Keep MailChimp list synchronized...

[Pierre Lannoy]

Hi all NCs!

If you're like me and you use MailChimp to manage your email campaigns and newsletters, I suggest you take a look at my blog. You will find it a php script I wrote to automate the import of network members in a MailChimp list. You can use it to keep your MailChimp list(s) synchronized with all the members informations of your Ning network.

The good news: this script is open source

The bad news: my blog is in french, you will be forced to use Google Translate ;-)

http://www.rawlog.net/blog/simpleNing2MC

Best regards

Pierre

 

[Josef Essberger]

Thanks Pierre, I looked at your blog and it looks perfect for integration.

But I wondered what happens with ex-members who have left of their own accord (or have been suspended/deleted) through the Ning interface. Does your script delete them at MailChimp?

I'm not sure even if this happens with the Ning/ConstantContact setup. It certainly wasn't happening some months back, but maybe they've fixed it. This would seem to be in contravention of ConstantContact/MailChimp terms since one would be emailing people who have "unsubscribed".

[Pierre Lannoy]

Hi Josef!

These members are not delete from your MailChimp database. But their datas are refreshed each time the script is executed. So an old member are set to MEMBER=0 in case of deletion (or suspension,..). You can send a "conditional" mail in selecting MEMBER=1 in the MailChimp interface : your mail will be send only to active members... 

Second option, if you want to send (or not send) specific mails to blocked members, you can use the "isBlocked" parameter in the script.

For all these elements, you can set it in the provided index.php in the "NING <-> MAILCHIMP MAPPING" section, specifically with the $mapping array. You wil find it between line 98 to 113.

Pierre

[Josef Essberger]

Thank you so much Pierre. I find your script to be a tremendous solution to a real problem. I also love your "automatic newsletter" using RSS feeds. C'est formidable! Next year I may try to implement both ideas.

You may have seen that I Ieft the same question on your blog in my broken French :-) so I won't expect two answers, unless you wish to answer pour encourager les autres :-)

Thanks and thanks again. 

[Pierre Lannoy]

It's what I already done ;-)

Thanks to you and have a merry Christmas...

PS : You have a much better French than I speak English ...

[Josef Essberger]

Thanks Pierre and merry Christmas to you too!

I tried to post this question on your blog but it didn't seem to accept it (or maybe moderation is on)...

Would you envisage any problems running your script with a database of say 100,000+ members? Or is the number of members irrelevant?

Thanks again :-)

[Pierre Lannoy]

Yes, I see : you post it five times and yes, Mollom seems to have some trouble this night ;-) Sorry for that.

To answer to your question, I do not see any problems to do that for 100000+ members. There is an optional parameter where you can set the size of the batch job (default is 20) to avoid any timeout problem. There is no risk to try (except Ning API quota), and I'm totally ready to help you if the script need to be modified to support such database size.

Are you planing to use my script ?

[Josef Essberger]

I'm seriously considering it, though it might not be immediately. I would first have to switch to MailChimp. But anyway I'd be interested in discussing it further with you, together with your RSS idea. What's the best way to contact?

[Amy E. Wells]

Hello Pierre,

I have installed simpleNing2MC on my Windows server. When I attempt to run it, I get the following:

Warning: require_once(NingActivityItem.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in (root directory removed for security)\simpleNing2MC\includes\NingObject.php on line 4

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'NingActivityItem.php' (include_path='.;C:\php5\pear;__DIR__;__DIR__/objects') in (root directory removed for security)\simpleNing2MC\includes\NingObject.php on line 4

 

Do you have any idea how I might fix this? I am not well-versed in PHP.

Thanks.

[Pierre Lannoy]

Hi Amy!

Sorry for this late answer.

Seems you have a misconfiguration on your server for php. The error you are face to is an error "generated" by a file written by Ning developers (NingObject.php), but I just have a look and I saw nothing special that could generate this error (the best proof is that you're the one getting this error).

Could you confirm me that your php version is greater or equal to 5.3 ?

Pierre

[Amy E. Wells]

Thanks for your reply, Pierre. In fact, our PHP version is 5.2.9. We are contacting the host to request 5.3 or greater.

We have one issue. We do not want to send e-mails from MailChimp to those who have selected "I don't want to receive emails..." in Ning. Are you aware of any workarounds for this issue?

Thanks,

Amy