Mailchimp-style mailing list utility integrated into Moodle

Mailchimp-style mailing list utility integrated into Moodle

by Luca Bösch -
Number of replies: 3

For the Swiss educational technology user group EduHub, we are soon switching to a Moodle platform.

Nearly all requirements can be covered by it, but one need has been identified.

Forums can approximate mailing lists, but lack proper subscriber management (other than enrolment to the course/subscription to the forum), templating, segmentation, and analytics required for more professional communication.

It would be great to have a dedicated mailing list tool.

A Moodle plugin that allows authorised users (probably rather community managers than teachers) to manage subscriber lists (students, cohorts, external users), create and send newsletter-style emails using templates, and maybe track engagement — similar to Mailchimp’s campaign and audience management.

I believe I haven't seen something like this in the Moodle Plugins Database/Marketplace

Must have
  • Audience management: subscribe and manage users (incl. cohorts and external emails)
  • Email builder: template-based, personalised newsletter creation (optionally integrating/depending on something like https://moodle.org/plugins/filter_filtercodes)
Nice to have
  • Analytics: track delivery and engagement (opens, clicks)
Unsure
  • Automation: trigger emails based on events (e.g. enrolment, inactivity)
  • Segmentation: target groups by course, activity, or behaviour
Additional considerations
  • Permissions: dedicated role (e.g. “mailing manager”) independent of teacher role
  • Compliance: unsubscribe links, consent handling, GDPR-compliant mailing
In reply to Luca Bösch

Re: Mailchimp-style mailing list utility integrated into Moodle

by David Herney -

Hi Luca...

You might want to take a look at this plugin: https://github.com/bambuco/moodle-local_bbcomailing.

We created it recently, but it has most of the features you mentioned. It could be a good place to start.

Saludos

In reply to Luca Bösch

Re: Mailchimp-style mailing list utility integrated into Moodle

by Luuk Verhoeven -
Hi Luca,

Mailing in Moodle is a good topic.

This was also one of the items on my wishlist to develop. In my view, Moodle is still quite limited when it comes to email templates in general, especially in terms of editing, styling, and managing them, or sending messages to certain groups of users.

More broadly, I think Moodle’s mailing logic could be improved to work more like modern platforms do, with proper templating, a clearer structure, and better tooling around outgoing communication and unsubscribing from certain emails directly from the mail with an unregister link.

The standard email templates are difficult to track in Moodle. In a core Moodle installation, there is no clear structure or central overview for outgoing emails. Much of the template text is stored somewhere in the language files, which makes it hard to discover, maintain, or customize.

Of course, some things can be handled somehow, but it’s not user-friendly or easy to maintain. Ideally, Moodle should provide an overview of all emails the system can send, including where they are triggered, which template or language string they use, and how they can be customized. It would also be useful to have an overview or log of emails that have actually been sent, making it easier to debug and audit outgoing communication.

The registration email is a separate case as well. I previously noted that it was using email_... strings instead of being handled through a message provider.

Related issue: MDL-64825
https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-64825
In reply to Luuk Verhoeven

Re: Mailchimp-style mailing list utility integrated into Moodle

by Tim Hunt -

I am interesting in one half of this. I am not so interested in the mailing list / subscriber management part.

The bit I would be interested in thinking about is: can we introduce an email templating system to Moodle core, so that all the emails that your Moodle site sends can be customised?

There are probably at least 2 parts to this:

  • An overall template for HTML emails, so that they look pretty in a consistent way (e.g. some institutional branding.)
  • A way to customise the email contents, using some fairly consistent placeholders. This one can be achieved to some extent using Language Customisation, but I am thinking of a dedicated admin screen.

We actually did the admin screen idea for one of our plugins, just using textarea admin settings, but that is not re-usable in other plugins. Here is an example:image.png

Also, to make the 'Customise using lang strings' idea a bit more possible, in the past there have been changes made like MDL-84733 to make more placeholders availalbe to particular messages than are used in the default Moodle strings, but again, this is something being done in just one place, and it might be better to think about something that works for all the emails that Moodle sends.