CRM Event Messaging

List Event Properties

List Events are a powerful feature of Mailing Lists.  Events fire (in other words, execute) under certain conditions automatically, or on the administrator's command in the console, or when an event trigger e-mail is received. 

Each mailing list can have a fixed set of list events.  For each subscriber, a record is kept of how often each event has fired for them.  When an event fires for a subscriber, it is possible to send a template e-mail to that subscriber.  It is also possible to do nothing at all when an event fires, but the fact that it has fired can be used to determine whether another event can fire.

There are two built-in events for every mailing list.  These are "join", which fires when a subscriber joins the mailing list, and "post" which fires when a subscriber posts a message to the list. 

You can add any number of user-defined events in addition to these.

Event Settings

User-defined events fire when all their dependencies are met, usually within an hour of meeting these pre-requisites.  Setting the "Repeat this event every..." option means that the event will keep firing periodically as long as the dependencies have been met.

Set the "Send this template when the even fires" to configure the template e-mail that is sent to the relevant subscriber.

Dependencies

On the Dependencies tab, you can control the other event states that must be valid before this event can fire.

You can add multiple dependencies here.  Dependencies can be the requirement that another event has fired at least once, at least a specific number of times, at most a specific number of times, or not at all.

An Example

Let's say you want to encourage your list members to post a message to the list.  You could have a reminder giving the posting instructions sent out five days after a member has joined, but only if they haven't yet posted.

To do this you need two user-defined events.  The first is a "daily" event.  It simply fires once per day with no requirements.

The second event would be the "reminder" event and it would be configured to send the reminder e-mail.  The dependencies should be that the "daily" event should be fired at least 5 times, and no more than 5 times, and that the "post" event should not have fired at all.

You should configure the dependencies to be valid only when all of them have been met.

Firing Events by E-mail

To fire an event for a list, send a message to the "mailserver" mailslot, with the command "event" followed by the name of the event and optionally the membership address if you wish to fire the event for a subscriber other than the sender of the e-mail.