MCAD Email Tasks

Generate and send daily emails for Online Learning

Supported:

Usage

mcad-email-tasks <email-name> <options>

Example:

$ mcad-email-tasks canvas-orientation --today 2019-01-15 --send

> Running task: canvasOrientation
> Options: { today: '2019-01-15', preview: true }
> Sending 122 emails...

By default emails will not be sent unless you include the --send option. This is prevent accidentally sending emails.

Options

--today <ISO Date>

Generate emails as if today was given date. This is useful if you want to preview future emails, or resend a batch of emails that may not have sent during server maintenance. Date should be in the format of 2019-01-15.

--preview

Opens a preview of the email in the browser.

--send

Sends the email. The email will not be sent this option is included.

--email-log <email@address.com>

Sends a log file to a given email address.

Email Tasks (current and future)

Done?	Task Name	When?	Audience	Details
☑️	ol-course-reg-confirm	Upon registration	All OL Students	Confirmation that they are registered for an online course
☑️	canvas-orientation	1 week before start	OL Canvas Students	How initialize MCAD credentials and use Canvas LMS.
☑️	bb-orientation	1 week before start	OL Bb Students	How to initialize MCAD credentials and use Blackboard LMS
☑️	canvas-course-open	Sunday before start	OL Canvas Students	Course is open and available on Canvas LMS.
☑️	bb-course-open	Sunday before start	OL Bb Students	Online course is open and available on Canvas
☑️	ce-papercut	4 days before start	CE non-OL Students using Papercut	Info on setting up Papercut account.
☑️	hybrid-canvas-orientation	4 days before start	CE non-OL Students using Canvas, but not Papercut	Info on setting up MCAD account, and reviewing Canvas Orientation Materials

Overview of Tasks folder

• index.js – the controller for a task. It generates data and a list of emails for the current day (or uses the option today if set).
• subject.hbs – template for email subject line
• html.hbs - template for the HTML body
• style.css - CSS styles for the HTML body. Be sure to test this on a variety of browsers.
• text.hbs - text-based version of the email

Deployment

Prerequisites:

• NodeJS
• Linux server supporting Cron

# ssh into server for deployment
$ ssh james@ol-support.mcad.edu

# clone the repo to ~/dev
$ cd ~/dev
$ git clone git@github.com:mcadonline/mcad-email-tasks.git

# link the ./cli.js so that we can run mcad-email-tasks as
# a command from the command line
$ cd mcad-email-tasks
$ npm link

# setup a .env file
# I like putting all .env files in a single ~/.env folder
# and then linking to them in the git repos
$ mkdir ~/.env/mcad-email-tasks
$ cp ~/dev/mcad-email-tasks/.env.example ~/.env/mcad-email-tasks/.env.production
$ ln -s ~/.env/mcad-email-tasks/.env.production ~/dev/mcad-email-tasks/.env

# test
$ mcad-email-tasks

# setup cron to run mcad-email-tasks nightly at 6:30
# *see crontab file in costanza-cron-scripts repository