Groups Newsletters

Jun 9, 2013

—

in Groups, Plugin Overview, Plugins, WordPress

Newsletter Campaigns for Subscribers and Groups.

Groups Newsletters helps you to communicate efficiently, providing targeted information to groups of recipients through automated campaigns.

Download

Purchase a license and download the plugin.

Automated Campaigns

Unlike your average newsletter system, Groups Newsletters combines multiple stories in a newsletter and uses campaigns to send out one or more newsletters to their recipients. The recipients for each newsletter can be different user groups (when Groups is also used).

Targeted newsletters

Among the reasons to use Groups along with Groups Newsletters you may find:

You want to send specific newsletters to a subset of the site’s users. For example. if you have a Premium group to which users who have purchased premium access to the site belong and you want to send out a newsletter offering them a special discount.
You maintain groups for specific products or services and want to make their users aware of a new feature or bug fix without sending the same information to normal subscribers.
Communicating with departments in a company – send out specific news that is relevant for those working in one department.
CRM – target valuable information at customer groups.
Leagues & teams – send out information on events relevant to specific groups, for example by sport, by team, by association …
To quickly create a Story Editors group for users who should be allowed to handle newsletters.
Let customers subscribe to newsletters at checkout with WooCommerce.

For regular subscribers, you can work without Groups and take advantage of the powerful newsletter campaign management features provided.

Documentation

Please refer to the documentation pages for more information.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots of the admin sections:

Developers

Groups Newsletters provides lots of sensible WordPress actions and filters that you can use to customize the system. It leverages custom post types and taxonomies to provide a system that any developer who is familiar with those concepts in WordPress can use, to provide a customized solution for your client.

If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to post a comment below.

campaign campaigns captcha communicate communication CRM group groups marketing newsletter newsletters publish publisher recaptcha stories story

Comments

276 responses to “Groups Newsletters”

Petri

January 27, 2016

Hello.

I would like to use the newsletter widget to display a link to all newsletter from the sidebar of the website.

The thing is I will use the newsletters to send them to specific groups listing specific users of the website.

I would like the widget to display the newsletters related to the user and not to all visitors of the website.

Do you know how I could do that ? is it even possible ?

thank you in advance for your answer.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  January 29, 2016
  
  Hi Petri,
  
  It is possible if you restrict the newsletters themselves, for that you would need Groups Restrict Categories, as it is able to handle restrictions on taxonomies (which newsletters are).
  
  I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any questions on that.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Petri

January 15, 2016

Hello Kento

This is strange, I don’t see my previous comment, the one I should be replying to with your answer about my theme not being able to list the stories in the right order.
I have the latest WP version with their 2016 theme… I am in testing phase now and will not use this theme, not sure which one yet but I hope the one I need will work…otherwise this is not going to work…

I tried with 2014 and it’s the same, I changed browser and change the order number but it’s still the same….

any other idea ?

Reply
1. Petri
  
  January 15, 2016
  
  I know I could change the publishing date but it’s going to be too complicated for the users…
  
  btw I am working on mac… don’t know if this is a problem…
  
  Reply
  1. Kento
    
    January 15, 2016
    
    Thanks Petri,
    
    If it behaves the same on those two standard themes on your installation, then it’s something else. Maybe another plugin. Could you please provide admin access to your site so I can have a look? Please forward credentials to support at itthinx dot com with a link to our conversation here so we know what it’s about. Mac doesn’t have anything to do with it.
    
    Cheers
    
    Reply
Petri

January 14, 2016

Hello

I was wondering if there is an official forum for this plugin, I just purchased it, installed but have problems with ordering my stories in the newsletter, whatever order I set in the attributes I only get it by order of publishing time…

thank you in advance for your help

Reply
1. Kento
  
  January 15, 2016
  
  Hi Petri,
  
  This is the right place to ask for help. If you have for example three stories, Story A with order 10, Story B with order 20 and another Test with order 100, when viewing the newsletter page, they should appear in this order: Test, Story B, Story A. If this is not so, then it’s possible that in your theme the taxonomy template is forcing the order to be by publishing date. Could you please check with another theme to rule that out? Also, please let me know which theme you are using.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Stephen

January 4, 2016

I followed this order for creating a newsletter
1.- Create the newsletter selecting the groups.
2.- Create the campaign selecting the newsletter.
3.- Create the story selecting the newsletter.
but when I tell the campaign to run it only says queued 0/3 it never sends even after 3 hours is there some other setting or something to see what is happening. The test emails go through fine so the smtp settings are correct.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  January 5, 2016
  
  Hi Stephen,
  
  This is likely due to cron not running on your site. You can use WP Crontrol to check it.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Nigel

January 2, 2016

Must be the effects of the holidays but how do I update the plugin? It says it’s not automatic, so I assume that it means I have to disable it first, download from Envato, upload the zip and re-activate it? Or do I need the update plugin that is mentioned elsewhere on the site?
Either not enough to drink, or too much. Sorry for the dumb question….

Reply
1. Kento
  
  January 4, 2016
  
  Hi Nigel,
  
  Yes that’s correct, as this plugin doesn’t support automatic updates, you need to deactivate and delete the old version and upload and activate the new version.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Henri Langlais

December 2, 2015

I have an event website for a bike ride. People sign up for a fee as either a rider or a crew person. When they sign up a user account is created and they are put into either a rider or crew group. I use woocommerce and gravity forms for this. I need to subscribe these people to the newsletter automatically but a checkbox that I can have prechecked and hide would work.

Now there are people who come to the website and donate to these riders. I use woocommerce and gravity forms for that also but a user account is not created for those donors. I don’t want to subscribe these people to a newsgroup automatically and I don’t want to show them an option that is pre-checked.

Is there a way to show the subscribe option on a per product basis? ideally an integration with gravity forms would be useful where I can select the form I want to have the option appear and whether it is checked by default or not.

