Mail functionality

[ericvrp]

We need to be able to send email for onboarding and other features.

[bartwr]

I often use https://www.mailgun.com/ for sending mail, combined with the default Meteor mail function.

[RonaldHav]

Can we move our mailchimp newsletter thing also to this thing?
Or use the mailchimp API for mailing
It would be great to have one service because will send the news to our members

An other thing might be privacy. Using a cloud service implies sending e-mail adresses to other parties.

How about sending mail from our own server? Too complicated?

We host the Site and operate the Platform using third parties, including AWS®, SoftLayer® and Rackspace® (the “Hosting Providers”). The Hosting Providers will host your Platform from its data centers throughout the United States.
https://www.mailgun.com/privacy

Mailgun (and its parent company, Rackspace US, Inc.) participates and has certified its compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. Mailgun is committed to subjecting all personal data received from the European Union (EU) member countries, in reliance on the Privacy Shield Framework, to the Framework’s applicable principles. To learn more about the Privacy Shield Framework, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Privacy Shield List https://www.privacyshield.gov/list/.

[bartwr]

@RonaldHav Yes, good points.

Using an external service for sending mail

Cons:

• The third party (and maybe others) can see the mails that are sent
• (Centralized: one person has to be the owner of the account)

Pros:

• 'Lots of features' like transactional emails combined with 'easy to use'
• Email is mostly received in inbox (and not in spam)

Using the CommonBike VPN for sending mail

Cons:

• Someone has to configure and maintain the server properly
• Email often gets into the spam box of receivers, because it doesn't have a trusted IP
• (Centralized: one or more persons have to have access to the server)

Pros:

• Self owned, so only the server administrators and receivers can read the emails

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Using only Mandrill (transactional emails by MailChimp) and not MailGun or MailChimp

Cons:

• Costs money from the start (pricing)
• No template / mailing editor
• No subscriber management system

Pros:

• See Features

Using only Mandrill (transactional emails by MailChimp) and not MailGun or MailChimp

Cons:

• No template / mailing editor
• No subscriber management system

Pros:

• Free until we send more then 10.000 emails per month (pricing)
• See Features

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For sending emails to subscriber lists MailChimp can be still nice to use. Or, we develop our own email sending administrator panel and replace MailChimp with that.

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[/information that might be useful]

[RonaldHav]

Okey, maybe we should start with mailgun.
It is easy for now and we can keep focus on our core bike sharing.
We can replace this 'micro service' later for an own privacy secure thing.