Users have no control over the emails they receive

[cameronjonesweb]

Description

Users have no control over the amount, or type, of emails they receive.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Join any course.
2. Complete a quiz at the end of a lesson. You will receive a quiz results email, while you are looking at a screen with the exact same information.
3. Now don't finish the course, and don't log in for a few days. You will receive an email from the system complaining that you haven't logged in.

I find these emails unhelpful, redundant and patronising. Other people might find them useful, but I should at the very least be able to turn off these emails.

Expected behaviour

Emails aren't sent if the user doesn't want emails

Actual behaviour

Emails are sent without a user opting in to receive emails or any way to disable them

Screenshots or screen recording (optional)

"Quiz graded" email

Quiz results page that you see when you are sent the above email with the same content.

All the emails I have received in the past week that I don't want.

Patronising email you receive if you haven't logged in for a couple of days

Environment information

N/A

[jonathanbossenger]

Hi @cameronjonesweb, thank you for raising this issue.

This seems to be a feature of the Sensei plugin we're using on Learn WordPress for managing courses. I am currently chatting with the Sensei team, to find out if there is a way for users to manage this. If not, I'm also asking if admins can turn these emails off per user, or system wide.

Please bear with me while I dig into this, and I'll get back to you with a resolution as soon as I can.

[jonathanbossenger]

Hello @cameronjonesweb thanks for your patience.

I email system is something new that was added to the LMS plugin we're using for Learn WordPress (Sensei) recently. I have disabled the course reminder and quiz complete emails, and I will be logging a feature enhancement request with Sensei, to see if we can improve this feature to give the user control over their emails.

I am going to leave this open for now, but please let me know here if you receive any more emails you don't expect.

[cameronjonesweb]

Thanks @jonathanbossenger, much appreciated

[unprintedch]

After a quick research i found this:
https://github.com/Automattic/sensei/blob/f6a76551a5e6b154e82426c89dc31563b77f504d/includes/class-sensei-emails.php#L183

I tested it on a clean installation, I managed to prevent email to being sent to a specific email address.

We could:

• Add a meta to user "email_notification" accessible in the "my course" page or in the account page.
• And check this in the filter before sending an email.
• We could even have a Per course/Pre notification type selection by checking the subject

I don't know how long would sensei take to add this. Would it be worth the effort?

[jonathanbossenger]

Nice work on the research @unprintedch

At this stage, it might be worthwhile considering if we (the training team) can add this ourselves.

What would be good is if we could align this with any development that might need to be done under the Learning Pathways on Learn WordPress redesign, because I am sure there will be some custom development we will need to bring over/create for this re-launch.

[unprintedch]

OK, so count me in if you need this to go forward.

[unprintedch]

There was some move on this matter. I had some news in slack here

Should we close this?

[jonathanbossenger]

I think this is still a valid issue to keep open because while we have disabled some of the emails, it would still be ideal if we could allow users to enable or disable them on a per-account basis.

[donnapep]

Hey all. 👋 We have an open Sensei PR if you'd like to check it out - Automattic/sensei#7586.

[donnapep]

A solution for this shipped in Sensei 4.24.0. 🥳

[jonathanbossenger]

Ooo thanks @donnapep. @unprintedch this should be possible to test in the local dev environment, would you be able to test this?

I'm not sure if the local env has some sort of mail catcher, but you could manually install a mail log plugin for WP, and test that way.