Reply
1. antonio
  
  December 4, 2015
  
  Hi Henri,
  maybe you could use Groups Gravity Forms to join users to groups according to the form.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
  1. Henri Langlais
    
    December 4, 2015
    
    I think you misread my comment. I already join them to the group. What I need to do is subscribe them to the newsletter automatically when they sign up for the ride. I only want to do this for those that pay to participate in the ride. I do not want to do this automatically for everyone else
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      December 14, 2015
      
      Hi Henri,
      Sorry, right now there isn’t an integration with Gravity Forms. Maybe you could add the users in differents groups to subscribe or not to the newsletter.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.
      
      Reply
Henri Langlais

December 2, 2015

I have tried to use the order field to order the stories in the newsletter but it does not seem to work. Is there some other step to get the stories to order according to that order field?

Reply
1. antonio
  
  December 3, 2015
  
  Hi Henri,
  you can use ‘orderby’ and ‘order’ attributes, ex. [groups_newsletters_stories order=”ASC” orderby=”name”]
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
  1. Henri Langlais
    
    December 3, 2015
    
    Hi Antonio, thanks for your response. I am trying to order the stories in the newsletter email. When I send out the campaign the stories are not ordered according to the order setting.
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      December 4, 2015
      
      Hi Henri,
      as newsletter, the stories are sent order by date descendent. In groups-newsletters/templates/email/taxonomy-newsletter.php line 140 you have a get_post_ids that get the post ids order by date descendent. You could override this template and order the posts by other criterial.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.
      
      Reply
      1. Henri Langlais
        
        December 6, 2015
        
        In order to override the template your function in class-groups-newsletters-newsletter.php needs to change to accept parameters like this.
        
        public function get_post_ids($args = array()) {
        $post_ids = array();
        if ( $this->term !== null ) {
        $post_ids = get_posts( array_merge(
        $args,
        array(
        ‘fields’ => ‘ids’,
        ‘numberposts’ => -1,
        ‘post_type’ => ‘story’,
        ‘tax_query’ => array( array(
        ‘taxonomy’ => ‘newsletter’,
        ‘field’ => ‘id’,
        ‘terms’ => $this->term->term_id
        ) )
        ) ) );
        }
        return $post_ids;
        }
        
        Reply
        
        antonio
        
        December 8, 2015
        
        Hi,
        That’s true. Right now you could create your own function that accept ‘order’ and ‘orderby’.
        Kind Regards,
        Antonio B.
        
        Reply
Nigel

November 20, 2015

I’m confused! I have a forum, members of which are assigned to a group. I use that group name to select who to send the monthly update to. However, when I create a campaign containing a newsletter which, in turn, contains the story (the details of the latest posts etc), the campaign appears to send out nothing at all.
I’m in the group selected and receive nothing, yet, when I send a test newsletter out, i receive it.
If I export the subscribers, the list is empty. But that may be because subscribers are not the same as the group selected for that newsletter.
What am I missing in the various steps which will ensure that the forum members (group name ‘participate’) actually get the newsletter I want them to get?
So far, it is as follows:
1) Create story, assign it to a newsletter.
2) Add a newsletter and select which groups should receive the newsletter
3) Create a campaign, add the appropriate newsletter and publish it. If necessary, run the campaign by selecting the ‘Run’ button.
4) In my case, nothing at all happens…..

Any ideas, please?
Thanks

Reply
1. antonio
  
  December 1, 2015
  
  Hi Nigel,
  sorry for the delay. The correct order is:
  1.- Create the newsletter selecting the groups.
  2.- Create the campaign selecting the newsletter.
  3.- Create the story selecting the newsletter.
  When you create a new story, then email will be sent to the group’s users. Please check in Newsletters->Campaigns if the ‘status’ column is ‘executed’ or it indicates emails pending (sent/totals)
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Joel Peterson

September 22, 2015

Hi There…. a question for you before I purchase. I’ve been through your documentation and need some clarification on a few things.

1. Can I do an autoresponder on this? I have a 30 day email sequence my subscribers get. Can a user subscribe and automatically get my emails one every day for 30 days automatically? I haven’t seen the word autoresponder in any of your documentation so I am wondering.

2. Can I do shortcodes or calls to the user database to display values stored in the user table? I want to be able to do that to make the emails more custom.

3. I’m planning to use Sendgrid for SMTP or some other server. Is the SMTP password encrypted or plain text in your plugin? We had an issue with another plugin where a hacker got in and got the password to our SMTP server and caused all kinds of problems.

4. Can I just use regular HTML in my newsletters or do I have to use some kind of wordpress template?

Thanks a bunch! Looks like a great plugin.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  September 25, 2015
  
  Hi Joel,
  
  #1 We haven’t implemented autoresponder features yet, it’s planned but not yet available.
  #2 The system uses Stories to make up newsletters – Stories are a custom post type and you cano use shortcodes or customize the template for that custom post type to include personalized info.
  #3 You can configure an SMTP account to be used for sending the mails with the system. SendGrid is not integrated. The SMTP password is not visible if you use secure connections to your mail server (which you should).
  #4 See #2.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Bert

August 7, 2015

Hi,

Mail do mention the title of the story, but not the content.
How to solve?

Reply
1. kento
  
  August 11, 2015
  
  Hi Bert,
  
  Probably you need to adjust the templates, please have a look at the Templates section in the documentation.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Bert

August 7, 2015

Hi,

I’m sending newsletters via SMTP. The sender in the receiving email is just the standard wordpress sender. As a workaround I installed a plugin. My expectations were that Group Newsletter would do the job.

