Question: Mailchimp vs. SMTP vs. email client (vs. php mail())

[dleigh]

I'm a bit confused by what I see in the docs about emailing, and what I find in the email settings and what kind of behavior I see in the application.

It would appear that MailChimp is INTENDED to be used only for "newsletters" by virtue of the single yes/no field for each user and each family that is necessary for an address to make it to MailChimp. I've seen chatter here in the issues forum about MailChimp segments, which would suggest more granular use of MailChimp is intended, by using list segments. I'd love to see some sort of field that simply says that a user's data should or should not be kept in sync with MailChimp (using their API). Then anything that can be created to mail (including attachments like the Directory), could also query the API to extract list and segment names (that would be up to the church to set up based on data imported to MailChimp) and templates and invoke the sending directly from ChurchCRM via MailChimp. Also a general setting could be established that said what data would be kept in sync with MailChimp as some churches would use it differently than others and set up different segments based on their needs. It would be good to know what the ChurchCRM team sees as the intended use for MailChimp.

SMTP - I see the settings but even when populated with valid data, clicking on a button within ChurchCRM to send email to a group takes me, instead to my email client instead of launching the email from within ChurchCRM directly via SMTP.

I've had problems with web apps calling SMTP in my current web host, whereas php mail() works fine. It would be nice to have that option as well.

I would prefer that defaulting to the user's email client be a "last resort" if nothing else is working.