Automatic and periodic PMs for new users

Product Support

AI-generated summary

In a Support discussion titled Automatic and periodic PMs for new users, Renato_Mendes asks if it’s possible to send weekly private messages (PMs) to new users as an onboarding tool — similar to Discobot but focused on community culture, not platform features. He prefers using Discourse over email for easier access and membership-based control. He references two potential solutions: a webhook-based PM system and the Discourse Automation plugin. HAWK confirms that Automation can be used to send recurring PMs. Renato_Mendes follows up asking for implementation details, noting a similar unanswered 2023 post. JammyDodger suggests using the ‘send pms’ script with the ‘added to group’ trigger for trust_level_1, setting multiple PMs with increasing delays to space them out over time. This approach would allow automated, staggered onboarding messages directly within Discourse, without external tools.

1

Hey, guys! How are things going?

I was wondering whether it would be possible to send a number of weekly PMs to each new user as an onboarding strategy, so they can get the grip of our culture and deepen their process within the community. Like discobot, but not for Discourse features. The main reason I’d like to do this through Discourse, and not e-mail, is to make communication easily accessible through our platform, but it also makes it easier to control whether the user must receive the communication or not (if they are no longer a member, they won’t get it hehe, while doing so through e-mail would demand connecting different programs and all, and it’s only me (not a coder) working with this here.)

I don’t know if what this person did could somehow work for my usecase (if yes, how should I proceed?): Webhooks for private messages - building an onboarding bot

What about the Discourse Automation plugin?

That’s it. Thanks!

2

Yup, you could use Automation to send recurring PMs to users.

3

Hey! And how would that be done? This post asked the same question in 2023, but didn’t get answered.

4

You could use the ‘send pms’ script, with the ‘added to group’ trigger for trust_level_1, and then set up several PMs, each with a longer delay. :+1: