Version 1.1.2 : 15th September, 2009
* Fixed minor bug caused by the foolish assumption that an array key will always exist (thanks to Jamie for spotting my deliberate mistake).
Version 1.1.1 : 11th September, 2009
* Updated the MailChimp-supplied API wrapper to the latest version, in anticipation of upcoming changes to the API endpoint URLs.
Version 1.1.0 : 26th July, 2009
* Implemented user_register_end hook, to accommodate “no activation required” sites utilising the User module.
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Hello all,
Following on from its sister extension, SL Freshview Subscribe, SL MailChimp Subscribe makes it easy to subscribe new members of your ExpressionEngine-powered website to one or more MailChimp mailing lists. Here are a few of the highlights:
* Automatically add a member to one or more mandatory mailing lists.
* Specify “opt-in triggers” to allow a member to control which lists he is added to.
* Associate custom ExpressionEngine member profile fields with MailChimp Interest Groups and Merge Variables, on a list-by-list basis.
Simply enter your MailChimp API key, configure your mailing lists, and the extension does the rest.
A big thank you to the guys at MailChimp, who hired me to develop this extension, and were a genuine pleasure to work with. The MailChimp API is also well worth a look, if (like me) you’re into that sort of thing.
Full installation and usage instructions, along with the all-important download file are available on my site. Support is provided via this thread.
I’m running a community website with order 2,000 members and I’ve been looking for a way to improve our newsletter blasts.
We’ve had a really hard time trying to understand how to manage members when members = newsletter subscribers. Opting out of an EE based membership/subscription as Joe Average Citizen appears impossible / not at all transparent. I’ve wondered if it’s even legal given SPAM laws? (Maybe others could share how they handle things?)
How does this Add-on deal with those who opt out on the Chimp side of things? How does it update the EE membership tables to remove that former member?
How does this Add-on deal with those who opt out on the Chimp side of things? How does it update the EE membership tables to remove that former member?
I think there may be some confusion here. Membership of the EE site, and inclusion on the MailChimp mailing list(s) are treated as two entirely separate things; the extension simply provides an easy way to add members to one or more MailChimp mailing lists when they register with your site.
If you wanted to provide unsubscribe links for each of your mailing lists on (for example) a custom member profile page, you could easily do that (the extension even generates the links for you).
However, updating your mailing list preferences via a membership preferences form on your EE site does not update subscriptions to your MailChimp mailing list. This limitation is related to this feature request, so if you’d like to lend your support to it, I might be able to implement that feature in future versions.
Finally, unsubscribing from a mailing list on the MailChimp site does not in any way affect the member’s registration with the EE site, which is as it should be. As you said:
We’ve had a really hard time trying to understand how to manage members when members = newsletter subscribers.
I hope that clarifies things, but if you have any more questions, just let me know.
This is a core “issue” that I’ve struggled with for years in EE. EE doesn’t seem to provide anyway for members to “de-register” which leads to the dastardly “dead-member bloat” disease. Further, in our case/needs, we want no distinction between a member and our mail-list “subscriber” - if someone doesn’t want our newsletters then we want them to no longer be “a member”.
We provide free services for our “members” (and we use EE member controls to police that) and we can reach them with our newsletters. If they don’t want our newsletters then we don’t want to provide them our free services.
You’ve created a great EE add-on link into a promising service - it’s just me that apparently has crazy ideas about how EE “subscription/membership” should/could be.
Hm, sounds like this won’t meet your requirements then, at least not all of them.
In order to handle the unsubscribe side of things, you could create a CRON job that runs some custom code to query the MailChimp API once a day, and deletes any members who have unsubscribed from your mailing lists in the past 24 hours (not quite as simple as it sounds, as I don’t think there’s an API method for that, but should be possible).
Alternatively, you could write a custom extension that checks MailChimp when a person attempts to log-in… if he’s no longer on the MailChimp mailing list, he’s denied access to the site. I fancy there are a lot of “could go wrongs” with the latter option that you’d need to accommodate.
I am trying in add this new extension to the area where it says Contact Us on the right form http://www.neblettbeardandarsenault.com/nba/index-mailing-list/ but how do I add the code to add it to the Mailchimp? I am using the Freeform module on the contact form….and want to give the user the option to add themselves to the list when they send a message….I already created the profile field.
I am trying in add this new extension to the area where it says Contact Us on the right form http://www.neblettbeardandarsenault.com/nba/index-mailing-list/ but how do I add the code to add it to the Mailchimp?
SL MailChimp Subscribe is designed to automatically subscribe newly-registered members of your ExpressionEngine website to your MailChimp mailing lists.
If a Member doesn’t sign up for the newsletter when they register, how can they subsequently add themselves to the newsletter from their EE Member profile?
Apologies for the delay in replying. By way of an answer, permit me to quote myself:
...updating your mailing list preferences via a membership preferences form on your EE site does not update subscriptions to your MailChimp mailing list. This limitation is related to this feature request, so if you’d like to lend your support to it, I might be able to implement that feature in future versions.
I hope that clarifies matters. It’s a very annoying limitation, so if you have a moment please chime in on the Feature Request thread. The sooner EllisLab implement the hook, the sooner I can add the feature.
So at the moment, unless they sign up when they register there is no way for them to add themselves via their profile - it would need to be done via a separate sign up form?
Yes… I added my support to that thread a few months ago
So at the moment, unless they sign up when they register there is no way for them to add themselves via their profile - it would need to be done via a separate sign up form?
That’s correct.
Yes… I added my support to that thread a few months ago
I have the extension working on our members registration page but I’m having trouble collecting users birthday and matching it with the mailchimp date field. ref: registration page
I have the extension working on our members registration page but I’m having trouble collecting users birthday and matching it with the mailchimp date field.
Hm. The fact that you’re capturing the date of birth in three separate fields means you’ll need to do some pre-processing, and save the data to a separate field (that isn’t displayed on the user registration form), in a format that MailChimp understands.
The simplest solution would be to write an extension that attaches itself to the “member_member_register” (if your site does not use email activation) or “member_register_validate_members” (if your site does use email activation) hook, and give it a higher priority than the SL MailChimp Subscribe extension (anything higher than 10).
Your extension can then combine the Day, Month, and Year field data into a single “date_of_birth” field (in the format YYYY-MM-DD). Link the “date_of_birth” field to your MailChimp merge variable, and that should work just fine.
There shouldn’t be a problem using this extension with the User module. It uses the same extension hooks as SL Freshview Subscribe, which I’ve had happily running on a number of User-mod-powered sites for some time.
That being said, I haven’t tested it out yet, so I’ll do that in the next few days, and report back with a definitive answer.
I’ve just tested this extension on a fresh EE install, with the latest version of the User module (2.0.7, at time of writing), and everything worked exactly as expected.
Just for completeness, I created several user accounts with a variety of custom profile fields tied to different MailChimp “merge” variables, using both the standard EE registration form, and the User module exp:user:register form.
It all worked perfectly, regardless of the method used.
SL MailChimp Subscribe has its own error logs in the system/extensions/sl_mailchimp_subscribe folder (assuming this folder is writeable). Let me know if you find anything in those logs.
Thanks for testing that Stephen. I’ll look at setting up the extension this weekend - watched your screencast on the mailchimp site last night - most useful!
