tt_dailyemailblast

Simple application for handling our daily emails to partners.

Note

This could be a lot more complex and do all manner of awesome stuff like auto-generating the body based on stories that are in the CMS. That's so much bigger than we need right now.

This is definitely in the "works for what we need" camp, feel free to use it as an example of sending emails out using Celery, but probably not something to actually use.

Installation & Configuration

You can install this using pip like this:

pip install tt_dailyemailblast

Once installed, you need to add it to your INSTALLED_APPS. You can do that however you like or you can copy-and-paste this in after your INSTALLED_APPS are defined:

INSTALLED_APPS += ['tt_dailyemailblast', ]

The next setting to configure is the from email address:

TT_DAILYEMAILBLAST_FROMEMAIL = 'no-reply@texastribune.org'

tt_dailyemailblast can accept any backend to suit your integration needs.

To send an email, you'll need a template for the body. tt_dailyemailblast will look for templates in your project in this order:

1. tt_dailyemailblast/<blast_type>/<recipient_list>/<recipient>.html
2. tt_dailyemailblast/<blast_type>/<recipient_list>.html
3. tt_dailyemailblast/<blast_type>.html

If you need special context generated in that template, you can specify that with the context backend setting:

TT_DAILYEMAILBLAST_CONTEXT = 'tt.dailyemailblast.context_backend'

Finally, to actually send emails, tt_dailyemailblast will use the sync backend by default. You can explicitly specify that with the setting:

from tt_dailyemailblast.settings.sync import *

To use async Celery workers to send, add:

from tt_dailyemailblast.settings.async import *

Usage

Templates

Your templates should render to html. The context will get these variables:

• {{ blast }} - The DailyEmailBlast object.
• {{ recipient }} - The Recipient object.
• {{ recipient_list }} - The RecipientList object.

Context Backend

Your context backend should take the arguments:

• blast
• recipient
• recipient_list

And should be patterened after this basic example:

from tt_dailyemailblast.context_backends import basic

def context_backend(blast, recipient, recipient_list):
    context = basic(blast, recipient, recipient_list)
    # modify context
    return context

Testing

Testing is so easy! A one-armed driving bear could do it! Just follow these steps:

1. Create a recipient list with only your email address
2. Create a blast
3. Make sure the blast has a template that will render
4. Fill in the Sent on and Sent completed on fields even though the blast has not been sent yet
5. Save the blast
6. Install pops
7. Send the blast from the 'Send Now!' button

Example

All of the usage is outlined, along with tests inside the example directory. See that directory for more information on how to run the tests and example project.