Automatic Greeting Email/PM/Threads for Member Birthdays

This hack will automatically greet the birthdays of your board members by sending them:

• Private Messages
• Emails
• Both
• or by creating a birthday celebration thread in a specific forum.

Features:
* Does NOT require cron jobs so everybody can use it regardless of their server settings/rights.
* You can send PMs, emails (or both) or you can choose to send them PM if they can receive PM or else send email.
* The Hack can create special greeting threads for birthdays. (optional)
* Some usergroups (like banned users) can be excluded from automatic greetings.
* Admin can choose to receive a daily report via Email or PM about the greeted birthdays. (optional)
* Compatible with ALL vbulletin versions I know.
* Carefully coded to not to increase your SQL load and its quite performance-friendly. (More info about performance issues)
* New Added Feature: To greet only members who have more than X messages or who have visited your board in the last X days, see here
* New Added Feature: You can change his style in the day user has his birthday. Check here)
* New Added Feature: You can play Happy Birthday Song to your members in their birthdays. Check here

The hack is beta tested by many users for a long time before the release and proven to be quite stable. (BTW. thx to all beta testers especially to Dark_Wizard, Boofo, DslTeam, C-Pr0mpt for returning feedback).

WARNING: I strongly suggest:
a) Be careful while installing this hack (especially in step 2). If you install it wrongly, your members may get a lot of irrelevant greetings.
b) To make sure you installed it correctly, turn on DEBUG mode AND administrator notifications in the options of the hack while you are installing it. So the hack will NOT send any notifications to members but only send daily reports to admin. Keep an eye on these reports for a few days and if you made sure you installed it correctly and it works ok, you can safely turn off debug mode.


Enjoy the hack and if you install the hack please click INSTALL, thank you..

Logician \\=^))

[LamBras]

Installed, now waiting for midnight

Thanks for the brilliant idea, this increases a lot the personal bound between users and the page!

[bandersen]

Installed.... waiting for midnight too
Thank you!

When I run queries using Firefly's hack I sometimes make it - other times not. This time..."success" came the third time. Is this normal?

[Logician]

Originally posted by bandersen
When I run queries using Firefly's hack I sometimes make it - other times not. This time..."success" came the third time. Is this normal?

Well, it doesnt seem normal but you need to ask Firefly about his hack

Installed.... waiting for midnight too

Dont wait for the exact midnight time.. Wait for "tomorrow"..It can take the hack a few hours after midnight to greet the birthdays depending on the "serverload" option you set in the options.

[WebMasterAJ]

Originally posted by lordofgun
Is there an option where this would only post a Happy Birthday thread to member with a certain number of posts? I don't want to clutter my boards with hundreds of happy birthday messages for members whoi have never posted.

Thanks in advance! GREAT HACK!

Would you be able to send me this hack as well? This looks freakin awesome, but I don't want birthdays for people that have 0 posts

GREAT HACK! THANKS!

[Birdie501]

this sounds really cool! i gonna install when you updated the file with the function "certain number of posts"

Respect!

[djr]

Originally posted by WebMasterAJ


Would you be able to send me this hack as well? This looks freakin awesome, but I don't want birthdays for people that have 0 posts

Why wouldn't you? It's a great way to get your non-posting members posting again. They will feel all warm and fuzzy when reading a special birthday PM or e-mail or even thread!

[Boofo]

Good point.

Originally posted by djr


Why wouldn't you? It's a great way to get your non-posting members posting again. They will feel all warm and fuzzy when reading a special birthday PM or e-mail or even thread!

[Logician]

Originally posted by Birdie501
[B]i gonna install when you updated the file with the function "certain number of posts"
[B]

I'll give you the code soon, but first my 2 cents:
Install this hack as it is and set it to send EMAILS to your users (all of them). This will help remind you and your board to old/non-posting/non-visiting members, which is a good thing, dont you think?

[David Bott]

Ok...Please note...

In this part...

// Excluded User groups. (That is Usergroup ID, NOT userid!)
// If you dont want to sent greetings for some usergroups enter their usergroups id:
// For example you should consider excluding Banned Users.
// Usage Examples: To exlude user group 12 use: $excluded_usergroups=array("12");
// To exclude user group 12 AND 13 use: $excluded_usergroups=array("12", "13");
// To NOT to exclude any usergroups, simply put a # in the begining of line below:
$excluded_usergroups=array('3');

In the instructions you show double quotes for the data and in the actual line you show single.

Not being a programmer...Which is right please?

Thank you for a very nice addition to our site.

[Logician]

As requested: (Apply ONE of them)

HACK OF THE HACK:

TO GREET ONLY USERS WHO VISITED YOUR BOARD IN THE LAST X DAYS:

Find:

PHP Code:

## Time difference between the time zone you and your server's time. 
## Set is as a positive or negative number such as -3, +5 etc.
$timeset=9; 


After that add:

PHP Code:

## Greets only users who visited your board in the last X days
$last_visit_day=90; 


Find:

PHP Code:

$todays_date1= date("Y-m-d", mktime (date("H")+$timeset, date("i"), date("s"), date("m"), date("d"), date("Y"))); 


After that add:

PHP Code:

$user_last_visit= mktime (date("H")+$timeset, date("i"), date("s"), date("m"), date("d")-$last_visit_day, date("Y")); 


Find:

PHP Code:

    $birthday_children_row=$DB_site->query("SELECT userid, username, birthday, email, receivepm FROM user WHERE birthday LIKE '%$greetingday' $excluded_SQL"); 


Replace it as:

PHP Code:

    $birthday_children_row=$DB_site->query("SELECT userid, username, birthday, email, receivepm FROM user WHERE lastvisit > $user_last_visit AND birthday LIKE '%$greetingday' $excluded_SQL"); 


TO GREET ONLY USERS WHO HAVE POSTED MORE THAN X MESSAGES:

Find:

PHP Code:

## Time difference between the time zone you and your server's time. 
## Set is as a positive or negative number such as -3, +5 etc.
$timeset=9; 


After that add:

PHP Code:

## To Greet only users who have more than X messages, set this:
$message_to_greet=90; 


Find:

PHP Code:

    $birthday_children_row=$DB_site->query("SELECT userid, username, birthday, email, receivepm FROM user WHERE birthday LIKE '%$greetingday' $excluded_SQL"); 


Replace it as:

PHP Code:

    $birthday_children_row=$DB_site->query("SELECT userid, username, birthday, email, receivepm FROM user WHERE posts>$message_to_greet AND birthday LIKE '%$greetingday' $excluded_SQL"); 


Enjoy!
Logician