Mini Mods - Email reminder for inactive users

Inactive reminder emails. This mod was designed to send out a reminder to inactive members to try and win them back.

***1.2.7 Update***
This update includes built in support for bouncing emails. The script will automatically detect the bounced mail, mark it as bounced so the user is not to be contacted again so as to avoid spam, and then move that user into a seperate usergroup. This plugin is still in it's testing stages, but I have addressed the bugs mentioned previously regarding the emailing side of things.

This is important so keep reading
To install this plugin and take advantage of the bounced email features you are going to need to follow these instructions very carefully. I can not gaurentee that they will work to the letter as this will be based on each persons individual hosting settings.

Step 1: Pre Install
Before you touch this product you need to do the following

• Create an "inactive" usergroup
• Set up a "bounce to" email address
  Pick an email address that you want to use as your bounced email address. Im using "bounce@icora.co.uk". feel free to use whatever you wish.
• Add a email message filter
  This is the hard part. You need to set up a filter that will 'pipe' an email sent to the above email address.
  I am using Cpanel 11 and this is how i have mine set up:
  Rules: 'To' 'Equals' 'bounce@icora.co.uk'
  Actions: 'Pipe to program' with the setting: |/usr/local/bin/php /home/icora/public_html/forum/bounce.php
  This will depend entirely on your settings and structure so you may have to do a little research. It would be very helfull if people who have to use diferent configurations would post them on here.
• Go into vBulletin options, and find the options for 'Emails'. there is a setting asking you if you want to use '-f'. set this to yes.
• While still inn the email options set the 'Bounce Email Address' to your above address.

Step 2: Install
Remove all previous trace of this modification, and upload all the files in the "upload" folder to your base directory of the server.
Go into your product management section and add a new product. upload the XML file with overwrite selected.
Refresh your admin CP to load the new menu items. Just under the "users" group you will find an "Inactive Reminders" group. open that up and click on settings.
Play with these settings and options to suit for the most part. when you come down to the bounce settings you MUST use the same email address as the one you created above.
Set to active and save.

I must re-iterate that this version has not been widely tested, but the simulations i have ran have worked. I look forward to your feedback!

Features:

• Select the period of time before a user is considered inactive.
• Select how many emails to send to each inactive user per inactivity period
• Choose weather inactivity is based on members "Last Post" or their "Last Visit"
• Specify how often followup emails are sent
• Specify alternative emails to send to reduce repetition
• Keep a log of all inactive users contacted

Planned Updates:

• More detail in reports
• ...such as
• Which useres returned
• Effectivness stats
• Email validity

**1.2.1 Update***
Added more detail to the reports section. You can now see the email address, and quickly indicate which emails were invalid. You can link directly to that user to edit as you wish.
I have fixed some errors which have been crashing people's database. Please post any problems if you can.

**1.2.3 Update***
Fixed several problems with escaping strings
Stopped database errors locking up site
***

**1.2.4 Update***
Added a "From Email" so you can specify your own email address to send the reminders from.
Fixed potential bug for people who do not use the mail queue.

Anyone having problems with sending emails out too fast, and multiple emails being sent need to consider changing their email settings in vbulletin options.
People with emails going out too fast - edit Number of Emails to Send Per Batch to a lower amount
People with multiple emails sending - edit Use Mailqueue System to "Yes, with locking"
***

**1.2.5 Update***
Added more stats in the reports page, also added a "Send test email" option so users can test the functionality of the mod
***

[djbaxter]

Hard refresh your Admin CP and look again.

It should be there under "Inactive User Reminder Emails".

If it isn't, it's not installed correctly.

[criscokid]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

It should be there under "Inactive User Reminder Emails". If it isn't, it's not installed correctly.

It's not there... which means my question (does this work on vb3.5.x?) has been answered...

No it doesn't work on vb3.5.x

[ThorstenA]

Will this product not send mails out to users who do not want to receive mails from administrator?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by ThorstenA

Will this product not send mails out to users who do not want to receive mails from administrator?

At the moment, it does not check to see whether the user has Admin emails unchecked. I believe Chris is working on that.

It's the last major drawback to an otherwise great add-on, in my opinion.

[ThorstenA]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

At the moment, it does not check to see whether the user has Admin emails unchecked. I believe Chris is working on that.

It's the last major drawback to an otherwise great add-on, in my opinion.

After this is integrated, I am considering installing this product. If users vote for "no" in meaning of getting no mails from me, I should not send mails to them.

[newbe_haselina]

Thanks for this mod It's a real good one.

I had no problems installing it and it seems to work perfectly on my side.

[Hemanth]

Originally Posted by criscokid

Please can you do a screenshot of how the email looks.

It just looks like the HTML code. I used your default message for testing. It shows all the HTML code as text in emails & not in HTML form. So i am using a text only custom message now, but it'll be great if i could send real HTML mails.

[akulion]

he nice stuff thanks

[perfphysio]

This mod is great but the admin insttructions are a bit vague, e.g.

How often does this run? Is it once a day?, once every few hours?
Does it keep running in bunches of emails as set in the admin "Email Quantity" until all are sent?
Once it has sent this to someone how long will it wait until it sends it to them again if they do not revisit. I would like it to send it again for them but how long does it wait in between sends to the same person? This might be part of the email frequency setting. is this number a number of days between resends to the same user?

Overall a few more instructions in the admin would be a real help. I am getting a few people email me back annoyed that they have received the email a few times in the first week and I am not exactly sure what the settings are doing entirely.

Thanks again for a great hack, just a bit more prompting would be great.

[djbaxter]

Check your Scheduled Tasks console and set up the frequencies there.The defaukts are way too frequent and should be adjusted ionce it's working. I have mine sent to 90 / 60 - remind after 90 days, don't remind again for another 60 days.