Hoping some of you out there are great with php!
Basically the guy who made this is MIA so I can't ask him what I need to do to fix the problem we are having.
Background:
We are a locksmith company that uses a custom web app to inform our locksmiths on the road when they have a new job. This web app also does a few extra things like providing gps location, time taken at the job and the ability to have save signature from the client upon work completion.
Problem:
The app works by picking up an email sent from our account management application called E3, the email (example: http://cl.ly/image/2E433O330T0N) is read by this web app, parsed into both an email and a web page and sent to the locksmith to view his new job. When the locksmith arrives at the web page on his phone (example: http://cl.ly/image/0P1I0R0h0O3K), he can see the job details including the Name, address and contact details for the client. The problem is though, because Job Notes isn't assigned a heading in the original email the code has to work out where Job Notes is located, this is the part that has the problem as the web app is no longer showing the data in Job Notes. Job Notes is important because it tells the locksmith what he needs to fix. This worked previously but has now just stopped working and we aren't sure why.
How the data is transferred to the web app is very interesting, instead of having a database to store data to, it is put in the address bar and then the webpage interprets the code and formats it into the page.
For example, this is how the current link looks (data taken out, replaced with xxxxxxx):
http://www.xxxxxxx.com/apps/xxxxxx/on-my-way?client=xxxxxx&company=xxxxxx&mobile=xxxxxxx&phone=xxxxxxx&contact=xxxxxxxx&addressData=Array&addressIndex=3&streetAddress=xxxxxxxxx&addressLocality=xxxxxxxx&postcode=xxxxxxx&city=xxxxxxx&clientEmail=&jobDate=11/22/2012&jobTime=1:30:00%20PM&jobID=xxxxxx&jobAMPM=PM&adminEmail=xxxxxxx&noreplyEmail=xxxxxxxxxx&companyPhone=xxxxxxxx&staffEmail=xxxxxxxx&staffName=xxxxxxx&staffPhone=xxxxxxxx
Previously, when working, this link had a jobNotes field added:
http://www.xxxxxxxx.com/apps/xxxxxxxx/on-my-way?client=xxxxxxxx&company=xxxxxxxx&mobile=xxxxxxxx&phone=&contact=xxxxxxxx&addressData=Array&addressIndex=4&streetAddress=xxxxxxxx&addressLocality=xxxxxxxx&postcode=xxxxxxxx&city=xxxxxxxx&clientEmail=xxxxxxxx&jobNotes=Quote%20on%20installing%20new%20keying%20system%0A%0AAlso%20would%20like%20a%20Quote%20on%20Install%20CCTV%0A%0ASub%20Total%3A%202%2C236.36%0AGST%3A%20223.64%0ATotal%3A%202%2C460.00%0A%0AMISC&*jobDate=11/19/2012*&jobTime=2:00:00%20PM&jobID=xxxxxxxx&jobAMPM=PM&adminEmail=xxxxxxxx&noreplyEmail=xxxxxxxx&companyPhone=xxxxxxxx&staffEmail=xxxxxxxx&staffName=xxxxxxxx&staffPhone=xxxxxxxx
The code:
This is an extract from e3-parser.php, the main file that translates the data from the e3 email to the web app.
