Reset (restart) Campaign - how to?

[hcdsugar]

We are experimenting with campaigns and have successfully sent to a test list and successfully ran a scheduled campaign sending to a "Default" list.

However, we are now trying to go back and modify the newsletter and do more experimentation. The issue is when we go to send to another test list it suppresses the e-mail address in the test list (note this address was in the Default list too when we had done a "real" send).

What it appears to be doing is any e-mail address already sent to the Default list is now auto suppressed and we cannot find a way to remove the e-mails in the (apparently) auto-suppressed list.

If this is true that this is what is happening (i.e., auto-suppressing to people it already sent to), is there a way to "restart" or "reset" a campaign and start over with it (w/o deleting it and setting back up from scratch)?

Thank you for any assistance...

Bruce

[sugarcane]

Hi Bruce,

the Sugar campaigns are designed to auto suppress any duplicate emails so that the campaign is not sent out multiple times to the same person. You have a few options.

1. A target list of type = test can be sent any number of times that you want. So you can use this to test out the campaign.

2. Create a campaign of type = newsletter. This is similar to the email campaign, but it allows you to create new email marketing item over time (every week, month etc) and send out the new email marketing item to the same target lists without suppressing them.

3. You can click the duplicate button on the campaign to duplicate some data from the existing campaign. Since this will be an entirely new campaign, you will be able to send out the emails without them being suppressed (keep in mind that you will need to re-enter any tracker URLs into the email template, even if the URLs are the same, since each campaign's trackers have a unique id)

[hcdsugar]

Thank you for the detailed response - I appreciate it. Yes, the test list works as you are describing. I can also duplicate the campaign and avoid the suppression.

However, I did/do have the campaign setup as type = Newsletter and it still suppresses though? I'm guessing I am either missing something or there is a bug. Any additional insight or help would be welcome from anyone.

The original campaign had a frequency of Weekly, so thinking that it may be suppressing for 1 week, I changed it to no frequency, duplicated the campaign, set back up the target lists and the second campaign still acts just the same. I can send e-mails once and from that point on it suppresses trying to send again.

Help.

Thanks!

Bruce

[hcdsugar]

Okay, in my impatience to solve this I came up with a solution - someone please tell me if I have done something awful here.

I do know that what I modified could be overwritten upon the next release and I know there are ways to hook things so that doesn't happen, but not being a PHP programmer or understanding the full underlying structure of SugarCRM I wasn't sure what to do (other than document this well so I can redo it if it does get overwritten).

What I did is in ".../sugarcrm-5.1.0a/htdocs/sugarcrm/modules/EmailMan/EmailMan.php" I found the code that checks for e-mails that have already been sent to and thus suppresses them. I modified the SELECT statement (see bolded lines below) such that it checks to see if the campaign type is a newsletter. If it is a newsletter it prevents the duplicate from being seen and thus the e-mails get sent.

//test for duplicate email address by marketing id.
// $dup_query="select id from campaign_log where more_information='".$module->email1."' and marketing_id='".$this->marketing_id."'";
$dup_query="select campaign_log.id from campaign_log, campaigns where campaign_log.campaign_id = campaigns.id and campaign_log.more_information='".$module->email1."' and campaign_log.marketing_id='".$this->marketing_id."' and campaigns.campaign_type <> 'NewsLetter'";
$dup=$this->db->query($dup_query);
$dup_row=$this->db->fetchByAssoc($dup);
if (!empty($dup_row)) {
//we have seen this email address before
$this->set_as_sent($module->email1,true,null,null,'blocked');
return true;
}

I tested this under a newsletter and non-newsletter campaign and and it does seem to work properly (yea).

I would still like to know if I am just missing something in general with how the newsletter campaigns are supposed to work of if this is a bug in the campaigns module. I also should note I am using v5.2.0a of the professional edition.

I appreciate any constructive feedback on what I did (properly or in properly).

Thank you!

Bruce

[sugarcane]

Hi Bruce,

If what you did works for your needs, then great. However, the suppression code is there to ensure that you don't end up sending the same email to a person multiple times (IE: if you have the same email address that is listed in your target list 4 times, this person will receive 4 copies of your email. The suppression code is there to make sure they only receive one copy).

A lot of people get confused with the Newsletter vs Email campaign. With a regular email campaign, once you send out a campaign email, you can no longer send to the same group of people (the system will suppress the email address). So if you want to send a group of emails to the same group of people, use the newsletter. However, newsletters are not automatic (an email is NOT auto sent based on the frequency). What the newsletters allow you to do is set up new email marketing items to the same target lists and will allow the email to go through, as opposed to getting suppressed like a regular email campaign. You still need to create a new email marketing item and click the Send email button.

[roblaus]

Sugarcane explained it quite nicely and I may add an example for newsletter campaigns here:

The key point is the Email Marketing subpanel. You can have there as many entries as you want (the marketing message or call it a mini campaign). Each message behaves like a campiagn i.e. can only be sent once to one recipient (you may add recipients and send it multiple times though) and you can select a different set of target lists for each message. Additionally each marketing message can be evaluated separately.

Typical examples would be one message per month to the same target list(s), another one would be two messages to two different target lists because of two different languages but sent every month.

I do not believe that there is any hack needed for your purposes.