Monday, April 06, 2009

How to Send Automated Birthday Emails

If you're storing your email list in a JangoMail Group, then you may wish to setup JangoMail to automatically send daily birthday emails. To do so follow these simple instructions:

1. Define Field: Make sure that your JangoMail Group has a field defined to store a person's date of birth. In the below screenshot, the field is called DOB.



2. Set DOB values: Make sure your Group members have a "DOB" value set. Use a standard mm/dd/yy format, as shown below.



3. Compose birthday email: Next, setup the email message that you wish to be sent on a person's birthday. Do this under the "Send Email" tab.



4. Filter your Group: Finally, do a "filter" on the Group pulling out just the members whose birthday it is today. Use the exact syntax shown below in the WHERE box:

Month(CONVERT(datetime, DOB)) = Month(getdate()) AND Day(CONVERT(datetime, DOB)) = Day(getdate())


4. Schedule and send: Finally, re-select the message you composed in step 2, put in the scheduling parameters, and hit Send. The scheduling parameters are set to send the email daily, at 3:01 PM, and a box is checked to re-query the Group every day, ensuring that every day, the email is sent to that day's birthdays, rather than the birthdays from the day we scheduled the email.


5. Check your work: You can see the recurring scheduled email you've setup under My Options --> Recurring Schedules: