Timed Redirect - Donations Page Reminder
 

A friend needed a plugin that would allow them to redirect users when a time had elapsed, so that they could remind them about donations.

They had a donations page, but wanted all of their registered (non-donating) members to be redirected once a month to their donations page.

After seeing Calorie's 'Force Profile Update' plugin, I was inspired to expand on the concept.

This plugin allows you to redirect a usergroup or groups to a specific page, thread or post, after a recurring length of time you select.

Through the control panel, you can set the length of time to give them the reminder, the usergroups, the page that it redirects to, and the message.

UPDATE (1.01): You can now set the reminder to be cleared on the redirect page itself (provided its a vbulletin created page) or cleared once the reminder is viewed, so you can redirect to a non-vbulletin page. It now also checks against all possible usergroups, primary and secondary.

UPDATE (1.02): You will now be able to see stats on how many people each month have been reminded (in the control panel settings). Also, if you use a redirect URL that is non-standard to your vbulletin site (IE: Instead of using donations.php, you use: http://www.anothersite.com/donations.html) this is now possible.) Also, all primary and secondary groups will work if you add them to the list.

I'll be around to support it if you have any questions.

Ridley...

Great work, installed!

Hmmm, it's not working. I get the following error at the top of every page...

"Parse error: parse error, unexpected ':' in /home/httpd/html/vbulletin/global.php(512) : eval()'d code on line 33"

hugh

Sorry Hugh, added a little bug-checking line, and in the rush to get it finished, I forgot to add a bracket.

If you redownload it, it should be fine now.

Marcus/Ridley

Much better, many thanks for being so quick to respond!

hugh

One thing, you might want to have "month" read "month(s)"...

"eg: It's been 3 month(s) since you last we reminded about making a donation to Party Vibe."

hugh

As for the line break, I've changed it from a center tag, to a paragraph, so it should look proper in most browsers.

As for the month(s) idea, I can't.
The way you type in 1 month, 2 months, etc, needs to be in that format without the brackets, because of the code that parses it. (I need to make it workable with all of the older versions of php as well.)

But thanks for the ideas.

Keep em coming.

Marcus/Ridley

No problem, many thanks again!

hugh

Good job! Installed! Is it possible to use "html-code" as well?

I did not try.

One other idea...

It would be useful to give the user the possibility to choose the "forced website" but also to return to the mainpage. So the "force" will be not so strong as given in this mod.

Possible to do in the next release?

You can edit this phrase which accepts html: metr_timedredirect

Ups...
and again me... :-)

It would be useful to use other redirect-pages, than the pages in vbulletin.

In my case i have the gallery in the root: http://www.xxxxx.xxx/gallery/index.html - not in vbulletin.

Thanks, that?s it!

Unfortunately Klaush it needs to use the vbulletin pages or ones created within the vbulletin structure (such as my friends donation page), because its not until they go to that page, that the reminder time is updated.

However if you had the time and the inclination to code something yourself, I'm sure you could do the update manually on your own non-vbulletin page. It wouldn't be too hard.

hugh: correct, you could edit that phrase and change it to reflect whatever you want. Including having a separate redirect back to the home page.

Marcus/Ridley.

Thanks. I tried this, but nothing happens. Means he is redirected to the page where he has first to click the page which is configured in the acp-settings.

So he has no choice to go to the second, the main page, that is alternately given in the phrase.

Any idea? Wrong code?

Neato! :D

yeah i wanted this for awhile. thanks!

Would you add the ability to exclude usergroups?
If member is in usergroup X and also in Y, do not show.

My donators are members of the registered users as well.

Vauge: Brilliant idea, I'll work on that.

Marcus/Ridley

do we need to install the donate page plugin. I use a html asking members to donate. As in html page I dont think itz possible to cross - check who have donated or not :s

Ok, addressed a couple of issues.

You can now have the reminder cleared either once a user reaches the redirect page. (which means it must be a vbulletin created page) or it will clear once the reminder has been shown. (meaning they just have to refresh to clear the reminder, but you can now send them to a non-vbulletin page.)

Also, it now checks against all possible usergroups, not just the one in the usergroupid column of the user table.

(The idea of having it have some kind of logic where the usergroup ids can match certain things but not others, is still being tossed around)

Marcus/Ridley

Trying to send to a non-VB page just made me keep getting the same page over and over again. Seems to work like a charm with a VB page, though.

The one suggestion I have is to have it check secondary user groups, too. I have the people who donate listed in 2-3 different groups.

You give nice support on this, pretty quick. Nice addon and thank you for sharing :)

username12: What is the link you are entering in the 'redirect link' box? I'll try and debug it for you?
Also, the permissions works for ANY permissions groups, primary or secondary.

Marcus/Ridley

Username12: I think I've addressed the issues you were having with this latest version.

You will now be able to use ANY url to redirect, not just one local to your vbulletin installation. Remember you can also use relative paths such as ../donations.php and it will still work.

Also, I've added the stats ability in the control panel, so you can see how many people have viewed your reminder in the current month.

And the checking of primary and secondary usergroups works fine. (it actually did since version 1.01)

Enjoy

Marcus/Ridley

Cheers for the update...i have updated and all seems well atm!!

I think the problem I was having was one of the settings. Needed to check no instead of yes in the clear redirect box (unless that was just added in 1.0.2). Redirecting to a non-VB page works perfectly.

Still having the problem with multiple usergroups, as my supporter usergroup is receiving the message if that person is also in another usergroup (but is not receiving it when in just that one usergroup). Don't know if this would work, but maybe if the setting were for usergroups to exclude rather than usergroups to include.

Feature Request.

Is there a way to Set this mod up to redirect a user somewhere after they sign up for an account?

It would be great to send users to welcome pages or to a Subscription page for added features and give them all the benefits before they get to the forums.

Not urgent but it would be a "nice to have".

Thats an interesting request.
From a first look, it appears it would probably be a separate plugin.
But it could be an extension.
Based on your idea though, I would envision you selecting from a drop down all the different options that a user goes through, such as 'When they register', 'When they login', 'When they first post', 'When they are banned', etc. Then allow you to redirect each possible option, and activate each one accordingly.

Marcus/Ridley

Wow you make even better before we can even think of these ideas! :)

Yeah, I am not sure if it would be whole seperarte plug in or not.
I like those options too, that would make it more robust.

Great ideas.

Very interesting... I have been looking for something exactly like this. Here's why:
I have created a survey for my forum using VB Survey. I have alot of lurkers and zero posters on my forum, and want to get them more involved in the community. Is there a way of redirecting them to the survey page, and then "clearing" them to not be redirected after they have taken the survey? This would be IDEAL for my forum if that were possible.

Another suggestion I would have is to make it wait on new members. I don't wanna hit them up for a donation right away.

Edit: Though I suppose I could do this with promotions.

Great plugin!! The first 12 hours of having this installed, and I got slammed with donations, mostly from those who never really looked around at all of the links! I was looking for a non-pushy, polite way to remind members of the option, and this is perfect!!

Ok, thanks for all the great ideas, I'm starting to see where this is going.

From how I see the requests, the plugin will probably evolve into something that allows you to check status for users, based on various conditions or criteria, then redirects them, and sets a flag based on either time, or completion. So that they can be reminded, or they are now complete.

This will definitely take some time, as I need to make this a lot more robust, as well as non-processor intensive.

Thanks for all the ideas.

Marcus/Ridley

I think this is a great idea just think it could use a few things :nervous:

1. Countdown timer to redirect back to the last page the user was at (configurable in the ACP).
2. Link next to donat link to allow user to click to return to the page they were last at.
3. Ability to show to user ever the "nag" page every hour, day, week, month if they have not donated (ACP configurable)

will this work with 3.6?
thanks!
stacy

updated for 3.6.x here.

I just installed and tested this hack with version 3.6.2 and it is working without any problems.

Is it possible to reset the status of redirection if you want the users to be redirected before the time period is over?


I did reset the status now manually, maybe you can add this to the AdminCP:

I installed this mod...works great... I am directing people to a website for info but now users cannot register to join my site when this is active. Anyone know what is going on.