Email Template functionality

[aaronjudd]

Need to fix email sending functionality. Used to work with Handlebars parsing on server side, this no longer works, nor is it the ideal solution. Need to move into database, and manage email from admin interface.

[aldeed]

As discussed elsewhere with @aaronjudd, I will work on doing this as:

• Email config package with admin interface and scheduler
• Multiple emailer packages that talk to the email config package and make calls to external APIs when necessary (i.e., mandrill, sendgrid, mailgun).

The email schedule process will be kept separate, too, such that you could run it as a separate app connected to the same DB, to avoid negatively impacting user response times on the main app.

I envision the email config would let an admin send e-mails based on system events (order submitted, order shipped, etc.) or based on timing and criteria. The criteria for the "timing and criteria" type may have to be configured in code, so that advanced logic can be used. We can include some default "criteria" definitions and make it easy for a developer to add her own. For example, we could provide a default "users who placed an order in the last 24 hours" criteria. Then, in the admin interface, you can select that criteria, enter a schedule of "every day at 6 AM UTC", and enter the name of the mandrill/sendgrid/mailgun template to send to those users at that time. (We will pass some placeholder values to the APIs, too, in case the templates want to use them, e.g. name, order info).

Questions for @aaronjudd and others with an opinion:

• Which pieces of this are essential and which are "nice to have"?
• What is the list of system events that should be able to cause an e-mail to be sent?
• How should the admin interface be accessed and what should it look like? It seems as though the "inline editing" style wouldn't apply for something like this.

[aaronjudd]

@aldeed I think any of the events in the register new accounts, + client/workflow events should have email templates associated. Initially, the must haves are the OrderWorkflowEvents.

I think in the default admin panel (where settings,etc) we should just have a dropdown that you select an event, and a text area that lets you edit templates (with an option to reset to default), and enable/disable functionality.

I agree that having some query criteria events and be able to send a template to matching records is important, might not be the first requirement, but it's a good one - particularly important for abandoned carts,etc

[aaronjudd]

@aldeed I can actually take a portion of this in the guest_checkout branch. I propose to start, rather than reading files for the email templates, we move email templates into a collection, with a config object. The config object might just be a placeholder for now. I'll load the templates as fixtures, as with languages,etc. This will setup to an editable interface, and additional config properties for a scheduler / service mapping later.

[aldeed]

Makes sense