The Mailchimp extension for the Volunteer Sign Up Sheets plugin is a fairly simple plugin that allows you to subscribe users to your Mailchimp mailing list from the sign-up form.
Settings
There is just one page of settings, as detailed below:
- Checkbox Text – This is the text that will appear next to the checkbox at the bottom of the signup form. Your description should let people know what it is for and if they need to check to subscribe, or uncheck to not subscribe.
- Default Checkbox State – You can set if the checkbox should be checked by default, which would force them to uncheck it if they don’t want to subscribe, and unchecked by default so that they have to check it to subscribe.
- Mailchimp API Key – Enter your Mailchimp API key, or create a new one, from your Mailchimp Account page. You can find API Keys under the “Extras” menu on your Account & Billing page. If you need help, please read the Mailchimp page about API keys.
- Mailchimp Server Prefix – The server prefix is the first section of the URL when you are logged into your Mailchimp account, and will be something like “us13”. Once you login to your Mailchimp account, look at the address bar in your browser. It should look something like: https://us13.admin.mailchimp.com/
The first part of that URL is what you want, the “us13” in this example, but it will be different depending on your country/region.
You need to save the options after you enter your API Key and Server Prefix before you can enter values in the next options. - Mailchimp List – This field will be empty until you enter your API Key and Server prefix and then click the “Save Options” button. When the page reloads, it will try to connect to your Mailchimp account, and then this select box will be populated with your mailing lists. For most people with a free account, there will only be one list. Select your list and then click the “Save Options” button again to populate the Segment/Tag field below.
- Mailchimp List Segment/Tag (optional) – If you have created tags or segments for your Mailchimp mailing list, then this field will be populated once you select your Mailchimp list and press the Save Options button. This field is optional, but can be helpful if you are segmenting/tagging your list for different sources or other purposes.
Operation
Once you have the settings configured, you are good to go. From that point on, whenever a visitor signs up for something on your site, the mailing list checkbox will show at the bottom of the sign-up form. This works for the regular sign-up form in the main/free plugin, as well as the pop-up sign-up form in the Calendar Display extension.
IMPORTANT NOTES: If you have user accounts for your volunteers, and if they are logged in, then when the signup form is displayed, the Mailchimp extension will first check to see if their registered email address is already subscribed to the list. If that email is already subscribed, then the checkbox will NOT be shown. Please be aware of this if you are signed in as Admin, and your admin email is also subscribed to your mailing list. You may think that the plugin is not working since you will not see the checkbox. Simply log out, or login to a test account if you require users to login to sign-up, and then visit the sign-up form again and you should see the checkbox.