11. Email Users Module in Beyond Multisite

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Thanks to this module you can bulk send emails to an unlimited amount of users in your multisite network. You can also target users by their role in a site (or sites) or by the user ID. There are shortcodes for the user names and also an unsubscribe feature.

Navigating to the Email Users Page

From the Network Admin Screen click on Users and then Email Users.

User Selection

In this section of the form you have to choose which users you want to receive the email.

  1. The first drop-down menu is Role, and it has the following options:
    1. Any or no role – All users are selected, even if they have no role in any site. This option ignores the next two drop-down menus.
    2. Any role – Users that have any kind of role in the selected sites are selected. Users that are only super administrators, and have no other role in the selected sites, are not included.
    3. Super Admin – Only super administrators are selected. This option ignores the next two drop-down menus.
    4. Administrator – Users that have the administrator role in the selected sites are selected.
    5. Editor – Users that have the editor role in the selected sites are selected.
    6. Author – Users that have the author role in the selected sites are selected.
    7. Contributor – Users that have the contributor role in the selected sites are selected.
    8. Subscriber – Users that have the subscriber role in the selected sites are selected.
    9. Any role from a list – Enter multiple roles in a text field that will appear below this one. You must enter the role slugs and separate them with a comma. To see the slugs of the roles of a site, go to edit the site from the Network Sites screen, and then go to the Users tab. We have generated a list there for you to use.
  2. The next drop-down menu is Role in sites by attribute. It works in combination with the Role menu to select sites, in which the users must have the selected role, in order to be selected. The options are:
    1. Any – All sites are selected.
    2. Public – Only public sites (that encourage search engines to index them) are selected.
    3. Deleted – Only sites marked as deleted are selected.
    4. Spam – Only sites marked as spam are selected.
    5. Archived – Only sites marked as archived are selected.
    6. Mature – Only sites marked as mature are selected.
    7. Not public – Only sites that discourage search engines to index them are selected.
    8. Not deleted – Only sites that are not marked as deleted are selected.
    9. Not spam – Only sites that are not marked as spam are selected.
    10. Not archived – Only sites that are not marked as archived are selected.
    11. Not mature – Only sites that are not marked as mature are selected.
    12. Not deleted or spam – Only sites that are not marked as deleted and are not marked as spam are selected.
  3. Next is the drop-down menu Role in sites by ID. It also works in combination with the Role menu to select sites, in which the users must have the selected role, in order to be selected. The options are:
    1. Any site ID – All sites are selected.
    2. Only these site IDs: – Selects only sites with an ID that is in the comma-separated list provided in the text box to the right of the drop-down menu.
    3. All except these site IDs: – Selects only sites with an ID that is not in the comma-separated list provided in the text box to the right of the drop-down menu.
  4. If you have selected option 2 or 3 from the previous drop-down menu, you need to enter a comma-separated list of site IDs in the text box.
  5. Next is the drop-down menu Select users with. It lets you select users by ID. The options are:
    1. Any user ID – All users are selected.
    2. Only these user IDs: – Selects only users with an ID that is in the comma-separated list provided in the text box to the right of the drop-down menu.
    3. All except these user IDs: – Selects only users with an ID that is not in the comma-separated list provided in the text box to the right of the drop-down menu.
  6. Next is the drop-down menu Ban status. It lets you select users by their ban status from the Ban Users module. The options are:
    1. Not banned – Only users that are not banned will be selected.
    2. Banned – Only users that are banned will be selected.
    3. Any – All users will be selected.
  7. Next is the drop-down menu Spam status. It lets you select users by their spam status from the built in feature in WordPress accessible from the bulk actions menu in the Network Admin Users screen. The options are:
    1. Not spammed – Only users that are not spammed will be selected.
    2. Spammed – Only users that are spammed will be selected.
    3. Any – All users will be selected.
  8. Next is the drop-down menu Unsubscribe status. It lets you select users based on whether they have chosen to not receive more emails or not. Read more about unsubscribing below. The options are:
    1. Not unsubscribed – Only users that are not unsubscribed will be selected.
    2. Unsubscribed – Only users that are unsubscribed will be selected.
    3. Any – All users will be selected.

Email Message

In this section of the form you will compose the email that you will be sending.