// Job notes
if ($this->clientEmail) {
// REMOVED NOW THAT EMAIL IS BEING PUT ON THIRD LINE OF ADDRESS
// // If customer email present grab everything after it save it as job notes
// preg_match("/$this->clientEmail[^-]+/",$e3Output,$matches);
// $result = implode("",$matches);
// $notes = trim(str_replace($this->clientEmail,'',$result));
// $this->jobNotes = rawurlencode($notes);
// } else {
// Fall back to grabbing everything after the time
preg_match("/AM[^-]+/",$e3Output,$matchesAM);
preg_match("/PM[^-]+/",$e3Output,$matchesPM);
$resultAM = implode("",$matchesAM);
$resultPM = implode("",$matchesPM);
$notes = trim(str_replace('AM','',$resultAM) . str_replace('PM','',$resultPM));
$this->jobNotes = rawurlencode($notes);
}
Question here is, does it successfully grab the data listed after the Required Time field? (example email that it's reading from: http://cl.ly/image/2E433O330T0N)
Here is the code that places the parsed data into the web page:
// Create job link
$url = $e3->create_job_url('http://www.prvgroup.com.au/apps/jobbook/on-my-way?');
$linkName = "View job details";
$href = '<a class="btn btn-small" href="' . $url . '&staffEmail=' . $staff- >staffEmail . '&staffName=' . $staff->staffName . '&staffPhone=' . $staff->staffPhone . '">' . $linkName . '</a>';
This is sent to the locksmith via email informing him of his new job on the clickable link "View job details". The link is impregnated with the data needed. However from the looks of it the data for jobNotes isn't there. My backups of this code display the exact same thing here when the code was displaying jobNotes so I'm not exactly sure how it is putting that field in.
If you got this far, well done! I hope I was clear enough with what the issue is but if you need anymore clarification, just ask!
Cheers,
Marc
After looking through your code you are only running the preg_match if there is a clientEmail. From the sample emails above it does not look like you are ever executing this code because there is no client email or it is not found using the preg_match. The specific location to look into is on line 113 of the e3-parser.php file. You will see this:
if($this->clientEmail)
{
//matching code here.
}
on line 109 and 110 you are looking for an email address and either not finding one or it is looking in the wrong location. At any rate, you should execute this code regardless of whether there is an email address or not. The notes must be set for later use, right now nothing is being set. Removing this if statement should resolve your issue.
Related
I want download a report that I'm receiving every day on my inbox.
This email contains a link to a platform (where I have to be logged-in on the platform to open the link correctly, otherwise I will be redirected to login page) and finally there is another link that downloads the report to my computer.
My question is: It's possible to make a PHP script that can do this automatically?. All the process to read the email and identify the link it's easy, I want some guidelines to continue working.
Thanks!
This may be harder than you anticipate and PHP may not be the best language to achieve what you are after as it can not run on top of Outlook or any other desktop based email client. To do this you would have to run the PHP code from the command line, and have it set to regularly intercept all your emails and check to see if the email is from a specific user, and if it is parse the email for the two necessary links. Once you have the links you can have the code establish a cURL connection to the login form and pass the username and password, ensuring to pass any cookies defined from the authenticated session, and then establish a new cURL link to the download link to download the file to the local file system, after which you can send a new email to yourself attaching the file as a native attachment, dependant on file size.
Information on sending cookies with cURL can be found at How can I send cookies using PHP curl in addition to CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE?
The net result though is that this would have to run in the background continuously and would have to be set to regularly connect to your email server and check all emails for the existence of emails from the automated email sender.
An easier solution would be to find out if the automated tool can be setup to simply send the file as an email attachment so that you don't have to run the excess code. In addition any time the initial email structure changes or the download or login links change you would have to update the code to deal with the associated changes.
Main point is that PHP isn't the most ideal solution for what you are trying to do and what you are trying to do, in any language, is going to be a complex task to achieve.
When you already have the email link you could login to the platform using a curl request and afterwards make the same call again. the second time you'd be logged in and curl would download your report.
You could use the cURL library.
