phpList 3.3.3 released: GDPR related changes plus UX fixes

ARCHIVE

phpList 3.3.3 is a new release with 4 new features, 1 plugin, 13 fixes, and 61 code commits. See the Download page for installation and upgrade instructions.

The focus of this release is making it easier for phpList administrators to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation in their data management practices. This is not a security-related release.

Changes in this release

Major changes

Invite plugin included by default

You can enable the invite plugin via the ‘Config’ → ‘Manage Plugins’ page.
To make the invite plugin easier to use a default campaign is included as a draft in all new installations.

New facility for exporting all an individual subscriber’s data

To make it easier to provide subscribers with a complete set of data relating to them, an ‘Export’ button is added to the Subscribers Profile, which downloads a spreadsheet containing all data relating to a particular subscriber, including contents of the phplist_user_user table, the lists the subscriber is a member of, their subscription history and campaign view/click statistics.

New buttons to delete blacklisted subscribers

You can now delete blacklisted subscribers using one of the two options added on ‘Subscribers’ → ‘Reconcile Subscribers’:

  • Delete all blacklisted subscribers button
  • Delete subscribers who are blacklisted because they unsubscribed

Two new default attributes provided

  • Required check box stating that the subscriber is over 16 years of age
  • Required check box for consent to terms of service/privacy policy to the subscription pages to gather explicit consent from subscribers

New means of contacting the administrator via public pages

To make it easier for subscribers to contact the Data Controller responsible for the phpList installation their contact details are made available on public pages.

Changed default confirmation email text is to include how subscriber data will be used

Advisory text to admins for editing the default confirmation email content to include the additional ways in which subscriber data will be used.  An article explaining GDPR compliance is added on the phpList manual here.

Other changes

  1. New preferences link to on /lists homepage: To make it easier for subscribers to manage their preferences even if they do not have a campaign link available, a preferences page link is added to /lists homepage.
  2. New link to a subscriber’s public preferences page from ‘Subscribers profile’ page: To make it easier for administrators to access and provide a link to the public personalized preferences page for that subscriber, a ‘Preferences Page’ button is added to the ‘Subscriber Profile’ page.
  3. Added warning to not add attributes containing sensitive subscriber information: A warning text is added on ‘Configure Attributes’ page to notify admins that they should not store sensitive personal data such as health, sexual orientation, race, about their subscribers.

Usability

  1. Default option on “export” page to is now changed to ‘Any date (Export all subscribers)’ option
  2. A delete list option is added to ‘Edit List’ page
  3. “Subscriber is blacklisted …” text on subscriber profile page is moved from the bottom to the top of the page
  4. Better formatted ‘Add New Attribute’ form in the ‘Configure Attributes’
  5. Improved date formatting of campaign dates on Campaigns page for consistency
  6. Numerous contextual help information added on Admin pages
    • Info buttons to headings on ‘Statistics overview’ page
    • Info button for ‘Load data from predefined defaults’ on ‘Configure Attributes’ page
    • Info button to explain ‘System’ templates
    • Info button to clarify where an uploaded company logo is used and its format
    • Added documentation on subscriber data placeholders

Fixes

  1. Fixed required replacement of obfuscated email address on preferences page fields– See the Pull Request
  2. Fixed orphaned database records following use of the deletMessage() and resetMessageStatistics() functions: records included in user_message_view table are now removed cleanly – See the Pull Request
  3. Fixed layout of the times of views on the Open Statistics page – Thanks to Duncan, See the Pull Request

Community-made

phpList 3.3.3 is the work of Duncan Cameron and other Open Source community members, as well as phpList Ltd. developers.

To get involved in phpList development, check out the developer resources pages.

As described in a recent blog post, phpList 4 is making progress and needs your help — checkout the contributors guide or architecture overview for an introduction.

Support

Need help upgrading your phpList server to the newest version? Ask the community at discuss.phplist.com. Professional support from community experts, as well as manuals, source code, and developer resources, can be found at phplist.org. Report all bugs to the bugtracker!

Want to focus on campaigns and forget hosting headaches? Sign up at phplist.com for an account with everything included. Send from 300 free messages to 30 million messages per month — simple.

  1. Have attempted 3 times to upgrade following all instructions.
    Failed.
    Even deleted folder and re-uploaded new files with backed up config.
    Failed

    Softaculous has not updated on my user control panel so impossible to upgrade via Softaculous installation

    Could NOT revert back to old installation by uploading a back-up copy of all files.

    Had to remove using Softaculous and re-install the old version 3.3.1 – losing all my database contacts

    ????

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