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
***

[Fungsten]

post a screenshot. But here are the settings:

Is this product active? Yes

Days of Inactivity

How many days a user can go without posting before they are considered inactive. 30

How often to send a reminder email once a member has become inactive. 30

List the usergroups that you wish to send the emails to here. (Seperate by commas) eg. 2,3,4,7
2,26,32,37


Set the inactivity based on the last post made by the user. If set to no, the inactivity will be set by the last activity field (ie, when the member last visited) Yes.

You're credited, etc.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

Doesn't effect it.

Post a screenshot of your settings.

[funkmeister]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

For some reason, one of the lines word-wrapped when I posted it previously and editing the post won't fix it. Please note that the following should be a single line:

PHP Code:

$headers .= 'X-EZbouncer: ' . $bouncestring . $delimiter; 


I have that as single line already - so when I ran it for the first time it was in place.

Not sure where to look now? Any other ideas?

Can you tell me - as it produced that error message - was anything sent at all? Or did it just fail due to that particular message?

Thanks.

[joeychgo]

Here is the email that was sent out. I got this from 2 different people

 
<p>Hello, (USERNAME)!</p>
<p>We've noticed that you've not been active on vBulletin FAQ for quite some time now,   and we miss you!</p>
<p>Could we not tempt you back?</p>
<p>If you don't remember your password, you can request it here: <a 
href="<A href="http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/login.php?do=lostpw">http://w">http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/login.php?do=lostpw">http://w
ww.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/login.php?do=lostpw</a></p>
<p>We hope to see you soon</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Kindest Regards</p>
vBulletin FAQ Forums
<p><a 
href="http://www.vbulletin-faq.com">http://www.vbulletin-faq.com</a></
p>Email Reminder System Provided By <a 
href=http://www.mished.co.uk>Mished.co.uk</a>

so this email sends in plaintext, but uses HTML. Which makes a mess. Is there a setting I am missing?

[d8tabyte]

they may have HTML emails disabled

[joeychgo]

I realize that, but its a problem.

Another user got this email... Slightly different.

Hello, timdorr!

We've noticed that you've not been active on vBulletin FAQ for  
quite some time now,   and we miss you!

Could we not tempt you back?

If you don't remember your password, you can request it here: href="http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/login.php?do=lostpw">http:// 
www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/login.php?do=lostpw

We hope to see you soon

 

Kindest Regards
vBulletin FAQ Forums
http://www.vbulletin- 
faq.com

Email Reminder System Provided By www.mished.co.uk>Mished.co.uk

[quasan]

jap got the same problem as joeychgo

it's plain text with htmltags throughout the text. barely readable

and no, it's not a client issue, because other htmlmails do work

[AzzidReign]

I have a question about the options...

With "Days of Inactivity" you have this as the description:
How many days a user can go without posting before they are considered inactive.

And then an option closer to the bottom is "Inactivity based on last post" with the description of:
Set the inactivity based on the last post made by the user. If set to no, the inactivity will be set by the last activity field (ie, when the member last visited)

So...is the first question going off of the last time they posted? Or the last time that they were on the board? I would like it if it was the last time they were on the board since I have a lot of lurkers which the "welcome" mod should take care of them if they want to ever post. I just don't want to bother members that are on the site and just decide not to post...

Thanks for this mod tho! It's great. I'll be sure to keep the footer ad on my site for ya

[djbaxter]

If you select time since last activity, "days" are calculated fromm last activity, not last post.

joeychgo, I'd suggest you check your email server. It's sending in HTML/rich text as far as I know. The only way I can see users getting different emails is if you edited the default email and one got it before the edit and one after.

[funkmeister]

Originally Posted by funkmeister

I just installed first thing this morning on 3.65 (fresh install) and upon manually running the cron job via AdminCP I see the following error:

Any ideas why I would see this? The only change I made was adding the EZBounce code to 'reminderemail.php' as per this earlier post.

With that error - did anything actually get sent out? Haven't received any mail yet, although it's only been about 5 minutes since running the job.

Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by djbaxter

For some reason, one of the lines word-wrapped when I posted it previously and editing the post won't fix it. Please note that the following should be a single line:

PHP Code:

$headers .= 'X-EZbouncer: ' . $bouncestring . $delimiter; 


Originally Posted by funkmeister

I have that as single line already - so when I ran it for the first time it was in place.

Not sure where to look now? Any other ideas?

Can you tell me - as it produced that error message - was anything sent at all? Or did it just fail due to that particular message?

Thanks.

OK, I removed all references to 'EZbounce' from reminderemail.php and still get the above error. Any further ideas?

Thanks.

[cajunboy2208]

Thanks again for this. Having numerous members saying they have come back because of the e-mail.