Improved Email handling via Saasy

[jensneuhaus]

☝️What is it? Why do we need it?

We should use sassy to send emails. Please prepare the logic in the following way:

• If SAASY_API_KEY exists, we use Saasy; if not we use standard email behavior
• if we use Standard Django behavior, it translates the Mails with Context actually into Mails send by Django using a Template and we need a Email backend setup in the app we can use

📋 Todos

• [x] Implement an email backend to use saasy
  • [x] Make sure, that we could easily integrate this backend INTO sassy at one point
  • [x] Read Django docs and check how django-anymail handles APIs like Mailjet / Sendgrid
  • [x] if the SAASY_API_KEY exists, it should use our API to send default emails without template, using context { text:BODY, header:SUBJECT }, subject=SUBJECT, etc.
  • [x] If the API does not exist, it should give a message about the ENV being missed
• [x] Implement an EmailService for the usage of Templates + Context (like you did in DARE)
• [ ] Have standard emails
  • [ ] simple-email-verification
  • [ ] simple-password-rest

[AntonDnepr]

@jensneuhaus this part is still not cleared Have standard emails. Since we decided that we will use saasy as email backend, there is no way we can create default templates on our side, because we require saasy setup on this. Or did I get something wrong? May I ask you to clarify?

[jensneuhaus]

Let me try to rethink it while typing.

Goals

1. WE want to work with saasy for sure - thats why we made it.
2. It would still be nice, if the boilerplate could also be used by others and people could decide against sassy

How it could work

from saasy.utils import create_and_send_mail

context={
  'first_name': 'John',
  'last_name': 'Doe',
}

create_and_send_mail(
   context=context,
   subject='Test',
   to_address="john.doe@example.org"
)

create_and_send_email logic

• [x] It checks for the Django email backend
• [x] If saasy email backend is set, it checks for the SAASY_API_KEY --> if the SAASY_API_KEY does not exist or is None, it stops handling and gives an error
• [x] If saasy API Key exists, it sends emails using saasy.

        mail = saasy.create_mail({
            "to_address": email,
            "context": context,
            "subject": subject
          }
        )
        saasy.send_mail(mail["id"])

• [ ] For the Default ones it just uses the Django mail handling

from saasy.utils import render_context_in_standard_template

text, html = saasy.utils.render_tontext_in_standard_template(context,subject)

# Construct an email message that uses the connection
email1 = mail.EmailMessage(
    'Hello',
    'Body goes here',
    'from@example.com',
    ['to1@example.com'],
)

# Also create HTML mail, check django-saas-email and the former code in emails how it is done

email1.send() # Send the email

• [ ] Use context and a default file structure template to render the text (check emails - deleted code or django-saas-email

Example template: https://github.com/pixelpassion/django-saas-email/blob/master/django_saas_email/templates/django_saas_email/email_base.html

Sum up

• Saasy workflow: Context -> We use Saasy to create / send the mail
• Django workflow: We use Context + a default simple "naked" Template to create the text -> Then we send from,to,subject + text via Django email
• You can check how templates where used for sending, checking the code status before the merge of my big PR, e.g. https://github.com/pixelpassion/emails/blob/256ad0d874ff570731c11b31e052c572d50e4e02/apps/mails/models.py#L186

[vladborisov182]

@jensneuhaus May I ask you a question? I don’t quite understand which template to use if the saasy is not connected. Can I create a simple template and paste text from context there?

[jensneuhaus]

Hey @vladborisov182 - sure, sorry for not having this clear enough.

The boilerplate (or saasy package, might be also the place to have this) should have one basic template we use (e.g. like this one).

Basic email template used for all emails not going through saasy

E.g.

Hello,

{text}

{EMAIL_FOOTER} <-- Would be an ENV and in settings

Fallback texts for each mail to convert context-> text

And then we also require a small alternative text for each of the emails, e.g.

• Email activation: Here is your sign up verification link: {{SIGN_UP_VERIFICATION_LINK}}
• Password forget: Please click here to verify and setup a new password: {{PASSWORD_VERIFICATION_URL}}

Sum up

This way it first renders context -> text AND then the text into a Text/HTML email.

Not sure, if this makes no sense if we rely on saasy anyhow but its meant as a quick debug alternative.

[AntonDnepr]

@jensneuhaus I don't get the reasons for that. We use saasy for the emails, when we have saasy api key. When we don't have it - we rely on the developers to implement their own backend/ use existing one

I suppose IF we are going implement some emails that we're going to have in boilerplate template - we may implement fallbacks as well, but don't see much reasons to do that, because if we not using saasy, we still need to customize this part. So it still will be rewritten by devs again.

So I'd propose to first create email backend and that's it. Then if you think this should be in the template, you can assign issues on specific emails we should have in the template.

But currently, I'm confused of how this should be handled by our boileplate saasy email backend from your description. If there is default email tempalte on saasy end - it's not on our end to create it, but on saasy end.