Newsletter Builder

This is a web app which allows multiple users to contribute articles to a school newsletter.

Setup

In this guide we will use the following placeholders:

• <your-email-domain> - the domain of your user email addresses, e.g. example.com
• <your-newsletter-domain> - the domain where your newsletter static website will be available via the Azure CDN, e.g. newsletter.example.com
• <your-newsletter-builder-domain> - the domain where the newsletter builder app will be hosted, e.g. build.newsletter.example.com

Here are the steps:

1. Create a general purpose v2 storage account in Microsoft Azure.

   • Add a private container: photos
   • Add tables: articles, events, newsletters, recipients, users
   • The users table needs an initial entry, and this must be a valid user on your Azure tenant:
     • PartitionKey - <your-email-domain>
     • RowKey - <username>
     • IsEditor - true
     • FirstName - <your-first-name>
     • DisplayName - <your-title-and-surname>
   • Enable static website hosting, and set the index document to index.html and the error document to 404.html. This will create a $web blob container, which will be the root of the public-facing newsletter website.
   • Customise the contents of the StaticWebsite folder in this repository, for example replacing placeholders with their appropriate values. Then upload to the $web blob container. Also upload logo.jpg (250x250px), logo-hd.jpg (1200x1200px), favicon.ico, and icon-192x192.png.
   • Enable CORS for blob GET requests from <your-newsletter-builder-domain>.

2. Create an Azure CDN endpoint with the static website as its origin, and a custom domain set to https://<your-newsletter-domain>. Enable compression. Add the following rules:

   • If request protocol = HTTP then URL redirect Found (302), HTTPS
   • If URL file extension = jpg, png, pdf, css, or js (lowercase) then modify response header: overwrite Cache-Control max-age=31536000, and then cache expiration: override 365 days.
   • If URL file extension = json, html, or txt (lowercase) then modify response header: overwrite Cache-Control no-cache, and then cache expiration: bypass cache.
   • If URL path does not contain . then modify response header: overwrite Cache-Control no-cache, and then cache expiration: bypass cache.

3. Create an Azure app registration.

   • Name - Newsletter Builder
   • Redirect URI - https://<your-newsletter-builder-domain>/signin-oidc
   • Implicit grant - ID tokens
   • Supported account types - Accounts in this organizational directory only
   • API permissions - Microsoft Graph - User.Read
   • Token configuration - add optional claim of type ID: upn

4. Create an Azure OpenAI Service GPT-4 deployment.

5. Create a Postmark server.

6. Create an Azure App Service web app, and configure the following settings:

   • NewsletterEditorUrl - the URL of the newsletter editor (https://<your-newsletter-builder-domain>)
   • Organisations__0__Name - the name of your organisation
   • Organisations__0__NewsletterUrl - the URL of the published newsletter (https://<your-newsletter-domain>)
   • Organisations__0__Address - the address of your organisation
   • Organisations__0__TwitterHandle - the Twitter handle of your organisation, starting with an @ symbol
   • Organisations__0__Footer - the footer text to include in emails
   • Organisations__0__BannedWords - a JSON array of words which are not allowed in articles
   • Organisations__0__PhotoConsentUrl - the URL of the photo consent spreadsheet
   • Organisations__0__FromEmail - the email address from which newsletters and reminders will be sent
   • Organisations__0__QualityAssuranceEmail - the email address to which quality assurance requests will be sent
   • Organisations__0__ReminderReplyTo - the reply-to address for reminders
   • Organisations__0__DefaultDeadlineDaysBeforePublish - the default number of days before the publish date that articles are due
   • Organisations__0__AzureStorageStaticWebsiteAccountName - the account name of the storage account where the newsletter static website is hosted
   • Organisations__0__AzureStorageStaticWebsiteAccountKey - the account key of the storage account where the newsletter static website is hosted
   • Organisations__0__Reminders__0__DaysBeforeDeadline - the number of days before the publish date to send the first reminder (subsequent reminders can be set up by adding additional items with incrementing indices)
   • Organisations__0__Reminders__0__Domain - the domain for which this reminder applies (<your-email-domain>)
   • Organisations__0__Reminders__0__Message - the message to include in the reminder email
   • Organisations__0__Reminders__0__Subject - the subject of the reminder email
   • Azure__ClientId - the client ID of your Azure app registration
   • Azure__TenantId - your Azure tenant ID
   • Azure__StorageAccountName - the name of your Azure Storage account
   • Azure__StorageAccountKey - the key for your Azure Storage account
   • Azure__OpenAIEndpoint - the endpoint of your Azure OpenAI Service GPT-4 deployment
   • Azure__OpenAIKey - the key for your Azure OpenAI Service API
   • PostmarkServerToken - the token for your Postmark server
   • AutomationApiKey - a secret GUID which is used to authenticate requests to the automation API

7. Deploy to the App Service web app you created.

8. Create scheduled tasks to call the /emailreminders/<your-email-domain>/<n> endpoints for each reminder you configured, where <n> is the index of the reminder.