Send news emails

News emails go to every account with Product news on. Each account's copy waits for a time that account is online. Open Admin and choose Manage News emails.

Write an email

Choose New email, enter a subject and choose Add email. The email's page opens: the subject above the text, and the text in the Notes editor, with its Markdown and Formatted views and its formatting toolbar for headings, lists, links and images. Everything is saved as you write; the editor's toolbar says Saving… and Saved.

{name} is replaced by each person's name. Web addresses become links. An image from Your images is sent so that it loads without signing in. Magpie adds a footer with a link that turns product news off and, while the Postal address switch under Sending is on, the postal address used for Newsletters. A new email starts with the last email's choice. The email comes from Magpie's sending address, and replies go to andrew@magpie.diy.

Choose Send a test to me to send it to your own address now, marked as a test. Nobody else receives a test.

To delete a draft, choose More in the page bar, then Delete draft.

Choose when it is sent

Every copy is sent 1 to 2 minutes after its recipient next uses Magpie, on the website or in the app, whatever the priority. Until then, the Priority decides which hours of the day it may also be sent in:

• High: any hour of the day the person has used Magpie in during the last 60 days.
• Medium: the 3 hours of the day they use Magpie most.
• Low: the hour of the day they use Magpie most.

Hours with the same number of days count together, so a person with little history can have more qualifying hours than the priority names. A person with no recorded hours has none.

The Waiting period is the latest a copy will be sent: when it ends, every copy not yet sent goes out. It is counted from when copies start going out.

Send it

Choose Send and confirm. The email is held for 5 minutes: its page counts down the minutes and seconds until copies start going out, and nothing is sent until then. Choose Cancel sending during the hold to put the email back as a draft, change it and send it again.

When the hold ends, the email is queued for every account that has product news on and an email address at that moment, and only its Priority can still be changed. Each copy is checked again just before it is sent: an account that has since turned product news off, been deleted or lost its address is skipped.

Until every copy has gone, change Priority under Sending to send the rest sooner or later. The new priority applies to every copy not yet sent, from the next minute; copies already sent are not affected.

The Delivery band counts copies sent, waiting, skipped, refused by the email provider after 3 tries, and stopped, and keeps the counts current while copies are going out. A copy whose send result is unknown is counted under Needs checking and is never sent again. Choose Send waiting copies now and confirm to send every copy not yet sent over the next few minutes, without waiting for each person to use Magpie. Choose Stop waiting copies to stop every copy not yet sent; copies already sent are not affected.

Copies are released and sent by a scheduled task that runs every minute. While an email is held or copies are waiting, Sending worker in the Delivery band says whether it is running. After 3 minutes without a run it shows Not running, and copies wait until it runs again.

See who it is going to

Once copies start going out, the Recipients band lists every account the email is going to, by name, with what happened to its copy. Choose Waiting, Sent, Skipped or Not sent to list only those copies, or search for a name or email address.

A copy not yet sent shows when it will go out if the person does not use Magpie before then, and why: in the next minute or two if they are using Magpie now, at the start of the next of their usual hours for the email's priority, or when the waiting period ends. If they use Magpie sooner, it goes sooner.

Choose Send now beside a waiting copy to send it at once, without waiting for the person or the scheduled task. The row then shows the result. A copy the email provider refuses is tried again a few minutes later.

Turn product news off for one account

Open the account from the Users list in Admin and turn off Product news. It is the same setting the person has in Account settings (see Product news emails), and turning it off also cancels that account's news emails still waiting to be sent.

For help, Contact support.