Reply
Taz

July 24, 2015

Hello I just got your plugin trying to set up to use SMTP newsletter@ as from email and info@ as smtp account as the newsletter@ is a forward email but this is not working

Failed to send the test email to info@.
SMTP connect() failed.

why is this not working all info is correct same as using it in smtp for mail client

Reply
1. kento
  
  July 25, 2015
  
  Hi Taz,
  
  You mention forward email, this should be a real account which the email server will accept as the sender, i.e. it should have full account details including valid password.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Taz
    
    July 27, 2015
    
    Hi Kento
    I have also attempted to do that but still nothing i have had my web server support eam checking the email systems everything is working as it should but still nothing
    
    it seems when i put an email in the from field it don’t work but if i leave all box ticked and filled out but remove the email out the from box it sends with the wordpress@ just fine
    
    Reply
    1. kento
      
      August 11, 2015
      
      Hi Taz,
      
      Could you please forward admin access to the site so I can have a look? Please forward it to support at itthinx dot com and make sure to include a link to our conversation.
      
      Cheers
      
      Reply
Dirk

July 23, 2015

Hi,

is there a form for users to choose the group of newsletter they will subscribe?

e.g. dropdown or checkboxes for entrys
All
Bugs
News

Best Regards
Dirk

Reply
1. antonio
  
  July 23, 2015
  
  Hi Dirk,
  with Groups User Chooses plugin the user can choose their group when they sign up to the website, maybe it can help you.
  Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Nigel

June 22, 2015

Thanks. Have just done this…

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 23, 2015
  
  Thanks, answered by email.
  
  Reply
  1. Nigel
    
    June 27, 2015
    
    I re-sent the admin details but haven’t heard anything. any news at all?
    Thanks
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      June 29, 2015
      
      Hi Nigel,
      answered by email.
      
      Reply
      1. Nigel
        
        November 25, 2015
        
        I’m still fighting with this. I still cannot get it to send out. I have no idea what you did differently. I recently posted here, but it has never shown up.
        I don’t get the emails and neither does anyone else. Yet the test email works fine.
        This is so frustrating.
        I must be doing something wrong but I have no idea what that might be.
        Any suggestions?? Please!!!
        
        Reply
        
        antonio
        
        December 1, 2015
        
        Answered, sorry for the delay.
        
        Reply
Nigel

June 19, 2015

I hope you can help me out with this.
I have set up a group, based on forum membership, called participate. It has the appropriate capabilities. When I set up a campaign to go out to this group, I see that it reports that it has been executed.
Looking at the newsletters, it says ‘Yes’ under subscribers, and a test email works just fine. However, no emails are received by any of that group.
What do I need to do in order to make this work?
This is really frustrating and I don’t know what else to try to make it work. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 22, 2015
  
  Hi Nigel,
  maybe Are the emails in the ‘spam’ folder? You can send us dashboard admin access to support at itthinx dot com and we’ll have a look to your settings (please indicate this comment in the email).
  Thanks,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Nigel

June 3, 2015

I set it up and sent a test email which worked fine, except that the email address is the generic Is there any way of making the ‘from’ address be a little more relevant?

Thanks

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 4, 2015
  
  Hi Nigel,
  WP Change Default From Email plugin seems can help you.
  Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Nigel

June 3, 2015

Is there a simple way to put only an unsubscribe form on a page? The reason for asking is that all forum members will automatically get the newsletter, but some might want to opt out after a while.

Thanks

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 3, 2015
  
  Hi Nigel,
  you can use the [groups_newsletters_user_subscribe] shortcode.
  Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Reine

June 1, 2015

Ok I was being stupid. Found where I add it. Sorry/Thanks

Reply
1. kento
  
  June 1, 2015
  
  Hi Reine,
  
  Thanks for following up on that. I think we need to improve the user interface so it is clearer, I’ve taken note of this to consider making the appropriate improvements. Thanks for your patience in finding it out, I hope you’ll find it easy to use from here on.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Reine

May 29, 2015

Hi,

I cannot get the plugin to send the mails when using campaign. All the test mails work fine but when it is supposed to send them in batches it fails. Also, I find it weird that in the listing, it shows as “running queued 0/0” until it changes to “executed”

I’ve created a group, added members to that group, created the story, added it to a newsletter, added the group to the newsletter and then created a campaign. Can’t figure out what is going wrong..

Appreciate help.
/Reine

Reply
1. kento
  
  May 31, 2015
  
  Hi Reine,
  
  Based on the “… 0/0” this would mean there are no recipients in the group. It’s not sufficient for the users to belong to the group, they must also be subscribed to the newsletters – please have a look if your users in that group are subscribed – there is a column labeled Subscriber on the Users > All Users screen, anyone with a user account who is subscribed should have a Yes in that column. See also the section Subscribers in the documentation, note that it starts explaining subscribers without a user account and below provides a description how it works for subscribers who have a user account.
  
  I hope that helps, please let me know if you need further indications.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Reine
    
    June 1, 2015
    
    Aha.
    
    Sorry if I am being stupid, but I have various groups to which I want to send different messages. Now if I uncheck “Subscribers” in the mail and just add the group I want, will the mails be sent just to that group/to no one or to all subscribers?
    
    Thanks for your patience and help
    
    Reply
  2. Reine
    
    June 1, 2015
    
    Also, since Subscriber is a role, WooCommerce “Customers” cannot be handled by this plugin? Or is there a way to set them as “Subscribers” and “Customers” at the same time?
    
    Reply
Bert

May 10, 2015

L.s.

I’m not able to get the newsletter page working with my theme. See http://www.managementofchange.nl/newsletter/testnieuwsbrief/
I’m using the Flatsome theme.
Not being a programmer, I do not know how to adjust it. I do know where to add the custom css.

What to do?

