How To Log Your Emails With WordPress

How To Log Your Emails With WordPress

by | Oct 28, 2019 | Uncategorized

Emails are an important communication tool, and many times the only communication tool on websites. A majority of website owners assume that emails are being delivered as expected but sadly this is not always the case. Logging your email communication in your WordPress database has several benefits including: 

  • Know for sure that emails are being sent out to your customers or clients,
  • Email notifications can help you debug other features on your website including online orders, form submissions, and user profile features,
  • Logging emails helps you detect unauthorized communication or misuse by plugins and other entities. Email logging has been especially useful to detect spam/malware injection where the offending malware uses your system to send out emails

Plugin Installation

The plugin we'll use for logging emails is the WP Mail SMTP. WP Mail SMTP has many functions including enabling SMTP email settings for better email delivery. If you're not using SMTP to send out emails then I highly recommend you do so using this plugin.

First, head over to your WordPress admin and look for Plugins -> Add New. On the next page that opens up, enter the phrase ‘WP Mail SMTP' on the top right search box and hit enter.

When the search results are presented to you, click on the install button next to the WP Mail SMTP listing then activate it. Now we're ready to customize the plugin.

Email Log Settings

Now that the WP Mail SMTP plugin is active, let's go ahead and enable logging. To do this, go to the WP Mail SMTP settings tab (find menu tab at the lower left of the admin page) and click on Email Logs tab at the top.

Check the box next to the Email Log heading and this enables all the basic details of each email. Additionally, you can choose to store the contents of the email. Just remember that if you choose this option, you may be storing sensitive or personal information which may pose a security risk.

By default, WP Mail SMTP records this information and stores in the database: 

  • Email timestamp (when email was sent),
  • Subject line,
  • Status of email,
  • Email from, to, Ccc, Bcc,
  • Email technical details (for debugging)

View Email Logs 

You can view emails logged by going back to the WP Mail SMTP menu section and clicking on Email Logs. The display of email logs follows the same pattern as WordPress posts such that the latest emails are at the top. Click on each email log to view details about that particular log. 

Conclusion

Logging emails is an important task for effectively managing your website. I have outlined the process of enabling email logs using WP Mail SMTP and hope you'll find this guide useful.

How To Accept Donations On WordPress Website With WPForms

by | Aug 29, 2019 | Uncategorized

Accepting donations on your WordPress website can be a challenge if you don't know the right tools to use. In this article, I'll show you how to use WPForms plugin to create the form of a simple donation, customize it, and link up with a payments account so you start collecting donations.

WPForms is one of the best form builder plugins for WordPress. Its intuitive drag and drop interface makes creating forms a breeze. The WPForms plugin was built and is maintained by the team behind WPBeginner, the leading WordPress blog so you know you're in good company.

Step #1: Install and activate WPForms

WPForms

Head over to your dashboard and scroll down to Plugins -> Add New. In the search box on the top right, type the word WPForms and hit enter. You'll be presented with search results. Find WPForms and click to install, then activate. Once you've activated, move on to the next step.

Step #2: Create a form

You have 2 choices here: you can create a form from scratch using the drag and drop feature or you can select a form template then edit the fields you need. Either way, you'll be working on the fields tab section as shown below.

Step3: Add payments fields

In addition to basic fields such as name and email, you need to add a payment field where users will enter the amount they want to give. WPForms gives you options to set the payments fields as a single field or multiple fields, which comes in handy when you have multiple projects that users can donate to.

Step #4: Integrate payment account

WPForms allows you to collect donations using either Paypal or Stripe. Decide on which one you'll be using and click on it then follow the instructions to connect to the respective account.

Step #5: Set confirmations and notifications

Finally, you need to set up confirmation and notification options to finish off this project. You'll find these settings under the Settings tab as shown below. Confirmation options give the user feedback that the donation has been received successfully. Notification settings will alert you (and any other person you choose) when a donation has been submitted. It's also recommended that you send the user a notification with a summary of what they entered as a record for them.

Conclusion

Having a way to collect donations on your non-profit website is important to the growth of your organization. I've shown you how easy it is to use WPForms to collect donations and hope that you'll give it a try. When you do give it a try let me know how well you did or any issues that you came across.