FireMail
FireMail is an Expression Engine 2.0 add-on that improves the way you send emails from your control panel. It is both an email manager and tracker in one.
Support can be found in the comments and in this EE forum thread.
Current Version: 1.2 (released 3 March 2010)
* Works with ExpressionEngine 2.0 and higher.
1. Concept
The built-in email tool in EE found under Tools > Communicate is sufficient for simple email sending, but it lacks many important features. In addition, the changes in EE 2.0 mean that developers will not be able to customise or add features to it.
FireMail is a complete email tool that replaces the Communicate tab, but that reuses the best of EE's built-in email libraries. It adds a WYSIWYG editor when composing emails, supports batch sending for sending of mass mails, and allows you to track opens, clicks and unsubscribes resulting from any email you send.
2. How It Works
The main screen of FireMail shows you all of the emails that have been sent out (including those sent from the Communicate tab), as well as the number of people that have clicked on a link in the email and the click-through rate.
Every email that was sent from FireMail has relevant statistics that can help you measure your email's success in real-time. The individual statistics are:
- Unique Opens: the number of people who opened the email (see notes about opens below)
- Clicks: the number of people who clicked on a link in the email
- Unsubscribed: the number of people who unsubscribed from a mailing list using the unsubscribe link in the email
- Unopened: the number of people who did not open the email (how dare they!)
The line graph displays opens and clicks in the first 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, week and month.
The top links that were clicked on in the email are also displayed. A full report shows the links along with the index of each link (the position of the link in the email as the same link can appear multiple times in the same email) and the number of clicks.
Emails can be sent with FireMail in a more email-like fashion than on the Communicate tab. A WYSIWYG email editor is included to help you get the look and feel you want, and can be switched off if you prefer to code in html. Mailing lists and member groups can be added and batch sending is supported (through EE's normal mail configuration settings).
Templates can be added to make it easy to send out pre-designed emails using CKEditor's templating system. To create or edit an existing template, open up firemail/javascript/ckeditor/plugins/templates/templates/default.js and make the appropriate changes. Upload the template images to the firemail/javascript/ckeditor/plugins/templates/templates/images/ folder.
Things to Note
* An email can only be recorded as "opened" if the reader's email client is capable of displaying html with images, and if that option is turned on. If it is not, then there is no way to record open rates unless the recipient clicks on one of the links in the email.
* You should be aware of any limits on the number of emails that you are allowed to send out per hour based on your web hosting account (especially people on shared hosting accounts) and don't exceed them or you'll get back a LOT of mail delivery failure notifications.
* You might want to create a new email address especially for sending mass emails so that you have bounce backs all in one place (no-reply@yoursite.com for example).
3. Planned Features
The following features are in the pipeline and will be coming soon:
- Ability to add template tags to emails
- Option to add google analytics tracking to emails
4. Installation
Thanks to EE 2.0's new features, installing third party add-ons is really easy. Download and unzip firemail.zip, then follow the simple steps below:
- Upload the entire firemail folder to the system/expressionengine/third_party/ folder
- Install the FireMail module (Control Panel -> Add-Ons -> Modules -> Install)
- Check your email settings (Control Panel -> Admin -> Email Configuration)
5. Download
Each individual license costs $49.95, which allows you to use the add-on on one installation of EE. You must purchase a license in order to download FireMail. Once you have completed payment you will be sent a code that will allow you to download the file.
By purchasing FireMail you agree to the license agreement.
If you have already purchased FireMail then you can download it by entering your email and code below.
6. License
By purchasing FireMail you agree to the following conditions:
- One license grants the right to perform one installation of FireMail. Each additional installation requires an additional purchased license.
- You may not reproduce, distribute, sell or transfer FireMail, or portions thereof, to any third party.
- All copyright and proprietary notices within FireMail files must remain intact and unaltered.
- FireMail is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.
- You assume all risk associated with the installation and use of FireMail.
