Bulk Email

Does it support variables for just static email. {{username}} or {{user.username}} nothing worked

Bulk Email seems to be compatible with Moodle 4.1 LTS. However it gave me errors in Moodle 4.5 LTS. I did not test for versions in between.

Hi @Matt. Again I'd like to stress that the bulk email plugin only uses Moodle's own email system, nothing more. Just a brief glimpse at the code will illustrate how very minimal this implementation is. So any features or functionality you need either already exists within Moodle's other features (janky as they may be) or can be developed separately, e.g. a local email template editor plugin. An off-the-shelf customisation for your specific use case might be to navigate to Site Admin -> Language -> Language Customisation. Then load the (English) language pack and continue. From here you can select all components in the filter and search on the term "email", or a keyword related to your specific message type. You can overwrite the greeting and save the changes to the language files.

Hi @Darby, I've looked into the outgoing email config > header option but this is a verbatim text window and does not allow for custom code to create a personalised greeting. You seem to be saying that it is possible so it would be great to see your thinking. Thanks, Matt

Interesting that the < deletes the text in the message. What I was typing is Dear firstname lastname,
Hope that makes sense
Thanks
Matt

Hi Darby, Apologies but also looking for your thoughts on personalising bulk emails i.e. Dear <><>
IS there a way of achieving this?

Hi Darby,
Many thanks. I will share your comments with my provider and see if we can make things work a bit better.

Hi @Matt. The plugin uses Moodle’s own email sending facility which means headers, MIME types etc are set by your Moodle instance itself. You can review and personalise outgoing email settings at Site Admin -> Server -> Email. From here you might try a number of things to get your emails playing nicely with Outlook, such as setting custom email headers like MIME version, content type and X-Mailer values. If all else fails, remember that Moodle is using the underlying PHP server to send the emails, unless you provide your own SMTP relay. This is the preferred method for many users, because you can ensure your SMTP host includes traceable SPF records etc, which is much more highly trusted by mail clients than email sent directly from a server. It can ensure your emails arrive with validated origin and sender metadata, which is what spam filters are looking for.

Also, is there a way of personalising bulk emails i.e. Dear Thanks

Hello,
I'm testing the bulk user email function and find that when an email is received by a gmail account it is html formatted with logos and footers embedded but when it is received by Outlook it is displayed as plain text with no formatting and no sense of where the email has come from. Giving that most people use Outlook for work this would result in the emails being deleted or flagged as phishing.
My sense is that, since Outlook displays other emails as full html it is not a case of media queries rather than the bulk email plugin not providing the correct code. I could be wrong obviously.
If you have any thoughts for a workaround I would be most grateful.
Thanks,
Matt

@Wynand Louw Again, you haven't specified an issue with the software. It says at the top of the page that the plugin is compatible with Moodle 3.9+. The plus sign means any version from Moodle 3.9 onward. If you want evidence that it works in subsequent versions then I draw your attention to the stats page, where you can clearly see there are literally hundreds of installations across Moodle 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3. https://moodle.org/plugins/tool_bulkemail/stats

@Darby Costello, thank you for clarifying and getting back to me. Maybe test and adapt your versions to indicate that it is compatible with 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3.

@Wynand Louw. You keep asking questions about whether this plugin "works" under different Moodle versions, or whether it's been "abandoned". If you have identified a specific issue with the operation of this very simple piece of software then by all means raise it. It's a bulk email plugin. It simply reimplements Moodle's existing bulk messaging feature to send emails. That's all it does. That's all it will ever do. If you need a more feature-rich solution or a higher level of support then I suggest looking elsewhere for a more complete integration, or reach out to me for some bespoke development. Thanks.

Is this plugin now abandoned?

Hi there
Is there any way to insert the pre-drafted text content to the mail composer as we need to send same content emails more frequently to different users in different occasions. Any support in this matter is highly appreciated