Birthday Newsletter
This plugin enables you to send a birthday Newsletter to your users.
This plugin is available in all our commercial versions (you must have AcyMailing 1.3.0 or a more recent version) and you will be able to handle a birthday Newsletter for:
AcyMailing Enterprise (if you create a custom field to handle the birthdate)
AJAX Register
CiviCRM
Community Builder
EasySocial
Event Booking
ExtendedReg
Fabrik
FireBoard
HikaShop
JomSocial
Joomla extra fields
JoomShopping
jSocialSuite
Kunena
Mighty Registration
VirtueMart 1.x and 2.x
Download and install the plugin
To install the plugin, log in on the back-end of your website and click on the menu Extension -> Install/Uninstall
Browse the plugin and click on the button Upload File & Install
Create your birthday Newsletter
First, create a Newsletter via AcyMailing.
This Newsletter should be published
You don't have to make it visible (and we don't recommend you to make it visible)
If you want to include an unsubscribe link in your Birthday Newsletter, please attach your Newsletter to the lists you want the user to be unsubscribed from if he clicks on the unsubscribe link. If you don't attach this Newsletter to any list, the user won't be able to select the option "unsubscribe from this list" when trying to unsubscribe but he will still be able to select the options "Unsubscribe from all lists" or "I don't want to receive e-mails from this website any more".
Don't send this Newsletter! You can send a test via the preview screen but don't handle a real send process with this Newsletter.
Then click on the menu AcyMailing -> Configuration
Click on the tab Plugins and click on the plugin AcyMailing Birthday feature to edit it.
Birthday plugin
Birthday Params
E-Mail: Select your Birthday Newsletter Only Newsletters which have never been sent will be displayed on the e-mail selection field so if you sent your birthday Newsletter via the send process, please create a new Newsletter (by copying it for example).
Send at: Time of the day the birthday Newsletter will be sent to your users
Number of days before the birthday: You can specify a number of days in this field so AcyMailing will send the message X days before the birthday.
Birthday table: Select the table on which you added your birthday field.
Birthday field: Specify the name of your birthday field (the one you created to handle the user birthdate). You don't have to specify any value in this field if you use jSocialSuite, jomSocial, Joomla or Kunena. For Fabrik, you'll have to put the "Full Element Name" of the email field then the birthday field (separated by a coma), for example: xefor_fb_sample_form___email,xefor_fb_sample_form___Birthday
Subscription: If you select a list for that field, only users subscribed to that list will receive the birthday Newsletter. This parameter enables you to create different birthday Newsletters based on the user subscription. This will enable you to handle multi-lingual birthday newsletters by installing several instances of our birthday plugin with different configurations.
Then click on the button Save
Once you saved the configuration, click on the Test button to test your plugin.
AcyMailing will add your birthday Newsletter in the queue one day before the real send date so if you click on the test button, you should see in your AcyMailing queue messages which will be sent in one day.
Example: If you want the Newsletter to be sent 3 days before the user birthday, please enter the number 3 in the field Number of days before the birthday. If you click on the test button, AcyMailing will look at users with a birthday in 4 days (3+1) and immediately add e-mails in the queue which will be sent in 1 day, so 3 days before the user birthday. Example: If you want the Newsletter to be sent the day of the birthday, then enter 0 in the field Number of days before the birthday. If you click on the test button, AcyMailing will look at users with a birthday in 1 day and add e-mails in the queue which will be sent in 1 days, so at the birthday.
Once you tested your Newsletter, don't forget to enable the plugin and AcyMailing will do the job automatically!
This plugin requires a cron task and will be automatically triggered once a day to add your birthday Newsletter in the queue.
Test
Once you saved one or more configurations, you can test them to see if you correctly made it by clicking on the "Test" button. You will get a report like this or an error message:
Frequently Asked Questions
I'm using the free version and just want the birthday plugin, how can I do that?
This birthday plugin requires our automatic send process so it will only work with our commercial versions (AcyMailing Essential or Enterprise). If you want to use our birthday plugin to send birthday Newsletters to users handled by another component, then AcyMailing Essential will be enough. If you want to display a birthday field on your subscription form, then you will need AcyMailing Enterprise to be able to add custom fields.
I record the user birthday with another Joomla component, can I use your birthday plugin for that?
If the component you're using is not listed above, then please go on our forum and create a new thread asking for an integration with another component for the birthday Newsletter. It should take no more than a week for us to add it and we will do it for free.
I use VirtueMart and sometimes the birthday plugin does not queue the message, why?
AcyMailing is not able to send a birthday message to users which are not already in AcyMailing.
VirtueMart handles users with and without Joomla account. If you handle users without Joomla account on VirtueMart, you should make sure the plugin "VirtueMart checkout Subscription" is enabled so any user inserted in VirtueMart will also be inserted in AcyMailing.
In testing mode the birthday Newsletter is added to the queue properly but it's never sent, why?
Please make sure you created a cron task on our server or on yours and that your cron task is working.
Also, make sure your birthday Newsletter is published, AcyMailing won't send unpublished Newsletters.
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