I need to send the reminder email out today so have created a (rather kludgy) work-around that lets me do what I want and I’ll document it below.
I apologize for the bad formatting; I do not know how to do multi-level bulleted lists in this forum
If anyone sees a problem with what I am doing, please advise.
If anyone has a better way, please advise. I am not a fan of kludges but could not figure out another way.
We call our SuiteCRM system a DMS - Donor Management System
If you are running a fund-raising campaign with multiple requests for funding, you do not want to ask for funding from someone who has already donated. To prevent this, create a “Suppression List” of those who have already donated to that campaign, and when sending future emails, include the "Suppression List’ to keep those people off the new email distribution.
The normal way to create a Target List (any of the 3 types: Default, Test, Suppression) is to select from existing Accounts or Contacts by filtering them or by running a report to select them after they have “purchased” a Product.
Because we take such care when importing Accounts and Contacts (as we should), we try to limit the number of times we import new Accounts/Contacts and FundRaiser results. We wait until the Campaign is complete and then “cleanse” and import everything at once. So we will not have the purchase history to use for selecting Accoutns or Contacts to put into the Supression list.
SuiteCRM is not setup to allow direct importing of emails into any Target list, including a Suppression list, so we need a work-around to enable quick, mid-campaign creation of / addition to a Suppression list.
Fortunately, SuiteCRM does have options that let us create a kludge which lets us accomplish what we want.
SuiteCRM has a hierarchy of potential and existing customers (in addition to Accounts):
-
Target
- A potential customer with whom you have no existing relationship. The Target may or may not be a legitimate opportunity for you but you somehow captured enough contact information that you are able to reach out to them and qualify them for future activy, if appropriate.
- Targets could have been acquired by downloading attendees from a trade show, or some other source that is not personal.
- You could have a very large Target list since they are not qualified and not yet assigned to a person for follow up.
- Our DMS does NOT use Targets - which gives us an opportunity for creating Suppression lists.
-
Lead
- A potential customer with whom you have no existing relationship but you know enough about them to believe (maybe incorrectly) that they have the potential to be a customer.
- Usually you would have aq limited number of Leads since the expectation is that Leads will be assigned for follow-up by someone on your team.
- Our DMS does not use Leads (yet) but we may use them in the future to integrate with a ContactUs form on a web site. Therefore, although we COULD use Leads as an opportunity for creating Suppression lists, we will not, reserving their application for future use.
-
Contact
- A person who we have, at some point in the past, established a relationship.
- Our DMS does use Contacts so this is not something we should use for “artificially” creating Suppression lists. We can include Contacts in a suppression list - once we have data in the system to use when filtering Contacts, but that is not a mid-campaign solution when we do not yet have the relevant data.
To clarify, the terminology used by SuiteCRM can be somewhat confusing. We have the above three types of potential customers, one of which is called a Target. We also have a thing called Target Lists which can contain Targets, Leads, Contacts and Accounts. So be careful when reading and following these instructions to be using the “Targets” OR the “Target Lists” modules.
We use Target Lists for our DMS.
We do NOT use Targets in the way SuiteCRM has defined them. Because we do NOT - in normal DMS operation - use Targets in our DMS, we can use Targets to quickly create Suppression lists in the middle of a campaign without needing to thoroughly “cleanse” the data each time. We just need Name and Email.
To use Targets for creating Suppression lists mid-campaign:
If you are creating the initial Supression list for a Campaign - as opposed to updating it for the second, third, … “reminder” email - make sure to delete all existing Targets first, so your Suppression list will use current information
SuiteCRM → Targets (list view = View Targets) → Select All (left Dropdown) → Bulk Action → Delete
Create a .csv file containing three columns of data with each row identifying someone who has already “purchased” a “product” from the campaign
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email Address
If the purchase was made by an Account, get the Primary Account Contact and include them in the above list.
Import the contents of the .csv file into the Targets module
- SuiteCRM → Targets → Import Targets → (follow the Wizard)
Make sure choose the “Create new records only” for the first import to the Targets
Create a Suppression Target List (Not required if Updating an existing one)
- SuiteCRM → Target List → Create Target List
- Name: {Open-text name}
- Type: Suppression List - By Email Address
Populate the Target List (or update - can import duplicates and will NOT create redundant entries)
- SuiteCRM - Target List → View Target List → Click on List Name
- Click on Targets subpanel to expand it
- Click on the Create dropdown icon and choose “Select”
- Click on the left icon and choose “Select All”
- Click the “Select” button
When creating the reminder campaign, make sure to select, as a Suppression List, the list you just created.