep 7, 2007, at 9:56 PM, NPOGroups List Manager wrote:</div>
<div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>TABLE OF CONTENTS</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>1. [civicrm-dev] Send in Your Feedback on CiviMail Improvements for 1.9 -- "Dave Greenberg" <<a href="mailto:dggreenberg <at> gmail.com">dggreenberg <at> gmail.com</a>></div>
<div>2. [civicrm-dev] Fwd: [civicrm-mail] Send in Your Feedback on CiviMail Improvements for 1.9 -- "Donald Lobo" <<a href="mailto:donald.lobo <at> gmail.com">donald.lobo <at> gmail.com</a>></div>
<div>3. [civicrm-dev] bilingual support in CiviMail -- Christopher Pelham <<a href="mailto:chris <at> crsny.org">chris <at> crsny.org</a>></div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>From: "Dave Greenberg" <<a href="mailto:dggreenberg <at> gmail.com">dggreenberg <at> gmail.com</a>></div>
<div>Date: September 7, 2007 7:38:55 PM MDT</div>
<div>To: "CiviCRM Developer Community" <<a href="mailto:civicrm-dev <at> lists.civicrm.org">civicrm-dev <at> lists.civicrm.org</a>>,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"CiviMail Users" <<a href="mailto:civicrm-mail <at> lists.civicrm.org">civicrm-mail <at> lists.civicrm.org</a>></div>
<div>Subject: [civicrm-dev] Send in Your Feedback on CiviMail Improvements for 1.9</div>
<div>Reply-To: <a href="mailto:civicrm-dev <at> lists.civicrm.org">civicrm-dev <at> lists.civicrm.org</a>,"Dave Greenberg" <<a href="mailto:dggreenberg <at> gmail.com">dggreenberg <at> gmail.com</a>></div>
<div><br></div>
</blockquote><snip><br><blockquote type="cite">
<div><br></div>
<div>We'd like this release to really take CiviMail to the next level - so</div>
<div>we'd like to hear from folks who are currently using the component and</div>
<div>have additional feedback about things we can do to make it better. We</div>
<div>can't promise to get all your ideas into the release of course - but</div>
<div>we suspect there's some really easy changes that will polish things</div>
<div>up. As usual, patches and VERY SPECIFIC suggestions are most warmly</div>
<div>received. </div>
<div><br></div>
</blockquote></snip></div>
<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<div>One thing that would really help us a lot is the ability to associate mailings with issues and campaigns. This might be best implemented as a generic grouping system similar to the one already in place for contacts. It could even be the same one (especially now that they're nestable--though that won't be in 1.9 I assume).</div>
<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<div>For the U.S. PIRG use case, we would setup issue areas like Energy, Preservation, and Health Care. Then we would setup campaigns as sub-entities of these issue areas. So under Energy we might have the "25% Renewable by 2025" campaign or the "Double the Gas Mileage Standard" campaign. We would then associate mailings (and probably contacts too--to indicate what issues they were interested in) with these campaigns and issue areas.</div>
<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<div>This would need to be separate from the association of which groups the mailing was sent to, as it deals with the content of the message, not the recipients. But otherwise, I see no reason why it couldn't be as simple as allowing mailings to be placed in groups (and respect the various ACLs involved) as CiviCRM currently implements them. But maybe it would save clutter to instead implement separate "issues" and "campaigns" entities so they could be more directly treated as such.</div>
<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<div>You would then want the ability to associate not only CiviMail stuff with these issues and campaigns, but also CiviContribute stuff, CiviEvent stuff, contacts, etc. I guess another potential implementation idea is to allow custom fields to be associated with these other entities as well. The sample data that CiviCRM comes with sets up that "Demographic" custom group for contacts where you could define their "most important issue." Obviously you'd want the system to understand that this is the same data set as the "issues" you're associating contribution pages, mailings, and events with.</div>
<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<div>This all makes me think there should just be a generic "entity" and "relationship" system used throughout CiviCRM. Any entity should be able to have 0 or more relationships with any other entity. This would cover groups (contact entities would have a "member of" relationship with a group entity), issues and campaigns (mailing entities would have a "tactic in" relationship with the campaign entity), organizations (individual entities would have a "member of" relationship with organization entities for CiviMember, for example).</div>
<div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
<div>Sorry, that got a little far-reaching. :) What do you all think (about the basic issues and campaigns in CiviMail piece or the larger thing in the paragraph above)?</div>
</div>
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