Technical Notes Regarding the Subscriber Database and the Email Newsletter

This site uses a searchable database plugin (Participants Database) to record the names and contact information of current Directors and Board presidents, and other information entered by the users. The goal of NANA is to keep the information about Nederland area nonprofit leadership updated in the database.

Any subscribers to the Newsletter are also entering their information into the database, and all subscribers can update their profile information by requesting their private key on the Newsletter page. The profile form may open in an unlisted Profile page on the site. The NANA administrator receives notifications of new subscribers and updates to the database.

The actual newsletter is based on the Newsletter plugin. When a person subscribes, their email is also added to the Newsletter subscriber list (but not their name or any other information).

Ideally, the NANA admin would enter the subscriber’s first name to the Newsletter list manually after they sign up (sort of a pain, but I haven’t found a plugin that maintains a suitable database and a newsletter option).

Recipients of the newsletter are able to update their Newsletter options using a link in Newsletter emails (e.g., to update their email address or password). They can also access this option by resubscribing on the unlisted Newsletter Subscription Options page.

Note that after the initial signup process, the Participant Database and the Newsletter database are separate and do not communicate with each other.

The NANA admin can also segment the Newsletter list to include current directors and presidents, but this must be accomplished manually, by downloading the Participant Database information and uploading the relevant segment into the Newsletter database.