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Request a Feature Report a Bug
Completed
Last Updated: 29 Jan 2015 11:45 by ADMIN
Ben Hayat
Created on: 06 Apr 2014 16:34
Category: Editor
Type: Feature Request
3
email mailmerge control
Hello Team;

The following request, is a feature that everyone needs all the time. It is eMail mailmerge control.

Here how it works:
a) Just like a mailmege that has been around since the 80's, A user can use the editor to create the body/content of an email more like a template that will have tags/placeholders that at run time live data will replace them. This control can use the RADEditor to create such template. This template should be saved in order for the email Merge control to use.

b) The second part is the Mailmerge control - W should be able to attach it to a collection of objects (that these objects could have come from database), and each object could provide the FROM, TO, SUBJECT and for MESSAGE, it could use the template that user had created and saved. The Mailmerge will create new email for each object replacing place holders and sends email to SMTP server.

If you need more info, please contact me and I'll provide more info.

Please everyone, vote for this control/feature.
Thanks!
10 comments
ADMIN
Ianko
Posted on: 29 Jan 2015 11:45 
Hey Eric, 

What you need is a rather immutability in the content. This is not demonstrated in the code library entry as it is not related to the MailMerge.

The suggested solution is rather an MS Word-inspired MailMerge. In MS Word you can see that the user is able to break the MailMerge fields by changing the text inside. It is up to the end-user to prevent this from happening. 

However, if you need more details about immutability in the RadEditor, do contact us via official support ticket. 

Kind wishes, 
Ianko
ADMIN
Ianko
Posted on: 29 Jan 2015 11:35 
Hi guys, 

The code library entry about custom MailMerge functionality is already live - http://www.telerik.com/support/code-library/mailmerge-with-radeditor

If you have any comments, feedback or questions, please feel free to post them there. 

Regards, 
Ianko
Eric Villemure
Posted on: 08 Sep 2014 13:21 
Hi guys do you have any update on this.  Any documentation or code library you could provide me with.

We are trying to achieve such a functionality but we also need to prevent our users to edit the content of *system* strings.  For example a user would not be able to change ##FirstName## to ##FirstNaame##.  We have the same functionality in classic ASP and users use to change the tags to translate them for instance and it lead to problems.  Let me know if any of you guys have found a way to achieve that.

Thanks
Robert
Posted on: 01 Jul 2014 11:44 
Rumen, agreed. We've already 'rolled our own'. The flexibility of the RadEditor is incredible. Our custom feature looks like it was OEM.

Thanks!!!!!
ADMIN
Rumen
Posted on: 01 Jul 2014 10:55 
Hi guys,

The Mail Merge feature applies more to the Content Management systems, but not directly to the WYSIWYG editors. As you know it is very easy to create a custom dropdown in RadEditor and to populate it with data that the user can insert as a template that will be later replaced on the server. In regards to this, we do not plan to add it out-of-the box to RadEditor. What we can do is to create a code library and to cover this topic in it.

You could also use the provided solution in my earlier post to implement your own mail merge scenarios. If you stuck and experience any specific problems, open a support ticket and we will provide guidance on how to proceed.

Best regards,
Rumen
Ben Hayat
Posted on: 30 Jun 2014 13:24 
Just got an email notification that, this feature is APPROVED. Thank you team!
Can't wait to see it implemented. :-)

..Ben
Robert
Posted on: 30 Jun 2014 12:52 
Rumen, I noticed that one of your team mates marked a feature such as this as 'Completed',,,does this mean that it will be showing up in a release soon?

Thanks!
Ben Hayat
Posted on: 07 Apr 2014 15:02 
<<You could use the Template manager, the Insert Code Snippet dropdown or to create a custom dropdown with predefined *system* string items to enable the ability to insert these system strings.>>

This is the key which I didn't know I could do to offer those tags to user to drop on the form.
You guys thought about everything... :-)

Thanks!
..Ben
Ben Hayat
Posted on: 07 Apr 2014 14:38 
Rumen;

This information is awesome. Thank you!
I will certainly take your suggestion and look into it further. But the fact that I can do those features with the current editor, it sounds very promising.

I think, if an automated control made, [if time & resource permit on your side] it would be a great addition to the controls, because everyone needs this feature.

Once again, thank you for your time and if you decide to build one, I'll be happy to test it for you.

Best regards;
..Ben
ADMIN
Rumen
Posted on: 07 Apr 2014 14:26 
Hi Ben,

Thank you very much for the feature request and detailed explanation.

If I understand your scenario correctly, you wish your users to create/edit mail merge templates (which will be sent to multiple users) with the help of RadEditor.

The easiest way to tackle this task would be to use *system* strings that have some fixed starting and ending characters, e.g. ##FirstName##, or @@FirstName@@ - or something similar. You could use the Template manager, the Insert Code Snippet dropdown or to create a custom dropdown with predefined *system* string items to enable the ability to insert these system strings.

You should instruct your users what the list of those *system* strings is, so that they can insert those where needed. Then, on the server side, all you need to do is run some simple String.Replace methods that will replace such a string with the exact database row data.

Regex.Replace(text, @"##FirstName## ", firstName);

The mail merge control could be based on a custom dialog using the SmtpClient class that allows applications to send e-mail by using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.mail.smtpclient%28v=vs.110%29.aspx?cs-save-lang=1&cs-lang=csharp#code-snippet-2.


If more users request this as built-in functionality, we will consider providing the ability to create templates with RadEditor and to be able to data bind them on the server.

Best regards,
Rumen
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