Bert

Reply
1. kento
  
  May 10, 2015
  
  Hi Bert,
  
  We can help you to create apropriate templates for that theme. See http://docs.itthinx.com/document/groups-newsletters/setup/templates/ and http://github.com/itthinx/groups-newsletters-templates for details on that. If you can provide us with an authorized copy of the theme to support at itthinx dot com (please make sure to include a link to this reply so we know what it’s about), we’ll be happy to do that for you.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Nigel

April 30, 2015

A pre-purchase question. I would like to be able to send a monthly newsletter to all forum participants. Sadly, your forum plugin doesn’t play well with my theme, so I’m using bbpress. But I have set up a group (using your Groups plugin) for forum access.
Presumably, this newsletter plugin would be able to send forum participants the newsletter OK?
I ask, because I’ve had some rather snide emails from Themeforest support about asking for money back even after I have proved the plugin wouldn’t work and l had the author’s email explaining the issue.
So, if I can expect a nice smooth flow with this, I’m in. I just want to check first 🙂

Thanks

Reply
1. kento
  
  May 9, 2015
  
  Hi Nigel,
  
  It’s pretty difficult to be able to confirm whether a system will work with a particular setup without having seen it. I would recommend to have a look at the documentation first, also note that there will probably arise the need to adjust templates for your theme (it has a template example repository on GitHub for that). Sales for this are handled through CodeCanyon and from what I know, they should be able to grant refunds for cases where the tools don’t work because of conflicts etc.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Donatella Pisano

April 27, 2015

I want to send an offer to subscribers on their birthday. Is it possible to set this automation with your application?
Thanks. Regards.
Donatella

Reply
1. antonio
  
  April 28, 2015
  
  Hi Donatella,
  sorry, this feature is not available.
  Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Erik

April 19, 2015

Hey,

Groups is a great plugin and I am excited to start using its newsletter feature but I have certain questions before buying.

I may not have found that right part of the documentation but so it focuses very little on how users sign up.
– can the sign up form be put anywhere or does it need to be its own pg.
– I want users to be able to click a “subscribe to our newsletter” link / button and have a popup with the sign up form to appear. Is this possible?
– also I want to be able to collect more information from the user during signup than just name and email. Is there a way to add custom fields so that I can gather info such as age, sex, ext. this info will help in which newsletter we send who and for getting to know our customer base better. This added data would also need to be able to be exported. Is this possible?

Thank you so much
Erik

Reply
1. kento
  
  April 20, 2015
  
  Hi Erik,
  
  Thanks for your interest in the plugin, regarding your questions:
  
  – it provides a widget and shortcode to let visitors subscribe – see http://docs.itthinx.com/document/groups-newsletters/setup/widgets/ and http://docs.itthinx.com/document/groups-newsletters/shortcodes/groups_newsletters_subscribe/
  – it does not provide a popup
  – there’s no option for custom fields at sign-up or to export them
  
  I hope that helps!
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Brian Busche

April 14, 2015

Just purchased the newsletter plugin, already had groups, and groups woocommerce. The Widget does not display the email field, nor does it show the reCapthca. I have tried disabling the reCaptcha altogether, still nothing. The only time I got the email address field to show is with reCaptcha enabled, but no API keys. Of course then there is a nag message about the missing keys. I also have this same issue on the subscriber page at http://brewedinchicago.com/subscribe/

Reply
1. kento
  
  April 15, 2015
  
  Hi Brian,
  
  The subscriber page brings up a 404 Not Found and the widget at the bottom isn’t provided by this plugin. Can you please create a test page and detail the shortcode used?
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
TorbenCJ

February 24, 2015

My bad. Problem Solved – your suggestion on your support page led me to the solution. Turned out another plugin had created a pseudo admin. As soon as restoring back to default wp roles the error disappeared. Thank you!

Kind regards,
Torben

Reply
1. antonio
  
  February 24, 2015
  
  Perfect 😉
  
  Reply
TorbenCJ

February 23, 2015

White screen of death after WordPress auto updated to 4.1.1

Error message:
Call to a member function has_cap() on a non-object in /home/somesite/public_html/helpdesk/wp-content/plugins/groups-newsletters/lib/ext/class-groups-newsletters-story-post-type.php on line 160

When will this be fixed?

Kind regards,
Torben

Reply
1. antonio
  
  February 23, 2015
  
  Hi,
  Have you installed the plugin as an administrator? Please be sure your admin user has ‘administrator’ role.
  cheers
  
  Reply
Andrew

February 17, 2015

Hi Kento –

We’re using Groups Newsletters to send out a weekly newsletter. Oddly, it seems many people are getting duplicate copies of the emails. It’s intermittent, and I can’t tease out any patterns — one week someone will receive two or three copies, and the next week they’ll receive only one.

We’ve got our WP install sending out through Mandrill (with the wpMandrill plugin), so I’m able to see the outbound emails; it’ll show separate emails if multiples are sent.

Any ideas how to fix/troubleshoot this?

Thanks!

Reply
1. Andrew
  
  February 17, 2015
  
  I just looked at our Groups Newsletters settings again. We actually have the SMTP settings in Groups Newsletters configured to use Mandrill, and have it limited to sending 40 emails per 1-minute cycle… so it’s not relying on the wpMandrill plugin.
  
  Reply
2. kento
  
  February 25, 2015
  
  Hi Andrew,
  
  The plugin itself wouldn’t be sending out multiple copies so I’d assume there is a conflict on your site with another plugin. I’ve subscribed on your blog with an itthinx email but this is a MailChimp form – do you synchronize the subscribers through that form with those of the plugin? If you create a group for this email, we can see if any duplicate emails come in and maybe get a hint at what’s happening.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Bruce

August 10, 2014

Thanks Kento for your reply. I read your documentation and not clear about how it works in one respect. Can stories have categories so they can be archived in different pages for different groups, or can newsletters be archived into different categories to be archived in different pages like you can with posts.

Bruce

Reply
1. kento
  
  August 11, 2014
  
  Stories are like posts and newsletters like categories (within WordPress terms, there is a story custom post type and a newsletter taxonomy). That’s part of the Concepts which the extension is based on and makes it pretty flexible as you can use the same story in different newsletters targeted at different user groups.
  
  Reply
Bruce

August 6, 2014

I am using groups to manage a members only section of our website and looking at group newsletters. We want to be able send out a newsletter by group and then have the newsletter archived by group eg newsletters sent to group A are archived on page A, newsletter sent to group b are archived on page b etc.

