experiences with mail merge and scheduling in MLMs

[Marsha Petry]

I've only been on this list for a short time, so please feel free to
redirect me to another list if this is off-topic for this list...

I'm looking for an MLM (or alternatives would be considered) that could
handle the following:

1. scheduling sends of moderated messages (ie send out message x at 1am,
messages y,z at 2am etc...).

This one I can find in most MLMs in varying forms but I also need this:

2. mail merge capability. I prefer to be able to send a message template, a
control file, and a data file to a "merger" that would make substitutions
from the data file into the message template based on directions from the
control file. Extracting the data from a database would be another option.

Anybody have some experiences in this area as to what would be a good MLM
for these needs? I've looked at Majordomo, Listar, Sympa, Listproc, ezmlm,
Listserv (and unless I've missed some documentation on the others Listserv
is the closest to what I need, and that's what I may opt for, though it's
pretty pricey).

If no MLM fits my needs, any suggestions on what open source code might be
the best to look at as far as modifying for my needs? Someone on the ezmlm
list suggested modifying qmail for the mail merge feature - sounds OK. Any
other experiences?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Marsha Petry
mpe...@uswest.net

[Jeremy Blackman]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Marsha Petry wrote:

> Anybody have some experiences in this area as to what would be a good MLM
> for these needs? I've looked at Majordomo, Listar, Sympa, Listproc, ezmlm,
> Listserv (and unless I've missed some documentation on the others Listserv
> is the closest to what I need, and that's what I may opt for, though it's
> pretty pricey).

Listserv does what you need out-of-box, though it can be a royal nightmare
to set up that way at times and is a bit pricey, as you note.

I /think/ Lyris can also do this, and is probably slightly less pricey.

> If no MLM fits my needs, any suggestions on what open source code might be
> the best to look at as far as modifying for my needs? Someone on the ezmlm
> list suggested modifying qmail for the mail merge feature - sounds OK. Any
> other experiences?

Well, for my own part, I can suggest Listar (surprise) for modification
simply because the whole thing is based around a dynamic and extendable
architecture. Writing a 'mailmerge.lpm' to plug-in could cover your need
there fairly well, though you will then have to send each message
separately... not /as/ bad as it could be, though, if you are running
qmail (as it would seem). Listar already has hooks for per-user message
modification, but nothing implements functionality on those hooks yet; the
mail merge concept would be one that could make use of that.

Of course, I will readily admit that my viewpoint is biased; JT and I
wrote Listar that way specifically so we could add new features (or other
people could) as needed without having to change the core code.

--
Jeremy Blackman - lo...@maison-otaku.net / lo...@listar.org / jer...@lith.com
Lithtech Team, Monolith Productions -- http://www.lith.com
Listar Developer -- http://www.listar.org