Non-core contributed modules

birthday block automated email

Details

  • Type: New Feature New Feature
  • Status: Closed Closed
  • Priority: Minor Minor
  • Resolution: Won't Fix
  • Affects Version/s: 1.9.5
  • Fix Version/s: None
  • Component/s: Block: Birthday
  • Labels:
    None
  • Environment:
    Windows

Description

Suggestion to implement script to Birthday block to send an automated email to user who has the birthday that day from email address and thext of choice. It would be a nice touch and would improve users personal feeling and interest.

Activity

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Peter Johnsen added a comment -

Hi,
I found Birthday block a while ago as well and using it since. Its cool and handy. Your suggestion Ivan, is actually very good.. havent thought about it earlier. Hoping that the owner will find some time and help us out to improve the service...

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Peter Johnsen added a comment - Hi, I found Birthday block a while ago as well and using it since. Its cool and handy. Your suggestion Ivan, is actually very good.. havent thought about it earlier. Hoping that the owner will find some time and help us out to improve the service...
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Anthony Borrow added a comment -

Peter - I figured I would make a couple notes to myself as I think this through. We would want a cron job to go through and check whose birthday it is today and then send those out. There would also need to be some type of marker indicating that today's emails have been sent. I think this could be stored in config_plugins table. The disadvantage to this technique would be that if the cron job as run and sent emails for today and I go in and add a new person whose birthday is today that person would not get an automated greeting until next year. The goal here is to prevent multiple messages from being sent. Also, I want to clarify if you are talking about sending an automated message or automated email. My preference would be send an automated Moodle message because that gives control to the recipient about how they wish to receive it (email, text message, part of IM chat session, etc.). What I would rather do is have the username or the sending user, the message to be sent (with some filter replacements like ##firstname## and ##lastname## (let me know if you can think of any others that would be helpful), and perhaps we should specify the time to send the message (alternatively we could simply not specify one at all and assume midnight). In any case these are my initial thoughts about how something like this might actually be implemented. Let me know your thoughts. Peace - Anthony

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Anthony Borrow added a comment - Peter - I figured I would make a couple notes to myself as I think this through. We would want a cron job to go through and check whose birthday it is today and then send those out. There would also need to be some type of marker indicating that today's emails have been sent. I think this could be stored in config_plugins table. The disadvantage to this technique would be that if the cron job as run and sent emails for today and I go in and add a new person whose birthday is today that person would not get an automated greeting until next year. The goal here is to prevent multiple messages from being sent. Also, I want to clarify if you are talking about sending an automated message or automated email. My preference would be send an automated Moodle message because that gives control to the recipient about how they wish to receive it (email, text message, part of IM chat session, etc.). What I would rather do is have the username or the sending user, the message to be sent (with some filter replacements like ##firstname## and ##lastname## (let me know if you can think of any others that would be helpful), and perhaps we should specify the time to send the message (alternatively we could simply not specify one at all and assume midnight). In any case these are my initial thoughts about how something like this might actually be implemented. Let me know your thoughts. Peace - Anthony
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ivan added a comment -

Hi Anthony,

I thing that the disadvantage in case we add a new person whose birthday is that particular day is not 100% relevant. I mean, what are the chances that we gonna have that situation..? In my experience, users are not added to system sporadically, but rather in a bunch, a whole new group or new class. I agree with you when it comes to sending messages instead of emails- its more flexible.

Talking about adding.. how this field "birthday" is handeled when uploading users via flat file..?

Regards,
Ivan

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ivan added a comment - Hi Anthony, I thing that the disadvantage in case we add a new person whose birthday is that particular day is not 100% relevant. I mean, what are the chances that we gonna have that situation..? In my experience, users are not added to system sporadically, but rather in a bunch, a whole new group or new class. I agree with you when it comes to sending messages instead of emails- its more flexible. Talking about adding.. how this field "birthday" is handeled when uploading users via flat file..? Regards, Ivan
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ivan added a comment -

Hi Anthony,

do you have any update on reported suggestion..? Please let me know if i can be of any help...
Thank you.

