Using an existing campaign, a new Marketing Record is not created

[jssilva25]

Issue

Like you possibly would like to do if you have an additional message to send to the existing Campaign Targets that already have received a message. As a serious consequence, the messages are suppressed, not delivered, because the email address had already been used and the Marketing Record is the same. By the way, the Marketing Record ID is the same, but not its name, which was changed if you tried to create a new one with a different name. As a not so serious consequence, the name of the existing Marketing Record is changed all over, meaning on all the panels' listings (Messages Sent/Attempted, Messages Read, ...) generating a lot of confusion.

Expected Behavior

When relaunching the wizard of an existing Campaign which has already sent messages out, use the same target list, same template, you arrive at the Marketing Tab. You now fill the Marketing Email Name with a different name than was used before, fill the other needed parameters, click the Next button. A new Marketing Record should now have been created. You can test that unfolding the Select Email Marketing Record dropbox which should show all the existing Marketing Records. You now proceed clicking the button Send Mail at Scheduled Time and go to View Status. Before the messages go out you should see on the panel, for instance, Message Sent/Attempted, that the Marketing ID field should have the previous used name, not the new name. On the panel Message Queue, the Marketing ID name should be the new one, different from the above. But more serious is that the messages should be delivered instead of being suppressed by email address / marketing ID duplication.

Actual Behavior

When relaunching the wizard of an existing Campaign which has already sent messages out, use the same target list, same template and giving a different Marketing Email Name than before, a new Marketing ID is not created and instead, the name of the existing one is changed to the new name. You can check this on the dropdown box of the Send Email and Summary tab; there should be only one option because there's only one record, the new one was not created. Repeating what I already said above, the consequences are: The new messages are suppressed because messages were already sent out using the same email address / marketing ID combination. The name of the Marketing ID field is changed on all the panels, confusing all the previously sent messages.

Possible Fix

Steps to Reproduce

Repeating myself again, I'll use some copy/paste:

1. When relaunching the wizard of an existing Campaign which has already sent messages out, use the same target list, same template, you arrive at the Marketing Tab.

2. You now fill the Marketing Email Name with a different name than was used before, fill the send date and other needed parameters, click the Next button.

3. You are now at Send Email and Summary tab. Unfold the dropdown box and check that another Marketing Record was not created. There's still just one record but with the new name.

4. Click Send Mail at Scheduled Time and go to View Status. Check that the Marketing ID name has changed on all the panels.

5. Go to Admin/Email Queue and force messages to be sent out by clicking the button.

6. Check that the messages were suppressed and are now at the Suppressed panel of the Campaign status.

Context

I wanted to send an additional message to a target list that had already received a previous message.

Campaigns are, in my opinion, perhaps the most strong reason to use SuiteCRM.

Your Environment

• SuiteCRM Version used: 7.11.15
• Browser name and version (e.g. Chrome Version 51.0.2704.63 (64-bit)): Firefox Version 78.3.1esr (64-bit)
• Environment name and version (e.g. MySQL, PHP 7): mariadb v10.5.5, PHP 7.3.23
• Operating System and version (e.g Ubuntu 16.04): server: FreeNAS 11.3-U5 with jail. client: macos 10.15.7

[pgorod]

For reference:

https://community.suitecrm.com/t/new-marketing-record-on-old-campaign-results-in-suppressions/75739/

That includes some suggestions for a fix.

[jssilva25]

Thank you. That was started by me and is receiving support from https://community.suitecrm.com/u/pgr who is suggesting fixes which still need further work to achieve success.

[pgorod]

We're the same person, pgr and pgorod ;-)

[jssilva25]

Ahhh! I should have guessed it.

[dtosun61]

Where is fix🤔

[pgorod]

No fix, only "suggestions for a fix"

[Ramblin]

I think I know the anwer to my question since SuiiteCRM is focussed on v8 now but wanted to check.

Was this bug ever addressed for SuiteCRM v7?

I think the issue still remains with SuiteCRM v7.14.3 since I am having a similar issue with Campaigns and re-using a copy of a Template in an email campaign.

To get around the issue, when using a copy of a Template

• Copy the HTML code from the previous template
• Create a NEW Template from within the Campaign Wizard using a unique Marketing Name
• Paste the HTML code into the HTML window of the New template
• Edit the new template to suit

The above works, but is sure kludgey.

If anyone has code to solve the above but the code has not been included ion v7, can you share?

[pgorod]

There is a view that makes all these things clearer and easier, but it was deactivated in SuiteCRM when the Campaigns Wizard was introduced.

I remember @QuickCRM once told me about this and showed me how to reactivate it, and I am glad it came up on the Forums and I bookmarked it:

https://community.suitecrm.com/t/need-help-with-email-marketing-on-campaigns/72647/2?u=pgr

I am not sure this will help with the current problem, but it might.

[Ramblin]

@pgorod

Apologies for the delay in acknowledging your suggestion. I hope you appreciate how much we in the SuiteCRM community welcome your help. You are a rock star to us sir!

I updated my installation to SuiteCRM 7.14.3 (PHP v8.2) and fixed a couple of issues related to deprecated PHP functions still in SuiteCRM that PHP 8 does not like (filling log files with errors), and did a R&R.

All seems to be working now with the MktgID and Template properly tracking when I copy a previous template and create a new Campaign.

The fact that my system now works may also be due to some customizations to the email system by Andre Lopez (Lamapda Global) for my system, but I cannot tell. I hired Andre's team to do work more complicated than I can handle which now means I cannot follow all the work his team did.

So if others still have issues, I can work with you if you want to see why mine now works, but otherwise, all is good here.

[chris001]

@andopes thoughts on customizing Suite email system so that it works?