Thanks

Reply
1. kento
  
  August 9, 2014
  
  Hi Bruce,
  
  What you’re describing with archives for groups is handled differently with this plugin. It combines one or more stories in a newsletter and these have their own pages. But have a look at the documentation please to see how this works in more detail. Feel free to ask if you have any doubts please.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Andrew

April 19, 2014

Hi Kento,

We now have Groups Newsletters & WooCommerce Groups Newsletters installed. It seems like users are still not getting “subscribed” correctly.

When I search for a user in the Users listing (Users->All Users->Search), it will say “Yes” in the Subscriber column and have a checkmark in the “Active Subscriber?” column. But when I go to Newsletters->Subscribers there are no subscribers listed. Additionally, if I export the subscriber list, the downloaded file is empty.

I have added users through the activate_subscription hook (turns out that function was enabling the subscription, at least partially), through the checkbox on the woocommerce checkout page, and manually through the button generated by the Newsletter Subscription Shortcode… all have the same result.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Reply
1. kento
  
  April 23, 2014
  
  Hi Andrew,
  
  I know I’ve explained on Twitter but in case anyone else is wondering about this I’ll explain here as well. The subscribers list only holds those without a user account. If someone has a user account and subscribes, that will not show up in the subscriber list.
  
  Regarding the exports, it would be good to have an option to export all, including those with or without a user account. I’ve taken note on that and it should be added as an option to the plugin.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Andrew
    
    April 23, 2014
    
    Great – Thanks Keno! 🙂
    
    Reply
  2. Andrew
    
    April 23, 2014
    
    Great – Thanks Kento! 🙂
    
    Reply
Niall O Laoghaire

January 28, 2014

Where can I change both the ‘From’ email address & email text that is sent for activation of the subscription.
Thanks Niall

Reply
1. kento
  
  January 29, 2014
  
  Hi Niall,
  
  See Settings in the documentation for the email settings please. The activation text can’t be changed.
  
  Reply
Glenn

January 17, 2014

Thank you for your prompt response Kento. I surely would have seen that after install. I may have missed it but didn’t see in the documentation and just wanted to make sure before proposing it as a solution for a client. Thanks again, cheers!

Reply
1. kento
  
  January 18, 2014
  
  You’re very welcome, feel free to ask if you have further questions 🙂
  
  Reply
Glenn

January 13, 2014

Is there a way to import current newsletter subscribers from a third party email service (EmailDirect)?

Reply
1. kento
  
  January 17, 2014
  
  Hi Glenn,
  
  I’m quoting directly from the plugin’s Settings page where an import option is available:
  
  “Import Subscribers
  
  Import subscriber data from a text file.
  
  The accepted format is values separated by tabs, email address in the first column, optionally the date subscribed in the second column as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS – if not given or the format is invalid, the current date will be used. All subscribers will be marked as activated, i.e. they should only be imported if they have confirmed their subscription. No new entries will be created for email addresses that are already subscribed or assigned to a user account.
  
  An import can not be undone, when in doubt, run the import on a test installation first.”
  
  Reply
Goem

December 7, 2013

Hi,
how and where can i translate Strings like “Subscribe to our newsletters”?

TIA

Reply
1. antonio
  
  December 7, 2013
  
  Hi,
  You can modify the translations creating the language files: groups-newsletters-en_US.po and .mo for example with poedit, and allocate these on groups-newsletters/languages.
  cheers
  
  Reply
Eliza

November 29, 2013

Hello I got this plugin: http://codecanyon.net/item/woocommerce-groups-newsletters/6051459 and I thought it is enough on its own, but it now asks me to buy another newsletter plugin: WooCommerce Groups Newsletters needs the Groups Newsletters plugin. Please install and activate it.

I thought it is sufficient on its own, but did not want to buy so that i have to buy another one after, please help i want refund then

Reply
1. kento
  
  December 2, 2013
  
  Hi Eliza,
  
  You should contact support at Envato for that, as all sales for this plugin are handled there. Please note that on the plugin page it clearly states that this extension requires the Groups Newsletters plugin.
  
  Reply
Goem

November 28, 2013

Hey Guys,
I like your plugin very much.
I need to get an easier/faster way to send mails immediatly without creating story and campaigns to specific groups. I want to use PHPmailer like in this example: https://github.com/Synchro/PHPMailer/blob/master/examples/mailing_list.phps

Can you help me how to get the group recipients list into the while-loop?

TIA

Reply
1. antonio
  
  November 29, 2013
  
  Hi,
  Groups API and this plugin can help you as reference.
  cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Goem
    
    December 1, 2013
    
    Hi Antonio,
    thank you for your reply.
    
    The plugin you have posted is helping alot.
    I have only one problem to solve, the “groups-list-users.php” lists all group members, but i need just the subscriber of one group.
    
    Which IF-condition can filter the newslettersubscriber?
    
    TIA Antonio!
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      December 2, 2013
      
      Hi, you could consult the database:
      $subscriber_table = Groups_Newsletters_Controller::get_tablename( 'subscriber' ); $subscribers = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM $subscriber_table" );
      and check by email if the user is subscribed.
      cheers
      
      Reply
      1. Goem
        
        December 3, 2013
        
        Thank you very much Antonio!
        
        Can you show how I can check whether a user is subscribed or not?
        
        Reply
        
        kento
        
        December 14, 2013
        
        Hi Goem, you will find this in the Users admin section displayed for each user under the Subscriber column. Plain subscribers without a user account can be found under Newsletters > Subscribers.
        
        Reply
Niall O Laoghaire

November 23, 2013

Hi kento I checked out as a guest & a user – no new subscriber was created nor was an activation link sent – as I said before I’m happy for someone to look in the admin to see what’s going wrong

Reply
1. kento
  
  November 24, 2013
  
  Yes please send these to support at itthinx dot com and we’ll have a look.
  
