Support

June 25, 2020 at 7:10 am

Hi there,

Whilst it would be possible to edit the functions used for this, you would need to hack up core to do it as we currently the functions used can’t be overridden without modifying the files themselves.

Also, a parser should have no problems removing those HTML tags from the content, they are just standard tags which any parser should be well aware of and able to remove/parse/work with without issue.

I tested this using my Zapier account, signed up to parser.zapier.com and then triggered a confirmation email to the zapier address, this all worked without an issue:

https://monosnap.com/file/YiP3MMg675l4nsnp98xTgA7Dl6HOYn

You can see there all of the HTML tags have been stripped from the email automatically by zapier and selecting firstname, last name and email was really simple using the template: https://monosnap.com/file/nqGDgJoNAdfFdTbVcy4iruECl1jezj

So I think the question now is, why is zapier stripping the tags out from my emails but not yours.

June 26, 2020 at 3:43 am

I looked at the screenshot examples you attached from the parser (both extracted and template) and I would assume you’re using EE4?

Nope, that’s using EE3.

EE4 emails are very different to EE3, I can tell your using EE3 so I tested EE3.

Your screenshot omits the P , TD, and STRONG HTML tags that I’m getting on my end that you said would be very difficult to modify in EE

It’s not necessarily very difficult but it’s not easily done either. You would need to modify a few different functions within core and some of those can’t be modified without hacking core itself which then means you can’t update EE as you’ll lose your modifications.

but that the parser should be smart enough to recognize.

The email contains just standard HTML tags so yes, the parser should be able to recognize those and thats what is happening in my screenshot. Zapier is removing those HTML tags from the content and just working with the actual content itself, which makes sense to do.

I decided to create a new Zapier Parser mailbox and ONLY pull three data fields – first name, last name, email address. The first parser I set up, I was trying to pull organization, address, phone…identifying all field information.

Ok, now this does changes things a little as in your initial post you only listed first name, last name, email address although again, the emails should be consistent which means the parser should be able to work those out.

But the integration with BigMarker only allows me to pull first name, last name, and email, so I figure the simpler setup could result in more accurate data being pulled. So far, the simpler setup is working. Two tests so far, and the parser was able to accurately pull first, last, and email, and send that data over to BigMarker.

Yeah if the parser is struggling with the emails as is, I’d recommend only pulling in the info you need.

Can you post a screenshot of the template you have created in Zapier? I’ll do some testing this end with the same setup. For screenshots you’ll need to host the image and post the link here to view, we have some examples here:

https://eventespresso.com/wiki/troubleshooting-checklist/#screenshots

It would be cool if, in the future, EE could integrate directly with Zapier so we could skip the parser. Are there any future plans to do so?

Not with EE3 but possibly with EE4.

EE3 is no longer under ‘active’ development apart from security/critical fixes and will eventually (note, you will have plenty of notice of this, we will NOT just leave our customers hanging) be phased out in favour of EE4. We have discussed integrating with zapier previously but nothing set in stone just yet.

June 29, 2020 at 7:00 am

As you can see, even though in the Template I have only selected one area each for First Name, Last Name, and Email, the parsed result is pulling First, Last, and Email from two different areas of the content.

What you are doing when selecting ‘areas’ in the email, is telling the parser how to find a specific section of Text, if that same text used in multiple locations throughout the email then they still highlight it.

So if I have 12345 Tony Warwick 678910

Then tell you may First name is after 12345 and then up to the next space, then my last name is after my first name and a space then up to 678910, I’m giving you instructions on how to find a value in a specific location. That’s what the areas do, they tell the Parse how to find/process a specific bit of text, after that it knows that ‘Tony’ is {first name} and ‘Warwick’ is {last name} and so on throughout the whole email.

In short, you’re creating patterns on how to identify a specific string as something and then that can be applied throughout once it knows what the actual value is.

He had his heart set on processing payments through his regular merchant services provider, who uses PayTrace as their gateway, and that’s actually why we chose EE3 to begin with several years ago.

You could look into creating a custom payment method for Event Espresso 4 to use paytrace. If you are comfortable with PHP creating payment methods is not all that difficult although if it’s not something you are comfortable with thats totally understandable.

There are places like WP Gateways (note we don’t have any connection to them we just noticed users using payment methods from them) who are familiar with creating payment methods for EE who ma be able to create one for you.