Add-on Bridge XF <-> phplist to synchronize users and send newsletters out

snoopy5

Well-known member
Hi

I am looking for a bridge between Xenforo and phplist (www.phplist.com). I would be willing to pay for this.

I need a separate field to be checked by the user while he is registering in the xf forum and a kind of synchronization between XF and phplist user-db (only emails, username and whether he wants to have the newsletter or not).

Should be independant from the already existing option to receive emails from admin with XF. I have phplist on my own server installed.

Phplist is a free open source software by the way. Very professional for very large newsletters.

Any ideas?
 
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Only 300 messages are free. This is a paid service and not "open source".

If you want the open source version, you need to go to www.phplist.org.

yes, they changed that. They have now a payed version which is hosted by themeselves and only allow a limited amount of free emials.

At the same time under a different domainname (.org) they have still there free version which is downloadable and you have to install it on your own server.

There are NO limitatios with this free downloadable version.

The free version rocks. It has all kind of options to configure exactly how often per hour/minute etc. you wnat to send emails to the same or different domains etc. pp. There is no feature I can think of at the moment that is not available with that free version.

I payed a developper to make a simple bridge. I have a beta version already which I have to test yet. Will report as soon as I have time for testing.
 
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@viper357
@HWS
@Alfa1

o.k., I bring this old thread up again.

as I mentioned earlier, I have already a script for this. But because of various reasons, I never got it properly working. This I want to change now.

I made this week the effort to install again a clean XF-Test Forum (XF 1.5.17) and a clean PHPlist installation (version 3.3.1) on my own server.

I than installed the custom made addon in Xenforo. Installation was successfully. So far the good news. I am now testing back and forth, whether the interaction between the XF and PHPlist works properly.

It seems that at the moment, the synchronisation works only one way. From XF -> PHPlist. That means the users within XF, who checked the box for "receiving site mailiing from the admin" will get imported into PHPlist via a cron job within Xenforo.

My problem at the moment is, that it does not seem to synchronize the other way around, i.e. if a user uses the unsubscribe link at the buttom of the PHPlist Newsletter. This is deleting the email address out of the PHPlist database (or blacklisting that email address), but this information gets not transferred to the XF forum.

The result is, that the user does not get the PHPlist newsletter anymore, but still has the checkbox within XF to "on" for receiving site mailings.

Same for bounced emails. Surprisingly the script does not try to add the same user again to the PHPlist databse with the next cron job. I do not know why yet. But this is a good thing :)

Also the username is currently not at all transferred to PHPlist. I guess the reason is because in the standard settings, PHPlist only uses email addresses. But there is a possibility to configure PHPlist to use also usernames, which would make it a lot more personal for sending this to my users. That synchronisation seems also to be missing.

I need to test more today...

This addon is only a very basic bridge!

It only shall make sure, that the same information is in the XF forum as in the PHPlist database regarding vaild email addresses and who wants to receive the newsletter. Apart of that, nothings shall be implemented. I want to have it that simple by purpose to avoid any problems if you upgrade to new versions on both sides.

All other emails (thread notifications etc.) from xenforo shall be sent also in the future by xenforos email system.

So the Newsletter will be "created, written/formatted" within PHPlist with all the features available there. Nothing else. The sending of that newsletter is also over phplist only. Either manually over your browser or via a special PHPlist cronjob (outside of XF) automatically. You can even put realease date and time into that cronjob, when the newsletter shall be sent out in the future.

The unsubscribe link at the buttom of the newsletter is for the PHPlist database and only thanks to the cronjob within XF this information gets transferred to the forum (theoretically, because this does not work at the moment). Same for bounced email addresses.



Will this be released?

I am the owner of the code, so technically, I could release it in the RM. Currently I try to convince the old coder of that script to fix the few issues left. If he has no time for this, I need to go shopping for another coder. IMHO should not be too expensive, because these are only fixes.

I have to think about this to avoid playing here against the Xenforo rules. Crowdfunding is not allowed anymore as far as I know. I am not a coder at all. So I can not give support on the technical side. But I invested already money in this addon and I really need this now urgently, because of my switch to another webhoster and the way email providers are more and more strict with receiving newsletters and blacklisting the senders domainname.

So I could imagine to offer the script once it is working properly for a little money in the resource manager to recover my costs "as is" without maintainance promises (since I am not a coder). But I need to find a cheap coder first who fix the few issues left.

Whoever is interested in this addon, leave a comment here or PM me.


Why still my vote for PHPlist?


The risk nowadays to get your IP or domain blacklisted very fast is very high nowadays, if you sent to many emails too fast to the same domainname etc..

The amount of free emails you can send with all the other options (mailchimp et alii) per month is decreasing more and more. Once you are over this threshold, it is getting very expensive. The free script PHPlist is as far as I know the only solution to handle newsletters professionaly without any kind of limitations and without paying any money for it.

Do not mix phplist.org (free) with their service offer on phplist.com (payed)

I surfed the internet and the RM here for any kind of other alternative. There is none! Even after 5 years of requesting this here regularly.

With all other alternatives, you always have to pay a lot of money monthly, if you want to send out weekly newsletters with around 30.000 users each. We are talking here about hundreds of USD each month. Plus the price of the addon ;)
 
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I bump this again. Still looking for a coder to make this bridge.

