Adding custom fields to newsletters subscribers

Hi,

We are using SF 4.1 SP2 in our website, we want to know is it possible to add custom fields to the newsletters subscribers? currently the available fields are "first name", "last name" and "email", we need to add more other fields such as "address", "company name", "phone" and "title".

I found a thread mentioned that it will be available in SF 4 and have all the options of the "Generic contents", is it available yet?

Thanks.

Hello Amrelsayed,

It will be possible with Q2 release which is scheduled for release due in the first half of August.

Best wishes,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

Hi Ivan,

We upgraded our website to 4.2 released 10 August, however I can't find how to add custom fields to the email campaigns, can't we accomplish this as in the News/Blogs built-in modules?

Thanks.

Hello Amrelsayed,

You need to do it programmatically

sample

Thanks Ivan,

I have created a sample code to create a custom field,

Any updates Ivan?

Hi Amrelsayed,

What is the full type (including namespace) of the Subscriber class? Do you have the model of this class compiled into an assembly and added to the bin folder of your site?
 
Regards,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team

Hi Radoslav,
 
it is "Telerik.Sitefinity.Newsletters.Model.Subscriber" and the "Telerik.Sitefinity.Model.dll" is included in the bin folder.

Hello Amrelsayed,

Please try the bellow:

Hello Radoslav,

I created custom fields using the snippet code below :

However, I can see these metafields added in the database table (please refer to DatabaseTables.png) but they are not shown up in the place holders used in the campaigns templates creation on the administration (please refer to NewslettersBackend.png)

Is there any workaround to add these meta fields to the template placeholders list so it can be used in the messages sent by the campaigns?

Thanks.

Would someone please let us know when to expect feedback over that matter? We have been trying to get this to work for close to 4 weeks and we have a project that is pending release on this request so we would appreciete some support here.

Hi Amrelsayed,

Thank you for getting back to us, and please excuse us for the inconvenience. Indeed the dynamic mergeTags that are added programatically are not displayed in the dropdown, since this is a template i.e. you don't know which mailing list you'll be using, so only the default fields are included. This is a valid feature request, thank you for pointing out the need for it, I'll make sure we get it addressed. What you can do, in the meantime, as a quick workaround, would be to use the programatic name of the field and address it in the template using the same syntax as with the other fields - I have just tried it on a local project and it gets resolved properly. For instance, if you have a field "CompanyName" you can display it in the email that's sent by writing in the template |Subscriber.CompanyName| and it will be resolved dynamically for each subscriber. Example:
My template is:

the database table:

And the email received:

If you  need any further assistance implementing this functionality, or have some additional questions, pleae do not hesitate to let us know.

Best wishes,
Boyan Barnev
the Telerik team

Hello Amrelsayed,

Yes, it's possible to map a n external template for the Template form - please use HostType:
Telerik.Sitefinity.Modules.Newsletters.Web.UI.Forms.TemplateForm
You can find below the defualt template we've implemented for that form.

Hi Boyan, 

Thanks a lot it works well for the "Message Templates" page (please review MessageTemplate.png), but if I create a campaign template from scratch (please review CreateCampaign.png) and select (Rich Text or Plain Text), the template form doesn't share the same user control we mapped (please review CampaignTemplate.png).

Please advice whether this is using a different template and how to extend it.
Thanks.

Hi Amrelsayed,

Yes, as you have correctly pointed out, it's a different control and template. Please find below the default template used:

Thanks Boyan,

We are trying to add the custom meta fields to the merge tag selectors controls, however, these controls are bound by a client side service call like "~/Sitefinity/Services/Newsletters/Campaign.svc/4cbd22cc-27a7-4c52-a596-6bf968a5a431/", is there a way to extend the JS and/or the service used by this template to add items to the merge tag selectors?

I want to add a phone number field.
Where shall I put this code in custom control class. In InitializeControls method by override?
If so, it will work to create that field in db at every run.
Will it be problem? Or there is a different detail?

Hi Volkan Demirpence,

You can create the field only once, for example execute the code from a web form. First, we need to add it as a dynamic type like this:

Thanks Boyan,

I've created my field as "Phone Number" . How can i use it. I want to use tihis field at "Subscribe Form" widget.
My aim is collect the phone number with e-mails. Sorry, i explained wrong. Not in newsletter's message template. Is it possible?

Hello Volkan Demirpence,

• SubscribeFormCustom.rar
• WebForm5.rar
• Controls.rar

Thanks for the thread, we hope to try out this method outlined here.  I have a couple of follow up questions.  1) Can we dynamically create mailing lists from subscribers programatically.  For example now that we have custom field 'organization' we would want to create a mailing list for only subscribers with organization = "My Org"?  Can we modify the mailing list UI to do that?
2) Can you send an example of working with Campaigns programatically?  We have a need to create a couple hundred campaigns with thousands of subscribers and hundreds of mailing lists that will change on dynamic data from another data source.  If we can programatically manage the process that would be very helpful, so our client can then monitor their progress instead of dealing with all of the data.  Thanks!

We have also added a few fields to our subscriber object. Is there a way to make these fields visible in the backend of Sitefinity?

We have also added a few fields to our subscriber object. Is there a way to make these fields visible in the backend of Sitefinity?

Hi Boyan,

I added Title and Country field using meta manager as mentioned in documentation. I can see those fields in the database but in template it does not resolve properly as mentioned in your reply. It resolves to a blank. Is there anything I am missing?

Regards,

Chaitanya.