- Joined
- Jul 25, 2024
- Messages
- 142
- Thread Author
- #1
I realize this guide is useful only for a subset of people who utilize Google for their forum's admin email.
I found myself bogged down by emails to my admin email. The Contact Us Thread AddOn is a huge help but I needed something that would allow the Admins to see responses to users who were rejected for various reasons during the application process. How could I somehow automatically create a thread based on some Inbox filtering criteria. Here is my solution:
1. Sign up for Zapier | The easiest way to automate your work
2. Create a Zap and give it a name. Zaps are interconnected actions. You're going to create a two-state Zap.
3. For stage 1. When this happens...
a. Choose App: Select Gmail as your app. There is a guide on how to configure Zap to have permission to access your Inbox.
b. Select Trigger Event. Choose New Email Matching Search. I configured my trigger to match all emails with the search criteria "Application Rejected". I knew that the only emails that would contain that criteria were those who had replied to the email from the forum.
4. Stage 2 - Do This (once event is triggered this is the result)
a. Choose App: Selectr RSS by Zapier
b. Choose Action Event. Select Create Item in Feed
c. Customize Item. Customize your Feed as follows:
(1) Item Title: Select Gmail Subject
(2) Content: Select Body HTML
(3) Author Name: Select From Name
(4) Author Email: Select From Email
(5) Take Note of the Feed URL. You'll need this in Step 5.
At this point, an RSS Feed has been created for every email that comes into your Inbox and triggers your selected search criteria.
5. Create a Forum or Subforum for your Admins where new threads will be created for your RSS Feed.
6. Go to your Forum's RSS Feed Importer: http://{myforumurl}/admin.php?feeds/
7. Create a new RSS feed Importer
a. Give the Feed a title.
b. In the URL, paste the Feed URL that you created in Zapier.
c. Configure a Fetch Time (I have mine set to every 30 minutes).
d. For Posting User, select Post as guest, use name information from feed data.
e. Select the Destination Forum (you created this in Step 5)
f. Title Template: I left this blank.
g. Message Template: Put {content} within this field.
h. Check both Create thread immediately and Unlocked
The result is a new thread posted by a Guest with the Username that corresponds to the From Name in the Email. The Title of the thread is the Email Subject and the thread contents are from the Body of the Email.
This has worked very well for our board. For one thing, it means that I'm not the only one who gets to read the nasty messages that some rejected applicants respond with. The other benefit is that we are better able to interact with some rejected applicants and resolve any issues.
I found myself bogged down by emails to my admin email. The Contact Us Thread AddOn is a huge help but I needed something that would allow the Admins to see responses to users who were rejected for various reasons during the application process. How could I somehow automatically create a thread based on some Inbox filtering criteria. Here is my solution:
1. Sign up for Zapier | The easiest way to automate your work
2. Create a Zap and give it a name. Zaps are interconnected actions. You're going to create a two-state Zap.
3. For stage 1. When this happens...
a. Choose App: Select Gmail as your app. There is a guide on how to configure Zap to have permission to access your Inbox.
b. Select Trigger Event. Choose New Email Matching Search. I configured my trigger to match all emails with the search criteria "Application Rejected". I knew that the only emails that would contain that criteria were those who had replied to the email from the forum.
4. Stage 2 - Do This (once event is triggered this is the result)
a. Choose App: Selectr RSS by Zapier
b. Choose Action Event. Select Create Item in Feed
c. Customize Item. Customize your Feed as follows:
(1) Item Title: Select Gmail Subject
(2) Content: Select Body HTML
(3) Author Name: Select From Name
(4) Author Email: Select From Email
(5) Take Note of the Feed URL. You'll need this in Step 5.
At this point, an RSS Feed has been created for every email that comes into your Inbox and triggers your selected search criteria.
5. Create a Forum or Subforum for your Admins where new threads will be created for your RSS Feed.
6. Go to your Forum's RSS Feed Importer: http://{myforumurl}/admin.php?feeds/
7. Create a new RSS feed Importer
a. Give the Feed a title.
b. In the URL, paste the Feed URL that you created in Zapier.
c. Configure a Fetch Time (I have mine set to every 30 minutes).
d. For Posting User, select Post as guest, use name information from feed data.
e. Select the Destination Forum (you created this in Step 5)
f. Title Template: I left this blank.
g. Message Template: Put {content} within this field.
h. Check both Create thread immediately and Unlocked
The result is a new thread posted by a Guest with the Username that corresponds to the From Name in the Email. The Title of the thread is the Email Subject and the thread contents are from the Body of the Email.
This has worked very well for our board. For one thing, it means that I'm not the only one who gets to read the nasty messages that some rejected applicants respond with. The other benefit is that we are better able to interact with some rejected applicants and resolve any issues.