  1. The first field to fill is called From email. This is the email address from which the email will be sent.
  2. Next is From name. This is the sender name. Usually this should be the name of your website or brand.
  3. Next is the Subject of the email. Usually a short description of what the email is about.
  4. And the last field is the Message. This is the actual body of the email message. There is a WordPress text editor for this field, so you can easily apply any formatting. Also you can use the following shortcodes (they will be replaced with a certain value):
    1. [user_smart_name] – If the first and last names are set, this shows the full name. If only the first name is set, it shows it. If the first name is empty, it shows the username.
    2. [user_display_name] – The display name of the user.
    3. [user_username] – The username of the user.
    4. [user_first_name] – The first name of the user. Could be empty.
    5. [user_last_name] – The last name of the user. Could be empty.
    6. [user_admin_sites] – A list of links to the sites where the user has an administrator role. If there are no such sites, an empty string is shown.
    7. [user_admin_sites_only_selected_sites] – A list of links to the sites where the user has an administrator role, but only the sites that are also selected in the “User Selection” form by the field “Role in sites by ID” (the field “Role in sites by attribute” is ignored for this list, but still used for user selection). If there are no such sites, an empty string is shown.
    8. [user_admin_site_title] – The title of the site, where the user has an administrator role. If there are multiple such sites, then the one with lower site ID is chosen. If there are no such sites, an empty string is shown.
    9. [user_admin_site_url] – The URL of the site, where the user has an administrator role. If there are multiple such sites, then the one with lower site ID is chosen. If there are no such sites, an empty string is shown.
    10. [network_site_url] – The URL of the main network site.
  5. Keep in mind that if the unsubscribe feature is turned on (and it is on by default) an additional message will be added at the end of your message automatically, which offers the option to users to unsubscribe from these emails. More about that below in the Module Settings section.

Preview and Sending an Email

After you have selected the users and composed the email message you can send now, but it is recommended to first do two more things.

First click the Preview User Selection button to see a list of the selected users. They will receive the email.

After that enter the username of a test user (registered with one of your email addresses) in the Send to this user field under Test Email. Now click the Send Test Email button to send the email only to that user and see how everything looks like.

Also do not forget to check if all the settings for the module are how you want them before you send. More about the settings below.

If everything is fine you are ready to send to all selected users with the Send Email button. This will create a task that will automatically start sending emails in the background using the WordPress cron feature. When it is done it will show you a list of affected users and when you close the box you will see information about the created task.

Task Statistics

Once an emailing task is created you will not have access to the form for emailing users until you cancel or remove the task. Instead you will see the task statistics.

Sending Mode

While an active task is present, you will be able to switch between two sending modes. In Background mode the emails are sent via a cron job and you can leave the page. While in Real-time mode the emails are sent only while you are on the page and no cron job is needed.

Module Settings

To see the settings go to the Beyond Multisite page in the Network Admin Screen and click on Show Settings in the Email Users box.

  • Maximum email sending speed – This is the maximum number of emails that will be sent per hour. They are sent in chunks of up to 15 and in an interval of at least 15 seconds. The minimum speed depends on how often any page from your WordPress network is loaded, since this is how WordPress cron works. So if you have enough page loads in your network and you set this to 240 per hour, the plugin will send 1 email every 15 seconds. If you set it to 1200 per hour, it will send 5 emails every 15 seconds. If you do not have enough page loads, maybe you have 1 page load every 1 minute, and you set it to 240 per hour, it will send 1 email every 1 minute. The maximum setting available is 3600 per hour. Keep in mind that your hosting may be limited to a certain amount of emails per hour. Ask your hosting provider about that.
  • Allow users to unsubscribe and add the unsubscribe footer to emails – If this checkbox is checked two things will happen. The first one is that the message in the next field called Unsubscribe footer message will be added at the end of all emails sent via this module. The second is that users will be able to unsubscribe from these emails via the unsubscribe URL and via a drop-down menu located in their profile page.
  • Unsubscribe footer message – In this text field is the message that will be added to all emails sent via this module if the checkbox above is checked. There is a WordPress text editor for this field, so you can easily apply any formatting. Also you can use the following shortcodes (they will be replaced with a certain value):
    • [unsubscribe_url] – The URL of the page that unsubscribes the user automatically when visited.
    • [network_site_url] – The URL of the main network site.
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