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ivan added a comment - Hi Anthony, do you have any update on reported suggestion..? Please let me know if i can be of any help... Thank you.
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Anthony Borrow added a comment -

Sorry Ivan - I had missed your earlier question. The birthday field is handled as any other user profile field - it would typically be profile_field_dob or profile_field_birthday the shortname of the field is birthday. Please keep in mind that in terms of schedule, I am still very much playing catchup. I still have several outstanding issues I need to follow up before I turn my attention to the birthday block. I appreciate your patience. Peace - Anthony

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Anthony Borrow added a comment - Sorry Ivan - I had missed your earlier question. The birthday field is handled as any other user profile field - it would typically be profile_field_dob or profile_field_birthday the shortname of the field is birthday. Please keep in mind that in terms of schedule, I am still very much playing catchup. I still have several outstanding issues I need to follow up before I turn my attention to the birthday block. I appreciate your patience. Peace - Anthony
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Anthony Borrow added a comment -

Just an update that I have upgraded the birthday block for Moodle 2.0. I'm not sure that I like the idea of "the system" sending a birthday greeting which seems to me to be impersonal. I think birthday greetings should come from folks sending a message to the person but I am still willing to consider sending a notification message which the site admin can modify. Any suggestions on a default greeting? Peace - Anthony

Show
Anthony Borrow added a comment - Just an update that I have upgraded the birthday block for Moodle 2.0. I'm not sure that I like the idea of "the system" sending a birthday greeting which seems to me to be impersonal. I think birthday greetings should come from folks sending a message to the person but I am still willing to consider sending a notification message which the site admin can modify. Any suggestions on a default greeting? Peace - Anthony
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Anthony Borrow added a comment -

Would we want the user to be able to opt out of getting the greeting? I think I need to look at the notification settings a bit but I am interested in what folks think. Peace - Anthony

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Anthony Borrow added a comment - Would we want the user to be able to opt out of getting the greeting? I think I need to look at the notification settings a bit but I am interested in what folks think. Peace - Anthony
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Joshua Westerway added a comment -

Could the email come 'from' the teacher of the student (in the same group as the student) so it appears as being from the teacher but it really is the system generated email as per the system template? I have in mind to use this to send out some kind of voucher or merit for birthdays. This could be a totally optional setting for the system level, perhaps a role setting which tells which roles get the emails then a link in the block 'Stop birthday emails' or similar which users click to opt-out of the birthday notification emails. This could be recorded in a new table for the birthday block?

Show
Joshua Westerway added a comment - Could the email come 'from' the teacher of the student (in the same group as the student) so it appears as being from the teacher but it really is the system generated email as per the system template? I have in mind to use this to send out some kind of voucher or merit for birthdays. This could be a totally optional setting for the system level, perhaps a role setting which tells which roles get the emails then a link in the block 'Stop birthday emails' or similar which users click to opt-out of the birthday notification emails. This could be recorded in a new table for the birthday block?
Hide
Permalink
Anthony Borrow added a comment -

I've given this some further thought and I have decided that I am not going to fix it. For me automating some type of system response makes it impersonal. The idea about having an option for automated messages being sent from the teacher might be something that can be introduced with a local plugin based on the birthday code using to check periodically to see whose birthday it is. A notification could then be sent from a site administrator. On the course level something similar could be done. I will leave it to someone else to develop a local plugin to handle this. I really see it as outside of the functionality that I have intended. Peace - Anthony

Show
Anthony Borrow added a comment - I've given this some further thought and I have decided that I am not going to fix it. For me automating some type of system response makes it impersonal. The idea about having an option for automated messages being sent from the teacher might be something that can be introduced with a local plugin based on the birthday code using to check periodically to see whose birthday it is. A notification could then be sent from a site administrator. On the course level something similar could be done. I will leave it to someone else to develop a local plugin to handle this. I really see it as outside of the functionality that I have intended. Peace - Anthony
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Anthony Borrow added a comment -

p.s. - That said, if someone writes the code I would be happy to review it and consider including it.

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Anthony Borrow added a comment - p.s. - That said, if someone writes the code I would be happy to review it and consider including it.

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Dates

  • Created:
    Updated:
    Resolved:
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