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
***

[Mrdby]

Originally Posted by obmob

Oo WOW, so many arguments in the past days, i think this mod whould revert to 1.0.9 and then use the new as a Beta release, so anyone upgrading be aware it's a beta and might not work properly.

Also, back to 1.09 ^^,

how can i get 1.09 back?

[djbaxter]

See post #442 by Smoothie in this thread. It contains version 1.09 as an attachment.

[GreeceMonkey]

Hello,

How to I add a static BCC email address to this code

$headers .= "To: $username <$email>" . "\r\n";
$headers .= "From: " . $vbulletin->options['bbtitle'] . " Reminder Service <" . $vbulletin->options['webmasteremail'] . ">" . "\r\n";

I just want to to BCC me on all reminders - is it simple to do?. I just want it to BCC me at greecemonkey@gmail.com

I tryed the obvious, and it did not work :-)


Graham

[voteforbird]

I reverted back to 1.09 and emails are still not sending.

[voteforbird]

Nevermind… apparently it works.

[BACANERIA]

Thsi is good but when having Cyb - Flash-Image Banner Rotator installed it doesnt let cyb banner rottator work properly in another words it just doesnt work for me wished it work.

Uninstalled

[MikeHolohan]

Went back to 1.09, works very well... Mike.

[Tigur]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

the problem you will probably be having is the frequency. set the inactivity period to 30 days, and then once they have been inactive for 30 days then they will get 1 email. then if you set the frequency to 60 days, they will be sent the email every two months after that. or you could set it to 7 days to have them sent an email every week once they have become inactive.

I had it set to 180 days and i was getting reports of users getting emailed 5 times in a row - i have retry set to two

[rapsearch]

question...

I want to disable this feature for inactive old members who request to be taken off the list BUT..i don't want to delete their old profile.. how can i prevend these members from getting these automated messages?? Can i set 'receive admin messages' in their profile to no?.. will that work?

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

See post #442 by Smoothie in this thread. It contains version 1.09 as an attachment.

I have actually uploaded it on the main post with 1.11 while i fix all problems.

Originally Posted by rapsearch

question...

I want to disable this feature for inactive old members who request to be taken off the list BUT..i don't want to delete their old profile.. how can i prevend these members from getting these automated messages?? Can i set 'receive admin messages' in their profile to no?.. will that work?

Inform your members that if they wish to stop being sent emails, that they must log into their account and set "recieve admin email?" to "no"