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
***

[carpefile]

Really need to get the cron log working with this hack. It makes it impossible to really know who this hack is sending mail to and when

[djbaxter]

We need to get the "don't send emails to members who have deselected 'Receive emails from Admins'" issue fixed first, unless you relish getting on a whole lot of antispam blacklists.

[newbe_haselina]

Originally Posted by 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.

I'm sorry for asking mayby silly questions, but how can I adjust the frequency like this in the scheduled tasks? It's the first time I do something with scheduled tasks and as I can see, I only can adjust the day of the month, the weekday and the time (h/m/s) ... my wish would be remind after 60 days, don't remind again for another 30 days ... can anybody help?

Thanks in advance,
sabine

[Dihnjo]

thanks u so much! hope the instal goes perfect

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by newbe_haselina

I'm sorry for asking mayby silly questions, but how can I adjust the frequency like this in the scheduled tasks? It's the first time I do something with scheduled tasks and as I can see, I only can adjust the day of the month, the weekday and the time (h/m/s) ... my wish would be remind after 60 days, don't remind again for another 30 days ... can anybody help?

Thanks in advance,
sabine

First, go to Admin CP | vBulletin options | Inactive Users Reminder Emails

and set Days of Inactivity (mine is 90) and Email Frequency (mine is currently 30, i.e., every 30 days).

Then go to Admin CP | Scheduled Tasks | Scheduled Task Manager

and click on "Edit - Go" for Inactive User Reminder Emails.

Scroll down to where you see

Day of the Month *

Hour *

Minute * * * * * *

and decide how often you want this to run - note that "*" means EVERY day, hour, minute... and that is way too often.

I left day and hour set to * and changed minute to:

Minute 18 48 - - - -

where "-" means none, so this setting checks for inactive users every half hour at hh:18 and hh:48.

[newbe_haselina]

Thanks djbaxter ... that's what I was looking for :up:

I almost got it, the only thing I didn't understand was the email frequency ... it say "how often" and I thought it might be the amount of emails which will be sent. But now I got there 30 days ... and I changed the scheduled task as you proposed ... that makes sense to me

Thanks for helping ...

BTW ... since I installed the hack (6 days) I got 7 members "back" ... we are a pretty tiny community and 6 members out of 136 inaktive users are alot :-). In total we have about 460 ... that's the reason why I like this hack ...

[simalert]

Just one thing, I had a couple of bounced emails come back which is fine as the accounts now seem closed. However one or two of the user names cropped up twice. It seems to suggest that this is sending out more than one email or looping round the list continuosly which would be classed as spamming or mail bombing people if that was the case.

Is this possible?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by simalert

Just one thing, I had a couple of bounced emails come back which is fine as the accounts now seem closed. However one or two of the user names cropped up twice. It seems to suggest that this is sending out more than one email or looping round the list continuosly which would be classed as spamming or mail bombing people if that was the case.

Is this possible?

1. check your settings (see my post above)

2. check the content of the "duplicate" emails - they may not be duplicates at all but a second email sent by anoither part of the system or another add-on (are you using the EZ Bounced Emails add-on, for example?)

[ssvp]

This may have been asked already. But maybe the possibly of adding the following features:
Usergroups
Indicate which usergroups will be using this feature

Spam Removal (YES/NO)
Setting this to "Yes", allows the users to click a "REMOVE ME" link that will prevent future mailings.

Spam Removal Group:
Enter a Usergroup to move users to a inactive group

[SuperGLS]

I did not like the footer addition and therefore would like you donate some money instead. How can I do that? Let me know. Thanks, great hack.