How does your platform identifies you ? If you can use cookies, look for
CURLOPT_COOKIE
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIE, session_name() . '=' . session_id());
i have the a similar issue, i want to open on googlesheets a series of reports from my email, managed to do it when its attached evenif is a zip, but when its only a link o cannot do it, heres the script i use, maybe someone could upgraded to open links and import the csv
function importCSV() {
// Change the report name Report
var threads = GmailApp.search("subject:XXXXXX has:attachment from:XXXXX#google.com newer_than:1d");
var message = threads[0].getMessages()[threads[0].getMessages().length-1];
var allAttachment = message.getAttachments();
var attachment = allAttachment[0];
var contentType = attachment.getContentType();
var name = attachment.getName();
if (attachment.getContentType() === "text/csv") {
// Change the sheet name, where you want the data to appear
var sheetActive = SpreadsheetApp.openById("1slVepI8s2Ekdiha0u4NpqFLZ4NnJrhyc8in9hYNzJA0");
var sheet = sheetActive.getSheetByName("Youtube");
var csvData = Utilities.parseCsv(attachment.getDataAsString(), ",");
// This clears the document from previous data
sheet.clearContents().clearFormats();
// Import the CSV file to the spreadsheet
sheet.getRange(1, 1, csvData.length, csvData[0].length).setValues(csvData);
}
else if (attachment.getContentType() === "application/zip") {
attachment.setContentTypeFromExtension();
// Unzip Attachment Change the sheet name, where you want the data to appear
var sheetActive = SpreadsheetApp.openById("1slVepI8s2Ekdiha0u4NpqFLZ4NnJrhyc8in9hYNzJA0");
var sheet = sheetActive.getSheetByName("Youtube");
try {
var unzip = Utilities.unzip(attachment)[0];
var csv = unzip.getDataAsString();
var csvData2 = Utilities.parseCsv(csv, ",");
// This clears the document from previous data
sheet.clearContents().clearFormats();
// Import the CSV file to the spreadsheet
sheet.getRange(1, 1, csvData2.length, csvData2[0].length).setValues(csvData2);
} catch (e) {
// Logs an ERROR message.
console.error('myFunction() yielded an error: ' + e);
}
}}
Apologies, since I may not know the terminologies for the salesforce API. I just started programming a connector to interact with salesforce and I am stuck.
I have a requirement, where each time a new entry is added to the Leads section, I will have to retrieve a couple of fields (Firstname and Product Code) and pass it to a different software that makes use of PHP.
<?php
require "conf/config_cleverbridge_connector.inc.php";
require "include/lc_connector.inc.php";
// Start of Main program
// Read basic parameters
if ($LC_Username === "")
{
$LC_Username = readParam("USER");
}
if ($LC_Password === "")
{
$LC_Password = readParam("PASSWORD");
}
$orderID = "";
$customerID = substr(readParam("PURCHASE_ID"), 0, 10);
$comment = readParam("EMAIL")."-".readParam("PURCHASE_ID");
// Create product array
$products = array();
$itemID = readParam("INTERNAL_PRODUCT_ID");
$quantity = 1;
if (!ONCE_PER_PURCHASED_QUANTITY)
{
$quantity = readParam("QUANTITY");
}
// Add product to the product array
$products[] = array (
"itemIdentification" => $itemID,
"quantity" => $quantity,
);
// Create the order
$order = array(
"orderIdentification" => $orderID,
"customerIdentification" => $customerID,
"comment" => $comment,
"product" => $products,
);
// Calling webservice
$ticket = doOrder($LC_Username, $LC_Password, $order);
if ($ticket)
{
Header("HTTP/1.1 200 Ok");
Header("Content-Type: text/plain");
print TICKET_URL.$result->order->ticketIdentification;
exit;
}
else
{
$error = "No result from WSConnector_doOrder";
trigger_error($error, E_USER_WARNING);
printError(500, "Internal Error.");
exit;
}
// End of Main program
?>
Now this is the code that I got and have to work with. And this is hosted on a different remote server.
I am very very new to salesforce and I am not really sure how to trigger calling this php file over a remote site.
The basic idea is:
1. New entry in Lead is created.
2. Immediately 2 fields (custID and prodID) are sent to this PHP file I have pasted above (some of the variables are different)
3. This does its processing and sends 2 fields back to salesforce.
Any help or guidance is appreciated. Even links to read up on is okay as I am completely clueless.
PS: I have another example where it makes use of JSON Messages if that may make any difference.
Thanks
I'll repost the links from my comment :)
https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/23977/is-it-possible-to-get-the-record-id
Web hook in salesforce?
If your PHP endpoint is visible on the open web (not a part of some intranet or just your own localhost) then simplest thing to do would be to send an Outbound Message from Salesforce. No coding required, just some XML document you'll have to parse on the PHP side. Plus it will automatically attempt to resend the messages if the host is unreachable...
