RSS Campaign Addon Documentation

Topics:

  1. Installation
  2. Cron Support
  3. Email Templates
  4. Adding RSS Campaigns
  5. RSS Campaign Stats
  6. Video Tutorial
  7. Frequently Asked Questions

1.0 Installation

WARNING: Please create a FULL file and database backup somewhere before replacing any file for this addon. More information about creating a backup available at www.iemaddons.com/support

To install addon you just need to upload the files in the zip file to the following directory:

ieminstallfolder/admin/addons/

Use FTP software and navigate to your IEM Install folder. Upload all the files in the rssemailer folder to the addons directory.

Give permission to folder rssemailer/files/backup 777
Give permission to folder rssemailer/modifier 777
Give permission to file admin/modules/tracker/module_tracker.php 777
Give permission to file admin/functions/api/send.php 757

Then go to Interspire admin addons section and install the addon.

Installation complete

2.0 Cron Support

After installing the addon you need to configure CRON to run for this addon. Visit your CRON settings page and you will see a new option listed called “RSS Campaign.” Set this to run based on whatever schedule you are comfortable. Please note it will not run faster than your CRON is scheduled to run.

Cron Settings

3.0 Email Templates

For the RSS Addon, email templates are created as email campaigns. Visit your Email Campaign page and click on the option to “Create Campaign.” Select an existing template or build one from scratch. In your campaign, add the tag %%RSS_FEEDS%% wherever you wish the RSS feed content to be inserted. Normal custom fields will function like usual. Be sure to NOT include a link to a Web Version of the email as this will not function.

4.0 Adding RSS Campaigns

Once you have created your email template you are ready to setup and configure your first campaign. Find the RSS Campaign page under the “Email Campaigns” menu tab. Select “Create A RSS Campaign”

RSS Menu Item

Here are specific instructions to filling out all the fields:

Give Your RSS Campaign a Name: This is the name by which you will refer to this campaign. It will not be seen by recipients.

Choose Which Email Template to Use: Here you will need to search through all your email campaigns and find the template you created with the  %%RSS_FEEDS%% tag. After selecting your template you can click on “Preview Selected” and your selected campaign will open in a new window/tab in your browser.

RSS Feed URL: Here you will put your RSS Feed URL. Always click on the “Check Feed” option to make sure your feed URL parses correctly. It will open in a new window/tab and display the recent RSS feed items for you to review and confirm.

Maximum RSS Elements: This is where you indicate the maximum number of feed items that you would like to be included in each email that is sent out from the RSS Campaign. This is a required field.

Use RSS Title for Subject Line: If this is checked the RSS feed title will be mapped to the subject line when sending. If not checked, the subject line input when you created the email campaign “template” will be used when sending.

Maximum Characters of RSS Element: If you input “0” then the full RSS feed item content, including images and HTML, will be included. Some HTML cannot be parsed but most of the content will be included. If you input a number other than zero, all the images will be stripped out and that number of characters will be included in text.

New RSS Feeds Only: If checked, the campaign will only be sent when there are new, unsent items in the feed. If not checked, an email will be sent according to the configured schedule regardless of new items being available in the feed. When first setting up a feed if you check this box and your feed has no new items TODAY it will not send until there are new items.

Minumum new RSS Elements: Here you can configure a minimum number of new feed items required to be in the feed before the campaign can be sent. For example if you input the number 3, the campaign will not go out until there are at least 3 feed items available.

RSS Feed Send on: Here you configure the schedule for sending. Below each of the options are outlined.

Save Draft: Your campaign will not send but you can return later to finish editing and setting up.

Once: You will schedule a single date and time to send the campaign.

Hourly: You can determine if the campaign should be sent every 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 hours.

Daily: You can determine what time each day the campaign should send.

Weekly: You can determine which day(s) and what time the campaign should send.

Monthly: The campaign will go out monthly, set based on the first day/time you save the campaign.

Will all the given scheduling options you can set the from name as well as the send from, reply to, and bounce email addresses as well as the send to contact list(s).

5.0 RSS Campaign Stats

RSS Campaign stats can be found in a new menu item under your “Statistics” menu tab.

RSS Stats Menu Item

Open any of your RSS Campaigns to see your overview and snapshot stats for that campaign. These overview stats (Opens, Clicks, Bounces, and Unsubscribers) look at the campaign from a higher level. To look at the specific statistics per recipient you need to click on the title of your campaign template.

Then you will see your statistics in the same format, layout, and information and you see your other Interspire Email Campaigns.

6.0 Video Tutorial

7.0 Frequently Asked Questions

No guarantees. We cannot test this with every addon or other custom development you have. The addon is tested with IEM 6.0+ and thus far we haven’t found any compatibility issues since it operates as a stand alone addon without editing any core files.

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