  Reply
2. kento
  
  November 27, 2013
  
  Hi Niall,
  
  One table in the database is missing. I’ve re-installed Groups Newsletters with full data deletion to see if it would create the table on a fresh activation, but it is still missing. Your PHP memory limit is set to only 40 MB which makes me suspect that the system runs out of memory before it can create the missing table. You have quite a few plugin installed and WooCommerce’s recommendation is at least 64 MB, I would recommend 128 MB if possible.
  
  Please apply the following steps:
  
  1. Increase the memory limit to the indicated value (or the highest value can you set close to that) – in php.ini set:
  
  memory_limit = 128M
  
  2. Check the memory limit under WooCommerce > System Status – the WP Memory Limit should reflect the adjusted value.
  3. Re-activate Groups Newsletters.
  4. Go to Tools > Database browser and check if an entry appears ending in …_groups_newsletters_subscriber
  
  Once #4 is correct, you can uninstall the “Database Browser” plugin.
  
  Let us know if all is ok after that or you need further help.
  
  Please don’t forget to rate the plugin on CodeCanyon 🙂
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Niall O Laoghaire

November 20, 2013

Hi, just to follow-up I’ve been able to get the test email to work but nothing else, when I do a test checkout (woocommerce) no email is sent confirming newsletter, also I’ve created a page for the Newsletter Subscription using [groups_newsletters_activation] but there’s nothing on the page, happy to give direct links by email, thanks Niall

Reply
1. kento
  
  November 22, 2013
  
  Thanks for the update, when the checkout is done and the customer subscribes, there isn’t supposed to be an email if they create an account. If they check out as guest it’s different as they have to confirm the subscription clicking the activation link they receive via email.
  
  As to the shortcode, unless a valid activation link is visited on that page, there isn’t anything supposed to show up on that page, so that’s correct.
  
  Reply
Niall O Laoghaire

November 20, 2013

Hi, I’ve bought the plug-in along with the Woocommerce sister plug-in, but I can’t get it to work, the test email isn’t even working. Probably something simple but I can’t find it – thanks, Niall

Reply
1. kento
  
  November 22, 2013
  
  Hi Niall,
  
  Can you provide some details on what’s going wrong please? Does the system send the test email but you don’t receive it? Does it end up in the Spam/Junk folder?
  
  Reply
Goem

November 20, 2013

Hi,
i have bought this plugin now and tried to send a test mail to all “premium” members, but they get no mail. Testmailing works. Do i have to insert shortcodes first?

Is it possible to make a button on the “create article” page like “Inform premium members”. And all premium members get an mail with the article url?

TIA

Reply
1. kento
  
  November 20, 2013
  
  Hi, can you please give some detail on the settings you are using? The newsletter should have the appropriate group checked, i.e. under Newsletters > Newsletters, does the group appear in the Groups column for the desired newsletter?
  
  Regarding your question for the button, are you using a specific plugin that provides an article post type? “Create article” isn’t something WordPress provides by default or that the Groups Newsletters plugin would provide. In any case, this would require an appropriate workflow implementation and would be difficult to consider adding as a general option to the plugin.
  
  Reply
  1. Goem
    
    November 24, 2013
    
    Hi Kento,
    I mean the usually “Create Post”-button.
    
    I want to send an easy newsletter as a notification, if there is a new post to a special group. But i cant get it working.
    Does the User has to subscribe first whether the user is already in this special group?
    
    TIA
    
    Reply
    1. kento
      
      November 24, 2013
      
      Hi Goem,
      
      For this you will need to use stories, I’ll respond in your next comment with details on that. Yes, the users must have subscribed before they receive a newsletter, this is true both for simple subscribers (i.e. those without a user account) as well as registered users. The system does not support sending out newsletters to people who have not given their consent to receiving them previously.
      
      Reply
  2. Goem
    
    November 24, 2013
    
    What i dont understand is, why there will be stories sent, which are already send? Do i have to delete stories manually by my self after i sent it?
    
    I send a testmail and it looks like this:
    ________
    Story 2
    Text
    
    Story 1
    Text
    _________
    
    I want to send Notification of every post i wrote to the different groups, what is the best workflow for doing that?
    
    Thank you for supporting
    
    Reply
    1. kento
      
      November 24, 2013
      
      From what you explained, I will assume that you want to send out a newsletter for each new story you have created. The workflow for this would be the following:
      
      1. Write a story, i.e. Newsletters > New Story and in the Newsletters box, type the name of the new newsletter and click Add. Let’s assume this one is called “Newsletter #1”. Publish the story.
      2. Go to Newsletters > Newsletters and assign the appropriate groups to “Newsletter #1”.
      3. Go to Newsletters > Campaigns > New Campaign, we will call it “Campaign #1” and assign the “Newsletter #1” to it. Run the campaign.
      
      As you can see, the process is repeated for every story you publish. I hope that gives you a clear picture of how it works – please make sure to read the documentation also, it might seem simpler at a first glance, but it’s designed to be a powerful and flexible newsletter publishing solution.
      
      Reply
      1. Goem
        
        November 24, 2013
        
        Hi Kento,
        thank you for your fast reply and the workflow.
        
        Is there any easier/faster way to send a newsletter to a group? I have to do it a few times every day, the workflow takes a long time.
        
        Maybe if i send the same notification story? Can i execute a campaign more than one time?
        
        TIA
        
        T
        
        Reply
        
        kento
        
        December 2, 2013
        
        Hi Goem,
        
        I think what would be appropriate is to adjust the way you are planning to use it so that it is appropriate to the newsletter distribution you have in mind. Probably it would suffice to combine the several stories you want to send in one newsletter and then send that as a single campaign? Actually receiving several newsletters from the same source in a single day can be very annoying to the subscribers and isn’t really recommended. Or is there any specific reason why you want these sent several times per day?
        
        Cheers
        
        Reply
      2. Goem
        
        November 27, 2013
        
        It would be perfect to have a possibility to send an easy mail to a group. Without create a story.
        
        Is there any API or code snippet which i can use?
        
