Moodle plugins directory: Newsletter | Moodle.org
Newsletter
Activities ::: mod_newsletter
Maintained by 
David Bogner, 
Wunderbyte GmbH
This is a newsletter module for moodle. First stable release. It provides the basic features of common newsletter tools. Using it with moodle VERP bounce processing is recommended. But we will add an additional bounce processing feature that will be easier to configure.
Latest release:
306 sites
139 downloads
51 fans
Current versions available: 6
Newsletter module
This is a typical newsletter module for moodle. The features are:
- Subscription methods: Opt in, opt out, forced
- Management of subscribed users: Cohort (un)subscription, Ajax user (un)subscription, filtering users
- Auto generated unsubscribe link
- Subscription of not yet registered users
- Multiple attachments
- Stylesheet: Attach a stylesheet and it will be converted to inline CSS (this is necessary for mail clients)
- Report of sent issues
- Resuming sending newsletter if there was a problem so that all recipients will get the newsletter
- Prevent duplicate message sending
- Issues overview with sort options: year/month/week
- Uses moodle internal VERP bounce system, if it is configured correctly
- Easy to use bounce processing: Just setup the mailbox for the noreply adress defined in the moodle configuration and it will automatically add bounce processing to all the newsletters
- Personalised newsletters: Supported replacement are (The pattern format starting with news:// makes it possible to use in in links without being modified by the editor):
- issueurl (URL pointing to the current issue for web view)
Pattern for replacement: news://issueurl/ - issuelink (a full html link pointing to the web view of the current issue)
Pattern for replacement: news://issuelink/ - firstname (First name of the user, the newsletter is sent to)
Pattern for replacement: news://firstname/ - fullname
Pattern for replacement: news://fullname/
- issueurl (URL pointing to the current issue for web view)
Upcoming features
- Tracking of read newsletter issues
- Statistics
- Templates engine
Useful links
Screenshots
Contributors
David Bogner (Lead maintainer)
Wunderbyte GmbH: Product owner
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them
Comments 
Comments
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I would like to ask if anyone can shed a light about how to use the installed add-on.
I am new to moodle and I don't know where to look on the platform to create the newsletter.
Is there a standard path where the add-ons go or it depends on the specific add-on? In this specific case how do I access the newsletter?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Stefano
indeed there is a description how to install the plugin at: https://docs.moodle.org/28/en/Installing_plugins Basically you just place the folder "newsletter" in moodleroot/mod/ and then you log in as admin on your moodle site.
Best,
David
I like your modul and have tried to use it an to translate the language file. Thanks!
I had to change the fields 'status' and 'delivered' in the table newsletter_issues to default to NULL to make it work for me. Otherwise I could not save new issues.
The other thing regarding the language:
in renderer.php
$output .= 'Group issues by'; [position 217:21]
is hard coded and can not be changed in the language file.
CU, Bernhard
thanks for your comments. Actually this plugin is not useable yet. We are working on it and plan to switch from "Beta" to "Stable" at the end of may. Meanwhile you can download an improved version at https://github.com/dasistwas/moodle-mod_newsletter
The issues concerning status should haven been already resolved there. Also we are now developping on 2.7 and plan to support 2.9 by end of august.
If you want to test and/or contribute your testing results I can create an account for you in our project management platform.
Best,
David
thanks for the reply. When I tried to install the new version I got:
Debug info: Data truncated for column 'delivered' at row 1
ALTER TABLE mdl_newsletter_issues MODIFY COLUMN delivered SMALLINT(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 after status
Error code: ddlexecuteerror
Stack trace:
line 449 of /lib/dml/moodle_database.php: ddl_change_structure_exception thrown
line 899 of /lib/dml/mysqli_native_moodle_database.php: call to moodle_database->query_end()
line 88 of /lib/ddl/database_manager.php: call to mysqli_native_moodle_database->change_database_structure()
line 77 of /lib/ddl/database_manager.php: call to database_manager->execute_sql()
line 588 of /lib/ddl/database_manager.php: call to database_manager->execute_sql_arr()
line 94 of /mod/newsletter/db/upgrade.php: call to database_manager->change_field_type()
line 689 of /lib/upgradelib.php: call to xmldb_newsletter_upgrade()
line 418 of /lib/upgradelib.php: call to upgrade_plugins_modules()
line 1601 of /lib/upgradelib.php: call to upgrade_plugins()
line 438 of /admin/index.php: call to upgrade_noncore()
What can I do?
Regarding contributions to your project management platform: I'm interested, but I will stick to 2.6 for a while.
CU,
Bernhard
you can go to /admin/modules.php on your moodle site as admin and uninstall the newsletter module, then reinstall it immediatly afterwards. This will recreate the database structure. Also we do not support Moodle 2.6, we are developping on 2.7 now. Also Moodle 2.7 is long term support, so I highly recommend to switch to Moodle 2.7 soon.
Best,
David
Sent mails doesn't support UTF-8. (although mail title is working fine, but the issue content with UTF-8 characters will be "???" at all. Any idea?)
Best Regards
Hamed
when I add a newsletter to a course's activities, and then I try to delete that from the list of that course's activities, it says "Unknown error" and doesn't delete!
Best
Hamed
thank you for reporting the problems. I will fix them today or tomorrow.
Best,
David
One point, which may help you in solving second problem:
When there is a issued mail in the neswlleter activity of a course (sent mail), there is no way to delete the activity. And admin should change the issued mail to foture time and then delete it from list of issues (then admin is able to delete activity at all. (Maybe adding a delet button to issued mail list can be the easiest way for solving second problem)
Best
Hamed
thank you for the hints. In fact I already solved the deletion issue. It was just a typo in the code. But I will solve the UTF-8 issue and also I am just on the way to finishing bounce handling. Maybe I can upload everything in an hour.
Best,
David
Ready to be the first, who update it. (Almost all statements translated to Farsi and after finishing, I will send it to add it to its available languages)
Best
Hamed
Thanks. I just installed the update but faced with white page in:
http://my-site.com/admin/upgradesettings.php
And so the admin menu is not opening and I should (delete module files from server and) remove Newsletter plugin in order to solve the problem. Any idea?
Best,
Hamed
I tried to repdroduce the problem, but could not reproduce it. I updated the version on 2 different servers and it worked fine. How did you update it? I deleted and moved some files so just overwriting will likely cause problems. I recommend to move the whole newsletter folder somewhere else and then move the folder with the new version in /mod/
I also fixed the UTF-8 issue. I tested it with some Farsi strings and it seems to work fine.
Best,
David
I First updated to 1.1.0 from admin, but not worked (white page). Then I completely removed it from server and uninstalled it from admin and again installed it from moodle.org system directly, but again not worked. Then I downloaded the package and installed it manually, but again not worked.
Now I did it again with 1.1.1. But the same problems. In addition that when I try to install it directly from moodle.org, it says: "Oops... An error occurred while trying to obtain information about the plugin Newsletter (mod_newsletter) version 2015061700. The plugin cannot be installed. Turn debugging mode on to see details of the error."
any idea?
Best,
Hamed