Universal Messenger deals with different types of data:
Entries
The actual business data; for example:
Customers
Backoffice Users
Subscribers
Contacts
“Persons”
Service Desk Tickets
Events
etc.
Properties of Entries:
are stored in one (actually two) data base tables
have a customizable set of attributes
can be selected via elaborate query language / UI query generator
are receipients of emails / newsletters
can “subscribe” to Lists
can be understood as documents in a document store
Newsletters
Historically the main purpose was sending email newsletters to subscribers.
Newsletters can be created from the GUI, from external systems (CMS) or programmatically
Newsletters are queued until they are actually sent
Newsletters can be organized in Newsletter Groups
Newsletters are archived after sending
viewing a Newsletter (in an email client) or clicking links within a Newsletter can be tracked
Lists
The Universal Messenger works with Lists when used as a newsletter manager. Newsletter recipients subscribe to these lists. For example, you may create a list for each topic on your website, or organize them according to user groups, such as customers or the press. Newsletters are then sent to all subscribers of a given list.
Segments
In many cases, you may wish to send a newsletter only to a subset of subscribers determined by a combination of various properties. For example, you may select all subscribers of a specific list living in a specific city to receive the newsletter. Such a query can be saved as a Segment and used in a number of different ways in the Universal Messenger.
Other management and auxiliary data objects
Mailing templates
Cron Jobs
Plugin Instances