        TIA 🙂
        
        Reply
        
        kento
        
        December 2, 2013
        
        It needs a story by design, let me know about the previous comment please to see where this can be better adjusted.
        
        Reply
Goem

November 12, 2013

Hello,
I think this plugin is what i need. I just have a question before buying.

Where and how will be the mailadresses stored?

I am asking because, i need to export the list every hour with php to another server. So in case of a downtime i can send a mail from another server to the premium group.

TIA

Reply
1. antonio
  
  November 13, 2013
  
  Hi,
  you have available Groups_Newsletters_Export class on groups-newsletters/lib/views/class-groups-newsletters-export.php
  The email is stored in “groups_newsletters_subscriber” database table.
  cheers
  
  Reply
Ciaran Whelan

November 10, 2013

Hi there, great looking plugin. However I have a few queries.

If we want to create normal News posts on our site, then we would like a way that these news posts will automatically be added to the newsletter in the order that they are placed. So we would like to have say: 5 news posts added to the story and sent out through an automated process to our subscribed list, is this at all possible?

The posts would be added to the newsletter as title, thumb and excerpt.

Regards,

Ciaran

Reply
1. kento
  
  November 18, 2013
  
  Hi Ciaran,
  
  Thanks for the feedback 🙂
  
  The way it would work in this case is that you publish the stories as usual, like any normal post, while assigning them to the desired newsletter – you can’t really do the newsletter assignment automatically, it’s held that way so you really have to decide to which ‘issue’ a story is added.
  
  Also note the conceptual difference, it’s stories being added to newsletters and not posts added to stories (I’m saying that because you mentioned “… 5 news posts added to the story …”
  
  Of course the process of sending these out is then automated through the campaigns. If you’d like to review how the stories, newsletters and campaigns relate to get a better understanding, see the Concepts page please.
  
  Feel free to ask if you need further help on that.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Kyle

November 7, 2013

I have not, my client is having other issues that have taken up most of my time. Will try to test on a local environment tomorrow.

Kyle

Reply
Kyle

November 4, 2013

Is there any movement here, I need to start writing this asap.

Reply
1. kento
  
  November 7, 2013
  
  Have you tested what I sent you?
  
  Reply
s3r3ndipity

November 3, 2013

Hello,

Just purchased Groups Newsletters—have not tested yet. Is there a bulk ‘Subscribe to our newsletter’ feature yet? You mentioned in the first post that there will be such a feature in the next release. Without the bulk subscribe, it will be a slow start before sending the first newsletter.

Like Michael from the first post, I was expecting to see users who have a checkmark next to ‘Subscribe to our newsletters’ in Newsletters > Subscribers. I now see that the Newsletters > Subscribers is a list of non-registered users.

I am using Groups Newsletters for an internal membership system for School/faculty so the bulk add would be very nice feature. Also in my setup all members are registered so looking under Newsletters>Subscribers would be a logical place to look at what newsletters they are subscibed to.

Thank you.

Reply
1. s3r3ndipity
  
  November 4, 2013
  
  P.S. I’ve had the chance to test GN and it’s working—I can see great potential with this plugin! Using SMTP is a nice feature so users don’t see WordPress as the sender. It took a bit of practice to grasp the concept of Stories–Newsletter–Campaign.
  
  A question about the Newsletters page:
  NG created a Newsletters page. One newsletter has been create. When clicking on the link, the content is blank—was expecting to see the story created for that newsletter. I have the admin role and created groups access to include Admin. Am I missing something?
  
  Thank you.
  
  Reply
  1. kento
    
    November 6, 2013
    
    If anyone else is seeing something similar happening, please post a comment here. I’ve checked with s3r3ndipity and on the site she’s working on, visiting the Settings > Permalinks does not solve it. As this is the only report on this happening up to know, if anyone else is experiencing the same thing, please let us know.
    
    Reply
    1. Shane
      
      April 21, 2014
      
      I’m having the same problem. Just installed on a fresh wordpress and testing out the plugin. Any advice?
      
      Reply
      1. kento
        
        April 23, 2014
        
        Have you tried visiting Settings > Permalinks?
        
        Reply
      2. Shane
        
        April 23, 2014
        
        Yes, I’ve tried it with default and title and other variations to see if it would allow me to view a story still no luck.
        
        Reply
        
        kento
        
        April 27, 2014
        
        Even with Default you can’t access them? Do you get a 404 or just a blank page? Also if we can have a look at your admin could be useful, you can email access details to support at itthinx dot com and please make sure to include a link to this comment.
        
        Reply
2. kento
  
  November 6, 2013
  
  Taking the opportunity to respond here as well for others in case they’re looking for this, too. The bulk-subscribe feature will be added and available with the next release.
  
  Reply
Kyle

October 29, 2013

Hey, great set of plugins! This may seem like an obvious question, but I am missing something somewhere.

I am using this with Woocommerce, Woocommerce Subscriptions, and Groups. The basic idea is someone buys the subscription and they are subscribed to the appropriate group. Then the admin can send out an email to all the Group members at once.

So I am missing a few steps here:
1) How can I auto-subscribe on checkout?
2) How exactly is the email sent out? Is it when you ‘publish’ a campaign?
3) I manually checked a users ‘Subscribe to our newsletters’ box but my subscribers area is still empty?

Kyle

Reply
1. Kyle
  
  October 29, 2013
  
  Forget #3, you answered that above in another reply 🙂
  
  Reply
2. kento
  
  November 1, 2013
  
  Hi Kyle,
  
  #1 is a great idea, let me have a look at that, I think a small plugin that integrates WooCommerce and Groups Newsletters offering the customer to subscribe at checkout would be a good option. To just auto-subscribe wouldn’t be advisable for legal reasons in many countries, but a pre-checked option could be offered.
  
  #2 You must Run the campaign – see http://www.itthinx.com/documentation/groups-newsletters/starting/
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Kyle
    
    November 1, 2013
    
    Yeah, pre-select would be perfect. Any thoughts on how I can start writing that? I would need it in by Tuesday, so if you could point me in the right direction I will send you the results I come up with.
    
