Edit message content before 'sending to another list'

ℹ️ Support
1

I want to edit the content in a sent message before using the ‘Send this campaign to another list’ option at the bottom of the ‘View a campaign’ page.

I located what I thought was the text/content in the table php_message in phpMyAdmin & changed that text. However, it doesn’t seem to have changed the text when I look at that same message in phplist? Why does the edited text I did, not show when looking at the message in phplist?
And can you let me know how I can change the text in a message that’s already sent so I can send that edited version of the message to a new list.

P.S. the reason why i want to resend the message this way is because there are subscribers in the orginal list that the message was sent to who are also in this 2nd list & I don’t want them to receive the email twice.

2

@phillegg
You can view then edit the campaign from the Campaigns page.
Modify the content then select the extra list on the Lists tab, but don’t unselect any of the existing lists to which the campaign has been sent. Then submit the campaign.

3

Thanks Duncan (@duncanc). Just to be clear… by keeping the existing lists the system understands it is the same message (even though the message has been moved to the drafts tab) and WILL NOT send the edited message to subscribers in those first lists. Even though the message ID has changed (in this instance from id:1206 to id:2010) - if you could confirm that would be much appreciated.

4

The message id won’t change just by editing the campaign. Are you sure about this?

5

(@duncanc) Hmmm… maybe I’m getting confused here: the one I did earlier today went from 1205 to 1210 but I removed the previous lists - might that be the reason for the change in ID?

Anyway, have just followed your instruction, leaving the original lists in and editing the original message (1205) and the ID has stayed the same.

Have got a bit confused here tbh but can you confirm whether removing the original lists may have changed the message ID?

6

@phillegg You might have used the “Copy to draft” button which does create a new campaign.

If you requeue a campaign, even without adding another list, phplist will not send it to those who have already received it.

The other way to handle your original requirement is to enable list exclude by adding or changing this in config.php.

// list exclude will add the option to send a message to users who are on a list
// except when they are on another list.
define('USE_LIST_EXCLUDE', 1);

There will be an area on the Lists tab to select lists whose subscribers will not be sent the campaign.

Then use “copy to draft” to create a new campaign, modify the content. Then on the Lists tab send to only the additional list and choose the list to exclude.

7

Great (@duncanc) that’s given me plenty of options to work with & I think I may have done “copy to draft” on the first attempt which would explain why the message ID changed.

Incidentally, I still don’t understand why, if I edited the message & subject fields in the phplist_message table, it wouldn’t change the content when viewing that same message in phplist’s List of Campaigns / Sent tab. Are you able to explain why that didn’t work as I’d like to understand what I’ve got wrong in my thinking :grin:

8

@phillegg phplist stores most fields additionally in the messagedata table and probably uses those instead of the fields on the message table.

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