Suggestion > Email Broadcast > "Send a Test Email Now"

[scott.blanchard]

I never send a broadcast email without first sending a test to myself. (I'm way too prone to major mistakes and I hate to discover them along with thousands of my closest friends

My chron job is set up to run hourly. So, depending on when I've finished my broadcast email, I have to wait a pretty long time before I even see the test.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, add the ability to send a test email immediately to a specified email address (or even the admin email address is fine with me)

[Veena]

Scott,
You can create a test product, with just one test user. Then send the broadcast to just the user(s) of that test product. After hitting the send button, check the System -> Job Queue to see if the job was queued.
And if yes, then instead of waiting for automated cron to run at the top of the hour, just run the cron manually by clicking on this link - http://yoursite.com/dap/dap-cron.php.
Replace yoursite.com with the name of your site.

Note:
1) Pl make sure that you are not running the cron manually at the top of the hour, when the actual automated cron itself is running.
2) If you run the cron manually, you will notice a blank screen when the cron finishes running. Go back to the job queue and see if the job status changed to complete and if the test user received the email.

[scott.blanchard]

Thanks Veena, I appreciate you taking the time to provide a workaround.

Hopefully in a future update, you can see the benefit of enhancing the broadcast email functionality to send a test email without manually invoking cron.

[Veena]

That's right. This is just a workaround. We will add this feature to DAP in a future version.

[scott.blanchard]

Scott,
Note:
1) Pl make sure that you are not running the cron manually at the top of the hour, when the actual automated cron itself is running.

Veena, once I've determined that the email is good to go, and I click to send it to all users of x product, can I then manually force the cron job to start by using the same technique? (Assuming I'm sending the email just after the top of the hour and would otherwise have to wait until the top of the hour for automated cron to run?)

[ChrisNJ]

A good example of this sort of feature is provided by Aweber.

I agree it will be a real plus to be able to do a one-click to send a test email, so that the admin can immediately see how it will come across.

Maybe at the same time a function could be added to enable the sending of an individual email to a specific user (perhaps when viewing their record).

Lots of creative ideas from users. Of course from a programmers view, a "simple" enhancement can involve thousands of lines of code and weeks of work, and frequently can create unanticipated problems that have to be de-bugged.

Myself, while I'd love to have it "all" right away, I'm generally content to have frequent updates every few weeks that perhaps add one or two new features or functions at a time. I've used similar products in the past that promise great things, but seem "dead" developmentally, with months or even years between update releases (if ever).

[scott.blanchard]

Any updates on this enhancement? I'm sending emails on a routine basis and this would REALLY help.

IDEA: Simply place a link to site.com/dap/dap-cron.php as a menu item in the "Email" menu. Call it "Send Chron Now" or something similar. It would have the same effect as just hitting that URL to force a chron run.

[Veena]

>> it will be a real plus to be able to do a one-click to send a test email, so that the admin can immediately see how it will come across. <<

Ability to do 1-click to send a test email will be part of a future dap release likely 4-5 months from now.