Support

December 16, 2013 at 11:58 pm

Hi,
I have had many issues because of timeout in sending emails to event attendees.
I can now send 800 emails in one api call using the solution below and no timeout in my application.

My solution was to use mandrill to send all email in one api call.
You just need to create an account with Mandrill (part of mailchimp).
You will be allowed to send 12 000 emails per month for free.

You also need to create an email template in Mandrill. That will also make all your email look nice (html) and have link tracking capabilities.

Then install the wpMandrill addon in wp and use the following custom function in your custom_function.php file in eventespresso (change the parameters as needed)

All your worpress email will then be sent through mandrill.

<code>
function espresso_event_reminder($event_id, $email_subject=&#039;&#039;, $email_text=&#039;&#039;, $email_id=0) {
	global $wpdb, $org_options;
	do_action(&#039;action_hook_espresso_log&#039;, __FILE__, __FUNCTION__, &#039;&#039;);
	$count = 0;
	$SQL = &#039;SELECT * FROM &#039; . EVENTS_ATTENDEE_TABLE . &#039; WHERE event_id =%d GROUP BY lname, fname&#039;;
	//echo ($SQL);
	//exit;
	
	$attendees = $wpdb-&gt;get_results( $wpdb-&gt;prepare( $SQL, $event_id ));
	echo (&quot;sending email... &lt;br&gt;&quot;);

	//initiate arrays for later use
	$tmv = array();
	$tto = array();

	if ($wpdb-&gt;num_rows &gt; 0) {
		foreach ($attendees as $attendee) {
			$attendee_id = $attendee-&gt;id;

			$attemail =	array(&#039;attendee_id&#039; =&gt; $attendee_id, &#039;send_admin_email&#039; =&gt; &#039;false&#039;, &#039;send_attendee_email&#039; =&gt; &#039;true&#039;, &#039;custom_data&#039; =&gt; array(&#039;email_type&#039; =&gt; &#039;reminder&#039;, &#039;email_subject&#039; =&gt; $email_subject, &#039;email_text&#039; =&gt; $email_text, &#039;email_id&#039; =&gt; $email_id));
			extract($attemail);
			$multi_reg = empty( $multi_reg ) ? FALSE :  $multi_reg;
			$custom_data = empty( $custom_data ) ? &#039;&#039; :  $custom_data;
			$data = espresso_prepare_email_data($attendee_id, $multi_reg, $custom_data);
			$usermergedata = array();
			$temail = espresso_prepare_email($data);

			//if email invalid skip sending
			if (!filter_var($temail[&#039;send_to&#039;], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
				continue;
			}

			$usermergedata[] = array(&#039;name&#039; =&gt; &#039;USERCONTENT&#039;, &#039;content&#039; =&gt; nl2br($temail[&#039;email_body&#039;]));
			$tmv[] = array(
							&#039;rcpt&#039; =&gt; $temail[&#039;send_to&#039;],
							&#039;vars&#039; =&gt; $usermergedata
						);
			$tto[] = array(
							&#039;email&#039; =&gt; $temail[&#039;send_to&#039;],
							&#039;name&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;
						);
			$tsubject = $temail[&#039;email_subject&#039;];
			$count++;
		}

		//start preparing mandrill send
			$email_text = &#039;*|USERCONTENT|*&#039;;
			$message = array(
				&#039;subject&#039; =&gt; $tsubject,
				&#039;from_name&#039; =&gt; &#039;Sender Name&#039;,
				&#039;from_email&#039; =&gt; &#039;user@yourdomain.com&#039;,
				&#039;to&#039; =&gt; $tto,
				&#039;merge&#039; =&gt; true,
				&#039;merge_vars&#039; =&gt; $tmv,
				&#039;html&#039; =&gt; $email_text
			);
			
			$mandridresult = wpMandrill::sendEmail(
				$message,
				$tags = array(&#039;Email Event Attendees&#039;),
				$template_name = &#039;yourtemplatenameinmandrill&#039;
			);
			echo (&#039;&lt;pre&gt;&#039;);
			print_r($mandridresult);
			echo (&#039;&lt;/pre&gt;&#039;);

		?&gt;
		&lt;div id=&quot;message&quot; class=&quot;updated fade&quot;&gt;
			&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
					&lt;?php echo printf( _n(&#039;Email Sent to %d person successfully.&#039;, &#039;Email Sent to %d people successfully.&#039;, $count, &#039;event_espresso&#039;), $count ); ?&gt;
				&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;/div&gt;
		&lt;?php
		return;
	} else {
		?&gt;
		&lt;div id=&quot;message&quot; class=&quot;error fade&quot;&gt;
			&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;
					&lt;?php _e(&#039;No attendee records available.&#039;, &#039;event_espresso&#039;); ?&gt;
				&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;/div&gt;
		&lt;?php
	}
}</code>

I hope this will be useful for someone.