7. Changelog
Version 1.2 (generously funded by silverbackmarketing.com)- Emails checked for uniqueness before sending so that no duplicates are sent
- Added CSV export option
- Added PDF export option
- Added preview button to email editor
- Added option to send all batches at once or just the first batch
- Added seperate view file ckeditor_config.php for easy customisation of email editor
- Minor bugfixes
- Changed email WYSIWYG editor from TinyMCE to CKEditor 3.1 (which supports templates)
- Minor bugfixes
- Initial release
8. Comments
Jim Pannell
14 January 2010
Wow - you've been busy Ben! Congratulations on the launch - I can see this becoming a very, very popular addons in 2010 and a great reason to switch to EE 2.0.
jeremy douglas
14 January 2010
This is excellent. Would be great if in the future a feature is added to be able to design and setup email templates for clients.
Ben
14 January 2010
thanks for the positive feedback. i agree templates would be good for a future feature, in the meantime you can resend previously sent emails which could be a workaround.
John Faulds
14 January 2010
If I understand Jeremy properly, I think he's probably referring to the ability to combine the content of the WYSIWYG editor with a predesigned HTML email template, so the client can create their content and it gets sent out with header and footer images etc. Like what the now-defunct Boomerang module allowed you to do.
Nevertheless, this looks like a great add-on!
Brendon Carr
15 January 2010
This looks like a really good start at matching the suddenly- (and strangely) departed Boomerang, this time for EE 2.0.
I'm curious to know, Ben, as you are experienced developing for EE 1.x and now EE 2.0 -- is the move to CodeIgniter all that it's cracked up to be, in terms of making it easier to develop add-ons for ExpressionEngine? EllisLab went off on almost a four-year detour to move the product onto the CodeIgniter framework, with the promise of igniting the add-on space. Did they achieve the objective?
Ben
15 January 2010
thanks for the clarification john. regarding templates, i've made a quick decision to switch the WYSIWYG editor to CKEditor (over TinyMCE). i was considering it anyway, but the requests for templates and the ability of adding templates with CKEditor sealed the deal. so now developers will be able to easily set up email templates for themselves and for their clients.
thanks for the question brendon. since the answer is quite a long one, i think i'll write a short piece rather than a comment to answer it. i'll let you know where i end up posting it soon.
Brendon Carr
15 January 2010
I think a lot of longtime ExpressionEngine users and developers are quite curious to know: Did EllisLab reinvent the wheel and, after all the tooth-gnashing, get a much better wheel -- or simply a different wheel?
Ben
15 January 2010
well like i said i have a lot to say, so i'll take a bit of time to write my full opinion.
in general i really enjoyed developing this add-on for EE 2.0. as i am used to developing with CodeIgniter it was a totally painless switch and for the most part well the code is very well documented. however i do have some minor gripes that i think are issues that should be discussed, and i plan on bringing them up in the forums soon.
overall i'm happy with EE 2.0. converting old add-ons isn't fun as its a slow, tedious process, but one which has to be done. a bigger concern for me though is it will not be possible to convert many of the EE 1.6 add-ons, especially those which help to customise the CP. i'll explain in more detail soon, promise!
John Faulds
18 January 2010
Wow, quick work on adding templating capability in Ben! I had thought TinyMCE also had a templating feature, but it's been some time since I looked into it.
Ben
19 January 2010
well there were other factors in the decision to switch to the CKEditor.
i think the templates make it an even cooler add-on so why wait?!
Atiosis
01 February 2010
Is it still possible to download (purchase) a version for ee 1.x.x?
Also, can be this module accessed or used from an SAEF?
Thanks.
Ben
01 February 2010
this add-on was built especially for EE 2.0, so there never was one for 1.6 i'm araid
Erwin van Lun
13 February 2010
Excellent! Exactly what we need. We're currently developing a custom Code Igniter module that will sent email batches, a forum daily/weekly/montly digest. We're interested in what members do: whether they read their notifications, read their digests etc. Furthermore, we'll sent emailings manually. This seems to be the perfect tool. We might need to do some custimisations but all the graphics.. awesome!
Dave
20 February 2010
Wow, my prayers have been answered! Will definitely be downloading a few copies of this over the next few months!
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