I just started using this module and want to make sure it's working appropriately before launching it live on my site. I've looked at the additional processing with webform and am printing out my submitted values to make sure something is there and I get arrays like such:
[3] => Array ( [0] => a:1:{s:10:"vs_webform";a:4:{s:3:"zip";s:5:"05401";s:5:"state";s:2:"VT";s:12:"office_types";s:167:"a:10:{s:1:"P";s:1:"P";s:1:"C";s:1:"C";s:1:"J";s:1:"J";s:1:"G";s:1:"G";s:1:"K";s:1:"K";s:1:"L";s:1:"L";s:1:"S";s:1:"S";s:1:"H";s:1:"H";s:1:"N";s:1:"N";s:1:"M";s:1:"M";}";s:10:"candidates";a:17:{i:55939;i:1;i:51110;i:1;i:53353;i:1;i:27110;i:1;i:51272;i:1;i:51058;i:1;i:110816;i:1;i:78694;i:1;i:78562;i:1;i:116314;i:1;i:55911;i:1;i:78631;i:1;i:78681;i:1;i:80645;i:1;i:25953;i:1;i:68618;i:1;i:13224;i:1;}}} [1] => senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov [2] => roger.allbee@state.vt.us [3] => michael.dubie@vt.ngb.army.mil [4] => dmarko@sec.state.vt.us [5] => pat.moulton.powden@state.vt.us [6] => vtdps@state.vt.us [7] => timashe@burlingtontelecom.net [8] => katkins@leg.state.vt.us [9] => clembi@comcast.net [10] => jdonovan@leg.state.vt.us )

According to this module, if I just put the 'Email To Address' on webform settings set to the component of my VS_webform field, then it will pull the values appropriatey and shoot out the email? Is this correct? Is there no way to check it?

Comments

seanberto’s picture

seanberto commented

Hi Emily,

You've hit on one of the challenges of testing this module. It's hard to fully test that the outgoing email component works, b/c to really do so, you'd want to be able to setup dummy email address lookups via VoteSmart that let you test email message receipt across various email servers. Otherwise, it's hard to know for sure that email headers are setup correctly and that messages are going to get through various spam filters.

There are a couple of tools/techniques you can use to trap outgoing emails on your mail server, so that you can look at the headers, review the formating of the messages and make sure that the tokens are working correctly. If you are on a Windows server, check out: http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com/. There's a Mac equivalent, but I can't remember what it's called. On Linux, I've seen folks just change the configuration of sendmail or postfix to block outgoing email. Then, they just use something like Mutt or Pine read those messages.

FYI, a new release of this module will be posted soon. Then, we've got a total rewrite slated for early fall.

Cheers,
Sean

seanberto’s picture

seanberto commented
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)
emilyf’s picture

emilyf commented

hey seanberto,

thanks for the quick response. no worries, i understand that's an issue. one thing: technically, if i set the email to component to the field with the vs_webform, it should just fire off to the legislators? i don't need to do additional processing or write additional code? thanks for the input.

seanberto’s picture

seanberto commented

Correct. It should just work. We've used smtp4dev to test, but again, that's not perfect. If you have access to your email logs, you can double check that way too.

There's a separate issue re: the formating of the body of the outgoing email. Webform's default template isn't pretty. You have to write a tpl.php file to customize the body. But then, you can test this template w/o needing set the email recipient field to the VS compontent field.

Cheers,
S