If your app can't be accessed from SF servers then I think your PHP app will have to be the "actor". Querying SF every X minutes for new Leads or maybe subscribing to Streaming API... This will mean you'd have to store credentials to SF on your PHP app and remember to either change the password periodically or set on the "integration user"'s profile the "password never expires" checkbox.
So you're getting the notification, you generate your tickets, time to send them back. Will you want to pretend the update of Lead was done by the person that created it or will you want to see "last modified by: Integration User"? Outbound message can contain session id which you can use to act as the person who initiated the action (created the lead and fired the workflow) - at least until they log out or the session timeouts.
For message back you can use SOAP or REST salesforce apis - read the docs to figure out how to send an update command (and if you want to make it clear it was done by special user associated with this PHP app - how to log in to the APIs). I think the user's profile must have "API enabled" ticked before you could reuse somebody's session so maybe it's better to have a dedicated account for integrations like that...
Another thing to keep in mind if it'd be outbound messages is to ignore the messages sent from sandboxes so if somebody makes a test environment you will not call your "production" database of tickets. You can also remember to modify the outbound message and remote site setting every time a sandbox is made so you'll have "prod talking to prod, test talking to test". I know you can include user's session id in the OM - so maybe you can also add organization's id (for production it'll stay the same, every new sandbox will have new id).
The problem with this approach is that it might not scale. If 1000 leads is inserted in one batch (for example with Data Loader) - you'll get spammed with 1000 outbound messages. Your server must be able to handle such load... but it will also mean you're using 1 API request to send every single update back. You can check the limit of API requests in Setup -> Company Information. Developer Edition will have this limit very low, sandboxes are better, production is best (it also depends how many user licenses have you bought). That's why I've asked about some batching them up.
More coding but also more reliable would be to ask SF for changes every X minutes (Streaming API? Normal query? check the "web hook" answer) and send an update of all these records in one go. SELECT Id, Name FROM Lead WHERE Ticket__c = null (note there's nothing about AND LastModifiedDate >= :lastTimeIChecked)...
I'm not sure where to begin with this task, so I'm looking for an answer on just the idea of how to go about doing this.
When a new user creates an account on my Codeigniter site I send him/her an email about signing up (very typical). Here is how I'm sending the email...
...
$subject = 'Welcome to __________, ' . $firstName . '!';
$emailData = array(
'name' => $name,
'blah' => $blah,
'blah' => $blah,
// etc.
);
$html_email = $this->load->view('emails/signup_html_view', $emailData, true);
$text_email = $this->load->view('emails/signup_text_view', $emailData, true);
$this->email->from('team#_________.com', '________ Team');
$this->email->to($to);
$this->email->subject($subject);
$this->email->message($html_email);
$this->email->set_alt_message($text_email);
$this->email->send();
...
As you can see, I'm passing data to those views to send the email. In the email view, at the top, I have a link that says "Problem viewing email? Click here to view it online.". That is common practice for emails on newsletters, signups emails, etc. so that the user can view the email online if it renders weird or something goes wrong.
Where I'm getting lost is how do I generate that unique "...view it online." link so that when the user clicks it, they see an online version of the email and the online version still has all the data still passed to it? Do I need to create a separate controller or what is the best way to handle that? How do I generate that unique link?
#zach,
yes, what you do is:
1) create a separate controller that can display this email, just like you were making a page
2) I'm assuming the user is already created in the db, but is not yet activated or taken steps to be able to login. So, backing up a bit, when you make your user record, also create a random hashtag & store that.
Now, in the email link, set it to www.mysite.com/welcome/hashtag
This way you are allowing them to get a unique record without using an id that they could just use to go look at everyone else
This welcome page, of course, doesn't require them to be logged in. Probably you give them a submit (maybe after they fill out some more info) that will then activate their account
Hope that was close enough to what you were asking to get you through
I have a custom report called my-newsletters in Google analytics. I want to fetch this report with a php call to $ga->requestReportData(...) and then parse the response and format it up.
