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
***

[rapsearch]

haha..4 real?... thanks for pointing this out

[Smoothie]

I actually have version 1.0.9 sitting right here on my hard drive.

And here it is. May sure you check the version number to be on the safe side. I just did and it's 1.0.9

[djbaxter]

Good stuff, Smoothie.

I'd suggest people who are having problems with version 1.10 use 1.09 until Chris finds the fix.

[Smoothie]

For you guys that are having issues with members possible reporting this as spam. You should really include a message in the email stating that:

If you have received this email it is because you have elected to "allow this site to contact you via email. If you would like to opt out of future contact from this site, you can change your notification options here: <a href="$forumurl/profile.php?do=editoptions">$forumurl/profile.php?do=editoptions</a> and uncheck the box next to "Receive Email from Administrators." You must be logged in to change your options.

[cowudders14]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

So would the fix be to change

PHP Code:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" 


to

PHP Code:

Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" 


???

Yep, I think that will fix it. I'll be perfectly honest and say I'm not 100% sure, but I think so!

[cowudders14]

Originally Posted by Smoothie

For you guys that are having issues with members possible reporting this as spam. You should really include a message in the email stating that:

Hmm - That's a good idea. Chris - it may be a good idea to add something like that to the default message in the mod.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by Smoothie

For you guys that are having issues with members possible reporting this as spam. You should really include a message in the email stating that:

Originally Posted by cowudders14

Hmm - That's a good idea. Chris - it may be a good idea to add something like that to the default message in the mod.

You can do that from the add-on options. I have a similar statement in all of the emails goping out from my forum, including the newsletter.

[crazymeezer]

This is a great mod, brought back quite a few new members. But having a couple of small problems.

I installed this last night, but did not set it to active. Woke up this morning and it had sent emails out anyway.

Now I go to try and send it to other usergroups and i get the no inactive members message.

You might also want to reword, or add more description to the frequency part. I too thought it meant how many times to email them, and I had set it to 1.

[GreeceMonkey]

I think this is a really good mod, it has many more possibilities.

I was thinking of ways we can monitor the activity of people that do come back

1) If they stay perminantly or for a long time
2) if they just disapear again after a few weeks.

Is this mod tied into the receive email options in the profile ?

I was wondering if we can take this one step further, and create a new user group for people that have gone. Such as a 'gone away' user group, and put them back into there original group as a secondary user group, when they come back.

I would be very interested in monitoring the activity of these people that do come back. I cant think of another way of still keeping the original group, as there last activity will be current when they come back.

This may be possible in a manual type way, but I think it is important to monitor the long term progress of the gone away people.

Great mod as it is though.

[MikeHolohan]

You also need a way to mail it to the admin too, so we can see what is actually being sent out, how it is formatted etc... I just sent out some and have no idea what they look like...lol... Mike.