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
***

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tanyeri24

there is a bug. My Email Frequency is 1 but the plungs sending all 2-4 days a email. That turn people crazy!!

What does the description say for the email frequency? It says how frequent emails are sent out. /another way of saying this is "how often" meaning, you have set the emails to be sent each and every day. If you wish users to not receive emails as often, then maybe you should increase this amount?

Originally Posted by Fungsten

I've checked the logs and none have been sent out.

Maybe the conditions you have set in the settings have not been met? try running the plugin manually. Oh, and make sure it is turned on, and active as by default the plugin is disabled.

[Fungsten]

Maybe the conditions you have set in the settings have not been met? try running the plugin manually. Oh, and make sure it is turned on, and active as by default the plugin is disabled.

Attachment 62447

This is from the log when I just ran it manually.

Attachment 62448

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by tanyeri24

there is a bug. My Email Frequency is 1 but the plungs sending all 2-4 days a email. That turn people crazy!!

Read the thread!

Set your email frequency to something longer than 1. At that setting, it will try to send out emails to every inactive user every day.

Set it to something reasonable like 30, or 60, or 90 (days). Or longer if you wish.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Fungsten

Attachment 62447

This is from the log when I just ran it manually.

Attachment 62448

That shows that the plugin is working as it should, but the conditions to send an email are not met.

Also, you have it set to run once per day. at 3 minutes past midnight.

[deezelpope]

Also, I just noticed, that first screenshot is for the Activation Reminder, not this mod.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by deezelpope

Also, I just noticed, that first screenshot is for the Activation Reminder, not this mod.

yes lol, very true

[deezelpope]

Same story in the other screenshots before that... Observant, aren't I?

[d8tabyte]

I'd just like to say I have seen a few members come back after just a week of running this. The day I turned it on, I had at least 5 names show up in the WOL that I hadn't seen in months.

Thanks!

[Fungsten]

What about these other conditions?

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

That shows that the plugin is working as it should, but the conditions to send an email are not met.

Also, you have it set to run once per day. at 3 minutes past midnight.

[Hemanth]

Are you able to receive HTML emails from other sources in your email client? When your forum sends out other emails, are they plain text or HTML/rich text (do you see clickable links in your forum emails)?

I am not using a mail client but gmail & yahoo for testing as most of the users have it. To best of my knowledge vbulletin is sending non-html mails by default. There is a hack here in vB.org to make it send HTML mails. What i'm asking is will I need this hack for making this work?

Take a look at this discussion: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66522