Simplenews roles

The Simplenews Roles module for Backdrop CMS synchronizes user subscriptions to newsletters based on their role membership. This module allows automatic subscription/unsubscription of users to specific newsletters by associating user roles with newsletters, ensuring that only users with the specified roles are subscribed. Additionally, users manually added to a subscription list will be automatically removed if they do not belong to the designated roles (unless auto-remove is disabled).

Features

• Automatic Role-based Subscriptions: Automatically subscribe users to newsletters based on their roles.
• Auto-Remove: Optionally remove users who no longer belong to the subscribed roles.
• Synchronization via Cron: Supports regular synchronization of subscriptions through cron jobs.
• Configuration: Define role-based subscriptions in the module's settings and set limits for subscribe/unsubscribe operations per cron run.

Installation

1. Place the simplenews_roles directory in your Backdrop CMS modules directory.
2. Enable the module in the Modules section of the Backdrop CMS admin.
3. Navigate to Configuration > Simplenews Roles Settings to configure role-based newsletter subscriptions.

Configuration

1. Go to Configuration > Newsletters > edit newsletter category > Role synchronization, and configure your role-to-newsletter mappings.
2. Select the roles that should be automatically subscribed to each newsletter.
3. Enable or disable the Auto Remove option for each newsletter.

Usage

Adding Role Synchronization to Newsletters

When adding or editing a newsletter, a Role Synchronization fieldset will appear:

• Roles: Select which user roles should be automatically subscribed to this newsletter.
• Auto Remove: Enabling this option will remove users from the newsletter if they lose the specified role(s).

Syncing User Subscriptions

Subscriptions are synchronized on each save of the newsletter settings. Additionally, Backdrop’s cron will automatically synchronize subscriptions based on the configuration.

API Functions

• simplenews_roles_update_subscriptions: Manually synchronize users and newsletters based on their roles.
• simplenews_roles_user_insert and simplenews_roles_user_update: Automatically handle subscriptions when a user is created or updated.

Hooks Implemented

• hook_config_info: Defines configuration settings for Simplenews Roles.
• hook_form_FORM_ID_alter: Adds role synchronization settings to the newsletter form.
• hook_user_insert and hook_user_update: Syncs user subscriptions based on roles when users are created or updated.
• hook_cron: Handles ongoing subscription synchronization via cron.
• hook_autoload_info: Provides autoloading for this module.

Notes

• Performance: Enabling auto-remove on large sites may impact performance, as removing users based on role changes can be a resource-intensive process. Consider limiting synchronization frequency using cron settings.
• Compatibility: This module is designed specifically for Backdrop CMS and is a conversion from a previous Drupal 7 module.

Troubleshooting

Bugs and Feature requests should be reported in the Issue Queue:
https://github.com/backdrop-contrib/simplenews_roles/issues.

Maintainers

This module is ported from Drupal 7 version and maintained by Alan Mels of AltaGrade.com and is open to contributions. Please feel free to submit issues and feature requests.