MailChimp Replacement Backend

[angelalalacheng]

Description

• We currently use MailChimp to send out our weekly progress updates. It is not user friendly and the price keeps going up. I’d like a replacement that an Admin can use via the app.
• Take over the work of previous people : FE BE led to Haoji new email sender HighestGoodNetworkApp#1784
• Video of what’s needed

Related PRS (if any):

To test this backend PR you need to checkout #2595 frontend PR.

Main changes explained:

• Update src/controllers/emailController.js for refactoring and use content id to ensure that the image can display correctly in Gmail
• Update src/utilities/emailSender.js for refactoring the code

Before Testing

To send an email using the Gmail API with OAuth2 and nodemailer, follow the video below and set it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rcRf7yswfM&t=10s&ab_channel=MafiaCodes

Fill in the these variable values from the above setup in the .env file of the backend.
REACT_APP_EMAIL =
REACT_APP_EMAIL_CLIENT_ID =
REACT_APP_EMAIL_CLIENT_SECRET =
REACT_APP_EMAIL_REFRESH_TOKEN =
REACT_APP_EMAIL_CLIENT_REDIRECT_URI = https://developers.google.com/oauthplayground
sendEmail = true

How to test:

1. check into current branch
2. do npm install and npm run dev to run this PR locally
3. Clear site data/cache
4. If you only want to send the testing email to your own testing accounts, you can add a search keyword in src/controllers/emailController.js like the following:

5. See how to test in frontend #2595 frontend PR

Screenshots or videos of changes:

See frontend

Note:

See frontend

[vishnupriyaatheti]

@angelalalacheng I am trying to setup that was described in youtube video. To authorize the Api I am getting below attached error. Can you please suggest what wrong I am doing.

[angelalalacheng]

@angelalalacheng I am trying to setup that was described in youtube video. To authorize the Api I am getting below attached error. Can you please suggest what wrong I am doing.

Hi, @vishnupriyaatheti
Sorry about that I have no idea about this error. I google it and also asked GPT andbutnot sure whether it is helpful.

The issue you’re facing is due to the fact that your application hasn’t completed the Google API verification process. When using Google APIs, such as the Gmail API, the app needs to go through a security and verification process by Google to ensure it complies with privacy and security standards.

The error message “Access blocked: Gmail API tutorial has not completed the Google verification process” indicates that the app is still in testing and can only be accessed by developer-approved testers. The app is blocked from wider access because it hasn’t been fully verified.

[Ankuriboh]

Code was great, except that we need to reconsider the necessity of the queue system.

Asides from this, it somewhat a hassle to use Gmail as our email provider. I would suggest that we move to a real bulk mail sender other than Mailchimp to solve the issue.

[Ankuriboh]

Not sure why do we need to set up an email queue system? If we are sending emails to a mass amount of users or just send to a list of users, we can just BCC it. And that would only cost one request to the email server.