    Reply
    1. kento
      
      November 6, 2013
      
      Hi Kyle, I’ll give you pre-release access to the plugin (it will be released as a premium extension).
      
      Reply
      1. Kyle
        
        November 6, 2013
        
        Sounds good thanks. Right now this is my really quick fix to keep the wheels rolling:
        
        http://pastie.org/8460829
        
        Reply
      2. Andrew
        
        April 18, 2014
        
        We are also selling meal plans on a new WooCommerce+WooCommerce Subscriptions+Groups setup. I do not want an opt-in box on checkout, since it’s redundant and clunky to have the extra, unnecessary opt-in (if they’re subscribing, by definition they want the emails).
        
        We have multiple groups set up for several different meal plans. I need to be able to email them on a per-group basis.
        
        I’m trying to get Kyle’s fix working, and have added his code to our functions.php file — but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything.
        
        How can group members be automatically configured to receive emails?
        
        Thanks!
        
        Reply
        
        kento
        
        April 19, 2014
        
        Hi Andrew,
        
        A very simple solution is to simply hide the opt-in checkbox. Add this to your checkout page (using the Text mode when editing the page, not Visual) :
        
        <style type="text/css"> #groups-newsletters-checkout-opt-in_field { display: none; } </style>
        
        Cheers
        
        Reply
Mike

August 29, 2013

Hi,
I puchased newsletters and installing into 3.6. I have followed themeforest link to support and cant find to join the forum to post for help. I have uploaded as a zip, uploaded unzipped and each time the site crashes and I need to delete via ftp. I have read on the forum someone with same issue, but no solution. Please advise
Thank you

Reply
1. antonio
  
  August 29, 2013
  
  Hi,
  The plugin is fully compatible with wordpress 3.6.
  Do you have debugging enabled? It would be useful to see if the debug.log contains any errors that could point to conflicts with your setup or other plugins.
  cheers
  
  Reply
Michael

August 22, 2013

So it does – silly me! However – in my case, I needed to activate (check) it from the ‘screen options’ section – not sure if that’s intended. Anyway – it’s there now. Luckily, I’ve done away with the ‘subscribers’ role within WP, as it doesn’t describe what any of our users actually do (and, on a side issue, since so many people now use WP as a CSM rather than a blog, I think it’s time to do away with WP’s pre-set roles in any case – can’t see any reason why the admin can’t create these according to preference on installation).

It’s going to be a while till we’re ready to do a full, large-scale, live newsletter run, but when we do, I’ll certainly let you know how it goes. In then meantime, thanks for your help.

Reply
1. kento
  
  August 29, 2013
  
  Perfect, thanks Michael. I find WordPress’ roles rather odd to say it mildly … hence, things like Groups are built 😉
  
  Reply
Michael

August 20, 2013

Thanks for the helpful and prompt reply. I maybe haven’t expressed myself too well. When I said ‘… using the WP Users API, have selected some random users as subscribers, saving the changes to each user record …’ what I meant was: I go into the standard WP Admin UI, then go to Users > All Users and from there to a detailed view of a particular individual. From there, I tick the ‘Subscribe to our newsletters’ option and then save the record. I had assumed this would result in that person showing up under the Newsletters > Subscribers page, but from what you are saying, that is apparently not the case? If so, then how would one see which users (that is, users with an account) were subscribed to our newsletters (other than by examining each individual’s details)?

On your other points: This particular board does not require users’ specific, individual consent to receiving newsletters, as it is part of the general conditions of membership that they agree to receiving e-communications of various types from the club management. So, in my case at least, a facility for bulk-subscribing would be very useful.

I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that everything else seems to going really well, and this is clearly a plug-in with considerable versatility and scope. We are still exploring all the possibilities!

Reply
1. kento
  
  August 22, 2013
  
  Hi Michael,
  
  You can see which users are subscribed under the general Users screen – there is an additional column headed Subscriber. Note that this is not related to the Subscriber role.
  
  I think the bulk-subscribe option for users should definitely be added to cover cases such as yours. Got it noted and it should be added to the next release.
  
  Thanks for your great feedback on the plugin, please let me know if you have any further suggestions or questions.
  
  Reply
Michael

August 16, 2013

Hi Kento.

Many thanks for the plug-in, which I have now installed. I’m having an issue with registering subscribers. I’ve created one ‘test’ newsletter and, using the WP Users API, have selected some random users as subscribers, saving the changes to each user record. However, when I visit Newsletters > Subscribers, it says there are no subscribers registered. I’ve also looked in the relevant table using PHPMyAdmin, which is empty. Bit puzzled – I assume I’m doing something wrong – but what? Any ideas?

Reply
1. kento
  
  August 19, 2013
  
  Hi Michael,
  
  Thanks for giving it a try 🙂
  
  To subscribe an existing user as an admin, you would go into the user’s profile and check the Subscribe to our newsletters option.
  
  Entries in Newsletters > Subscribers correspond to subscribers without a user account, so when you have a user subscribed to the newsletter, that won’t appear there (and the table you mention would effectively be empty).
  
  You mention ‘… using the WP Users API, have selected some random users as subscribers, saving the changes to each user record …’, do you mean you have used another plugin? There are several user meta keys that need to be set, so that a user has correct entries that identify that account as a newsletter subscriber (groups_newsletters_datetime, groups_newsletters_hash and groups_newsletters_subscriber).
  
  I hope that makes it clearer, to sum it up, you can activate the newsletter subscription for some of the users by going into their profile. It might be interesting to offer bulk-subscribe on the Users screen though, at least for testing it would be useful, just as the individual option in the user’s profile. Note that this is mainly there so you can unsubscribe someone, users should still need to give their consent to subscribe rather than admins subscribing them.
  
  Let me know if that helps, I hope you’ll find it useful 🙂
  
  Reply