Even after 5 years, there is no professional newsletter for xenforo out there. which can send in individual intervals (i.e. every 10 minutes) and amount (i.e. 1000) of emails..

PM me for details.
 
I bump this again. Still looking for a coder to make this bridge.

Even after 5 years, there is no professional newsletter for xenforo out there. which can send in individual intervals (i.e. every 10 minutes) and amount (i.e. 1000) of emails..

PM me for details.

There are add-ons to connect XenForo with Sendy, a very reliable newsletter software.
Seems like most people prefer Sendy over Phplist.

If Phplist has an API, I am sure it is not too complicated to adapt it to use it with Phplist also. So all you need is to ask/pay the developer of a Sendy-connector to adapt it to be also used with Phplist. But maybe it would be cheaper to just buy a Sendy license.
 
There are add-ons to connect XenForo with Sendy, a very reliable newsletter software

How does Sendy works in the setup process?

1. I buy one licence of Sendy for 69 USD one time only and install it on domain #1

That domain #1 is included in that price of 69 USD. Is this correct?

2. As soon as I want to use Sendy for more than one domainname, I keep it installed on domain #1, but have to buy additional domain licences, which is cheaper than buying a new full licence. 5 domians for example costs one time 48 USD

(see https://sendy.co/custom-domain-licenses?l=bdC7X6Dh8WgWu4JwcxJEqwyjcdf7Sydg)

I can then send for 6 (1+5) different forums with different domain names via Sendy 6 individual newsletters. Is this correct?

3. Sendy works with Amazon SES. How is this done? Do I have to manually setup an account with Amazon SES or is this done within Sendy through an easier walk through process?

4. What about a dedicated IP address, which normally costs extra with Amazon SES? Is the IP address of the server of domain name #1 used automatically or do I need to pay Amazon the extra 25 USD each month for an extra IP address?

5. How is the process of sending an email to all users within XF done step by step? Do I enter Sendy data in the email configuration of XF?

6. How are the bounces handled with this alternative. Is the master database always XF or do I have then 2 db and need to sync them somehow each day?

7. If a new user registers and checks the option to receive emails from the admin, is he then automatically subscribed to Sendy too?

8. What happens if the users gets banned or deleted or bounced in XF. How does this information gets through Sendy/Amazon and vice versa?
 
Sendy addon

 
How does Sendy works in the setup process?

1. I buy one licence of Sendy for 69 USD one time only and install it on domain #1

That domain #1 is included in that price of 69 USD. Is this correct?

2. As soon as I want to use Sendy for more than one domainname, I keep it installed on domain #1, but have to buy additional domain licences, which is cheaper than buying a new full licence. 5 domians for example costs one time 48 USD

(see https://sendy.co/custom-domain-licenses?l=bdC7X6Dh8WgWu4JwcxJEqwyjcdf7Sydg)

I can then send for 6 (1+5) different forums with different domain names via Sendy 6 individual newsletters. Is this correct?

3. Sendy works with Amazon SES. How is this done? Do I have to manually setup an account with Amazon SES or is this done within Sendy through an easier walk through process?

4. What about a dedicated IP address, which normally costs extra with Amazon SES? Is the IP address of the server of domain name #1 used automatically or do I need to pay Amazon the extra 25 USD each month for an extra IP address?

5. How is the process of sending an email to all users within XF done step by step? Do I enter Sendy data in the email configuration of XF?

6. How are the bounces handled with this alternative. Is the master database always XF or do I have then 2 db and need to sync them somehow each day?

7. If a new user registers and checks the option to receive emails from the admin, is he then automatically subscribed to Sendy too?

8. What happens if the users gets banned or deleted or bounced in XF. How does this information gets through Sendy/Amazon and vice versa?

1) Yes, that one domain can hold multiple "clients". I have 3 different forums running through my sendy installation.
2) ^
3) Setup an Account via AWS. Not to hard.
4) No needed in my opinion.
5) I use my own add on, but you can build the newsletter in Sendy, and the "list" in Sendy is sync'd from XF into Sendy.
6) In my addon a bounce will remove them from the Sendy list and I also have it set to set the account to a bounced state.
7) I have a separate option that I ask if they want to be included in "newsletters".
8) See #6


The addon linked above does all of that I'm pretty sure. I highly recommend sendy.
 
ok, here is another question for Sendy:

In the setup I saw this:

DPRF_Sendy_adjust_sending_rate.webp



I thought that Sendy is sending via my Amazon SES account and therefore the limits on my server do not apply at all ? Do the sever limits still apply?
 
I thought that Sendy is sending via my Amazon SES account and therefore the limits on my server do not apply at all ? Do the sever limits still apply?

Messages still have to be transferred from your server to Amazon SES. If you have a very high sending quota at SES and a very small server this may be a bottleneck which you can solve using that setting.

Usually you do not need to adjust your sending rate in Sendy,
 
If you have a very high sending quota at SES and a very small server this may be a bottleneck which you can solve using that setting.

Do you mean that if I have a treshold of i.e. 1000 emails every 10 minutes on my server, but a lot higher on Amazon SES, I just put in the field above (emails per seconds) a higher number and the bottleneck of my server is gone?
 
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