Help:Sending an Email

If you have been granted permission to send emails to a mailing list, you will be presented with a number of options.

**NOTE**

If a mailing list is not linked to the user database, it will not have the option for Manage Keyword Subscriptions.

The list also displays the last mail that was sent, it’s title, time and date it was sent, and a link to the stored version in the Mail History.



On the vBM home page select Send Mail for the mailing list you want to send an email to.

Notice that initially (if the Pro version of vBMail has been installed on your site) you are asked to pick a template. If you have already created and saved one or more templates they will be listed in the drop down menu. Regardless of whether any templates exist or not, you will be able to Create New Mail. Once you have selected one, click Compose Mail to move to the next step.

Notice that this layout is very similar to the layout you have when posting a thread or blog. You can insert BBCode, but any BBCode that requires coding from the website (such as the Charge tag from vBCredits) will not work and won’t be parsed (processed) by the system.

Additionally there are several Available Replacement Variables that can be inserted into the Email. These are automatically replaced when the email is sent with that appropriate information. For example, inserting {username} into the email will mean that when it is sent, it will be replaced with the username of the recipient of the email.

Keywords are also available (if created for an email to this mailing list) and can be checked before the email is sent. Using the keywords that are appropriate will mean that users subscribed to those keywords receive the correct emails they want.

The content of any email can be basic, where you write what you want, using the formatting controls of the Editor (which is in BBCode), or can be using HTML. Any HTML can be used, which provides a vast array of options in how you want to format and set the layout for the email. The subsection Tips on Writing HTML Emails below will provide you some basic information that will help in the preparation stage.

Once you have prepared a message, you are presented with several options:

Notice you can send an email. If you choose to send it then you will be taken to a new screen that will list the users as the email is sent to them. This may take several page refreshes depending on how many emails are being sent.

The other options available when sending an email are Save Draft and Save Template. Both work similarly.

When saving a draft you store the email in the database, ready for you to access at a later date. You can access that draft when you first click Send Mail on the mailing list you picked earlier. You can edit the draft, and then save it again, or send it.

When saving a template, you create a model email that you can use at a later point. This can be accessed via the Send Mail option of the mailing list you picked earlier. This template will be accessible to all other users with Send Mail permissions, so is a way of establishing a basic format that can be used across a sequence of messages, even if other users are writing the main content of an email.

When looking at a Draft or Template email, you are presented with the option to Delete it from the database.

Doing so removes it completely from the database and will mean it is not accessible in the future.