Is there an autorespond email function for profile form sign ups (wordpress)?

Question

I have a sign up form that adds users to a group- essentially a mailing list which also saves other information about the subscriber. It's a civiCRM 'profile' form.

This all works OK. A user adds their information to the form and their information is saved in a group called members. Now my client would like to automatically email them when a new user signs up. There doesn't seem to be any way to do this 'out of the box'. Someone has raised this issue with regards to Joomla before HERE. But, being reasonably new to web development and civiCRM and don't know how to do this with my WORDPRESS installation.

I think you have to do something with hooks and create a wordpress plugin? http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Hook+Reference

I guess I'm wondering whether someone has already done this? OR they can point me to instructions that a newbie may be able to understand?

I'm using wordpress 4.1.5 and civiCRM 4.6.2

Answer 1

Third option is to use the CiviCRM extension CiviRules. It allows you to set up a rule (in this case when contact is added to group), a condition (group is xxx) and an action (send email). You will have to add the send email to a specific address option (or wait for someone else to sponsor this action development as there is already a GitHub issue for it). More information on http://redmine.civicoop.org/projects/civirules/wiki and you can get the extension from https://github.com/CiviCooP/org.civicoop.civirules

The CiviRules extension is now live at MAF Norge and will be tested by Amnesty International Flanders.

Answer 2

You might look into using the CiviCRM/Mailchimp Integration Extension: https://civicrm.org/extensions/mailchimp-civicrm-integration

When you add someone to a Group in CiviCRM, it can sync them to a List in Mailchimp. I believe you could set up an auto-responder there.

Perhaps a complex work around, but thought it might help you out.

In Drupal land, I would use CiviCRM Entity and the Rules modules to accomplish your task.

Answer 3

You're better off doing this with a CiviCRM extension rather than a WordPress plugin. I wrote an extension that does this (amongst other things) a while back. It's available here: https://github.com/PalanteJon/coop.palantetech.module.cpehn.joinnetworkcheckbox/tree/automatic-email-only

I just created a new branch called "automatic email only" where I stripped out all the code that's not relevant to this question.

You'll need to customize this extension a bit to only fire when people join a certain group(s). It will send the "Welcome" automated message at Mailings menu > Headers, Footers, and Automated Messages.