First I made an account to collect all my newsletter open and click hits - each time someone opens a newsletter or clicks on a link in the newsletter I capture that with a call to the __utm.gif on Google. That part is working and I include in the call ( in the Landing Page aka utmp parameter) some data such as the word 'open' and 'click' to distinguish the events and also some other data i hope to parse out later, plus i use the campaign field and maybe I should do something with the source field too - now I just dup the utmp field. So far that part seems to work.
Now I need help to define a report that will return that utmp and campaign field info and the number of hits each has taken, sorted by date of hit I guess. then i need to call that report from my php and then later parse it - the parsing part I'm not worried about yet.
PS: here is the code I use to generate the utm url
function getGoogleUtmUrl($source='Emails', $referer='opens', $estid='0',$mailid='0', $campaign){
$stat_id='MO-xxx31982-1';
$var_utmcs=urlencode( 'UTF-8');
$var_utmac = $stat_id;
$var_utmhn = 'mysite.com'; //enter your domain
$var_utmn = rand(1000000000,9999999999); //random request number
$var_cookie = rand(10000000,99999999); //random cookie number
$var_random = rand(1000000000,2147483647); //number under 2147483647
$var_today = time(); //today
$var_referer = $referer; //referer url
$utm_source = 'my_newsletter';
$utm_medium = 'Emails';
$utm_campaign = $campaign;//$_GET['url'];
$var_uservar = $estid.'_'.$mailid; //enter your own user defined variable
$var_utmp = 'mysite.com/newsletters/'.$referer.'/'.$estid.'/'.$mailid;//.$estid;//$_GET['url']; //this example adds a fake file request to the (fake) tracker directory (the image/pdf filename).
$urchinUrl1 = 'http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=4.3&utmn='.$var_utmn.'&utmsr='.$referer.'&utmcs='.$var_utmcs.
'&utmul=en&utmje=0&utmfl=-&utmdt='.$utm_campaign.'&utmhn='.$var_utmhn.
'&utm_source='.$var_utmp.'&utm_medium='.$utm_medium.'&utm_campaign='.$utm_campaign.'&utmr='.$var_referer.
'&utmp='.$var_utmp.'&utmac='.$var_utmac.
'&utmcc=__utma%3D'.$var_cookie.'.'.$var_random.'.'.
$var_today.'.'.$var_today.'.'.$var_today.
'.2%3B%2B__utmb%3D'.$var_cookie.'%3B%2B__utmc%3D'.
$var_cookie.'%3B%2B__utmz%3D'.$var_cookie.'.'.$var_today.
'.2.2.utmccn%3D(direct)%7Cutmcsr%3D(direct)%7Cutmcmd%3D(none)%3B%2B__utmv%3D'.
$var_cookie.'.'.'%3B';
// Now fire off the HTTP request
echo "urchinURL1 == ".$urchinUrl1.' '.__FILE__.' '.__LINE__.'<br/>';
return $urchinUrl1;
seems like over kill to me but it works, I tried the code at https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/other/mobileWebsites and it doesn't work - the opens and clicks do not register in analytics - at least not on the real time page.
Please help.
I suggest that you build your report query first, I recommend that you use Google Analytics Query Explorer for that.
And next use the reporting API from PHP to transpose the resulting query and extract the data from within your app.
I am sending email to some users and wants to know who had read it, means if some one had read that email then a log file will maintain which contain the email address of that user with date/time/IP.
For this I send a javascript function with the email (html template) which just alert the email address of the user when ever a user opens that email like:
for($n=0; $n<sizeof($checkBox); $n++){
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->Subject = $subject;
$function = "<script language='javascript'>function stats(emailId){alert(emailId);}</script>";
$bodyOpen = "<body onload='stats(".$checkBox[$n].");'>";
$msg_body .= $body .= "<table><tr><td>Hello Everyone</td></tr></table></body>";
$mail->Body = $function.$bodyOpen.$msg_body;
$mail->WordWrap = 50;
$mail->FromName = 'Muhammad Sajid';
$mail->IsMAIL();
$mail->From = 'webspot49#gmail.com';
$mail->AddAddress($checkBox[$n]);
$sent = $mail->Send();
}
the html template works fine and shows an alert popup on page load but it does not works if I use to send this html template.
And I only want to solve this issue using PHP5.x.x / javascript, no other software or third party tool.
Any help..?
Add Header to email:
Disposition-Notification-To: you#yourdomain.com
As mentioned above it's not reliable and it's better to do something like this:
<img src="http://yourdomain.com/emailreceipt.php?receipt=<email of receiver>" />
And log it in a database, although again this is restricted by the email client's ability to show images and sometimes it may even put the mail into junk because it doesn't detect an image... a workaround that would be to actually outputting an image (say your logo) at the end of that script.
Edit:
A quick lookup at the phpmailer class gave me the following:
$mail->ConfirmReadingTo = 'yourown#emailaddress.com';
but it's the same as the Disposition-Notification-To method above.
Send a beacon image in the emails like so
<img src='http://www.yourserver.com/beacon.php?email_id=$email_id&email_address=$user_address' style='width:1px;height:1px'>
And then use the beacon.php file to log the data. You will then want to output a 1X1 image with appropriate headers.
Important note Many popular email clients (such as Gmail) now block external images, so this is by far, not fool proof.
This is next to impossible to do 100% effectively.
You could control where the content is stored e.g. http://www.example.com/34hg038g85gb8no84g5 and provide a link in the email to that content, you can then detect when that URL was viewed.
Use a method used by MailChimp and other newsletter campaigns, put an invisible image in your email, this image should reside on a server you control, you can then detect when that image is hit when the user opens the email.
It is not possible by definition.
Mailreaders are not browsers, they don't support javascript. They don't even support proper CSS so dont expect too much. So I honestly don't see any way you can do what you're trying to do
I just add a single line:
$dt = date('F \ jS\,\ Y h:i:s a');
for($n=0; $n<sizeof($checkBox); $n++){
$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsHTML(true);
$mail->Subject = $subject;
$src = "<img src='msajid.isgreat.org/readmail.php?dt=".$dt."&eid=".$checkBox[$n]."' />";
$msg_body .= $src .= "<table><tr><td>Hello Everyone</td></tr></table>";
$mail->Body = $function.$bodyOpen.$msg_body;
$mail->WordWrap = 50;
$mail->FromName = 'Muhammad Sajid';
$mail->IsMAIL();
$mail->From = 'webspot49#gmail.com';
$mail->AddAddress($checkBox[$n]);
$sent = $mail->Send();
}
and in readmail.php file simply insert date/time and userid with a check (if not exist with attached date/time) & fixed it only for Gmail, hotmail but not for Yahoo...
Can some one help to also fix for Yahoo....?
Haaaa.
silly mistake just use complete url like:
$src = "<img src='http://www.msajid.isgreat.org/readmail.php?dt=".$dt."&eid=".$checkBox[$n]."' />";
and it will also work for Yahoo....
While I didn't discover exactly why the simple PHP file wasn't generating the included image (as mentioned in my post 6 hours ago), here is another very complicated way of generating an image file that wasn't rejected by my own PHP 5.4.30 web server.
Here is the code that I put into an index.php file within an /email_image/ subdirectory:
<?php
$message_id = $_REQUEST['message_id'];
$graphic_http = 'http://mywebsite.com/email_image/message_open_tracking.gif';
$filesize = filesize( 'message_open_tracking.gif' );
header( 'Pragma: public' );
header( 'Expires: 0' );
header( 'Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0' );
header( 'Cache-Control: private',false );
header( 'Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="a_unique_image_name_' . $message_id . '.gif"' );
header( 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary' );
header( 'Content-Length: '.$filesize );
readfile( $graphic_http );
exit;
?>
For the image filename, I used the following:
http://mywebsite.com/email_image/?message_id=12345
Within the email_image folder is also a blank 1x1 gif image named "message_open_tracking.gif".
The index.php file can also be revised to make use of the message_id in order to mark that message as having been read. If other variables are included within the querystring, such as the recipient's email address, those values can also be used within that index.php file.
Many thanks to Bennett Stone for the following article:
http://www.phpdevtips.com/2013/06/email-open-tracking-with-php-and-mysql/
I know this is an old thread but I just had to respond... for those of us who must consider this, I suggest we put ourselves in the place of the people who have to write the anti-spam software to thwart our efforts. Detecting a ? or a .php (or other script/binary extension) inside an image tag would be trivial for me as a postulated 'spam assassin' programmer... just as identifying a 1x1 image would be...
I spent 2.5 yrs as National Digital Director for a presidential campaign that raised $20 million before we even had a candidate -- here's what I had developed for that campaign:
At send time (or before), generate a hash on the TO: email address and store that in the db next to the email address.
Use the hash we just generated to modify a small, but plainly visible logo in the email and make a copy of the logo with the hash in the logo file name eg: emxlogox.0FAE7E6.png - refer to that unique image in the email for the logo - make a copy of the logo with the hash name in the filename. This particular logo series only ever appears in targeted mass emails. Warn crew members not to copy it for other purposes (or to rename it extensively if they do). The first part of the filename needs to be something that will not appear in the logs in other contexts to speed your parsing and the code you have to craft to sort out false hits.
Parse the logs for occurrences of the logo being requested, and extract the hash from the filename to match back against the one email address. And your parsing program can also get the IP address and the time delta it took for them to get and open the email so you can identify highly responsive recipients and the ones who took a week to open the email. Do a geo-lookup on the IP and see if you get a match with the location you already have, and/or start recording their travel patterns (or proxy use patterns). Geo deltas could also be identifying email forwards.
Same hash, of course, is used to record clicks, and also the first and second opt-ins. (Now you have a 'dossier' of multiple opt-ins for responses to those abuse reports and you're protecting your email reputation, too).
This method can also be used to identify who forwards emails to their friends and you ask those 'good forwarders' to join some kind of elite digital volunteer crew, offer them discounts or rewards or whatever is appropriate for your business/project... in essence, that same hash also becomes a referrer code.
You can also ask them to right click on the logo in the email and save it without changing the filename, then post it to 'wherever' (the image should have a memorable, readable, meaningful shortlink on it, not an unreadable bit.ly shortlink). You can then use the Google Search API to identify who helped you out in that fashion and thank them or give them rewards... For this purpose, it helps if the first part of your logo filename is really unique like unsportingly.unique.emxlogox.0FAE7E6.png so you don't have to do millions of Google Search API queries - just search on the unique first part of the filename - and look at the hashes after you get the hits.
You store the links where their copy of the logo appeared in your db to add to your dossier of where on the net they are active and have helped you.
Yes, it's slow and burdensome, but in these days when we say we want to develop a 'relationship' with our email list, it's what you have to do to give individual treatment; identify and reward your friends. And yes, you end up with millions of those hashed filename images in one directory, but storage is cheap and it's worth it to really have that relationship with your peeps.
You can't add javascript to your emails.
The only solution would be to have only a link in the email, and the message on the server, Then you'd able to know that the message itself has been viewed.
Embedding a user specific image (1px blank might be good) in the email and record whether it is hot or not is a fair solution. But the problem Gmail like client block external images by default.
Please refer RFC-3798 for more details about MDN.
As the last post was awhile back, I am uncertain as to whether this method still works.
I tested this method on a server running PHP 5.4.30, and it does not seem to output an image.
This is some very simple code:
<img src="http://theservername.com/myaccount_email_read_offline.php">
Note that I removed the querystring and any additional code from this image.
Opening up that separate page, myaccount_email_read_offline.php did display the image.
However, trying to include the image by including a PHP file in its place did not work.
As some of the other answers have mentioned, it is possible to detect when a recipient has opened a message, if the message contains a remotely hosted image (and the recipient's mail client is set to open remotely hosted images).
UltraSMTP is an outgoing SMTP mail server that inserts a remotely hosted image in each outgoing message sent through the server, for this purpose.
See https://www.ultrasmtp.com/kb/developers.php for sample code for sending mail through UltraSMTP from a PHP script (using PHPMailer).