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 OziloZ

Inactive User Reminder Emails
Found 0 Inactive Users.
Done


What done? I think we have minimum 1000 inactive members. But this mod says 0.
Before that i was succesfully send reminder mail to another usergroup.But now not working.

It could well be the case that you dont have inactive users. check to see if emails are sent out ever, and double check your settings - i cant remember off the top of my head the code, but make sure it is enabled.

Originally Posted by oneworld

im with you about the footer and the link, when i found the link i remove this products from my VB and i will not install it again because i didnt want to make ads to some one in my web site footer without my agreement ( no one do some thing for free )

somewhat of a hypocrtical post, but if you choose not to use this, then okay by me - but please note that you can remove the links via the ACP

Originally Posted by djbaxter

1. You didn't read this thread, did you? Look at the very first post in the thread. If you don't like the footer, you can remove it from your ACP options for the add-on.

2. You state "no one do some thing for free" but you're clearly expecting this add-on for free and clearly objecting to acknowledging its use.

lol

Originally Posted by dune3000

Importing Style, Please Wait...




what wrong?

what version of vbulletin you using?

Originally Posted by rayw

Thanks for this mod, I have installed however, I was half way through configuring it (writing up a nice message to email out) and all of a sudden I get this email saying that:

This email shows that the product is installed and working as it should be.

Emails sent to: usernames here (about 5 of them) . We tried to email the following users, but their email address was invalid: 1 username here

Is this normal? Does that mean that those members have been emailed the default email text or is it simply a test saying that these members would have been emailed if the mod was enabled?

Thanks!

they would have been sent an email, had their address been valid. it uses vbulletin's email checking function.

[kitsch]

I've sent out a huge batch of e-mails and to my surprise the From: field of the e-mail has been set incorrectly. It should have been:

admin@gsm-forum.eu

and instead it got set to:

"GSM Forum Europe" <GSM Forum Europe@p2pgsm.com>

(p2pgsm.com being the name of the server the forum runs on). So the users received the mail from europe@p2pgsm.com... Which isn't really cool.

[Lionel]

My problem is different. I get a blank report.

Emails sent to:1@mail.com, etc@mail.com. We tried to email the following users, but their email address was invalid:

but there is no list of users!

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by kitsch

I've sent out a huge batch of e-mails and to my surprise the From: field of the e-mail has been set incorrectly. It should have been:

admin@gsm-forum.eu

and instead it got set to:

"GSM Forum Europe" <GSM Forum Europe@p2pgsm.com>

(p2pgsm.com being the name of the server the forum runs on). So the users received the mail from europe@p2pgsm.com... Which isn't really cool.

Not being funny or anything, but try setting your email address to the correct address in your ACP?
The reason that it is putting that email address is because that is what YOU set it to. any emails sent out from vbulletin will use that email address as the return address/contact address

Originally Posted by Lionel

My problem is different. I get a blank report.

Emails sent to:1@mail.com, etc@mail.com. We tried to email the following users, but their email address was invalid:

but there is no list of users!

Just means that there were no invalid users - sorry for the confusion.

[Lionel]

Just means that there were no invalid users - sorry for the confusion.

What determines invalid users since all of them have an email address in file?

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Lionel

What determines invalid users since all of them have an email address in file?

if someone has :{}:{:"?$@nrgjnr.efnwo^&enftw as their email address.. it just basically uses vbulletin's own email validation

[djbaxter]

Or if it WAS a valid address but has since gone bad (lapsed)... that accounts for all of the invalid email addresses for my forum since I use email validation on registration combined with the Manage Activation add-on.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Or if it WAS a valid address but has since gone bad (lapsed)... that accounts for all of the invalid email addresses for my forum since I use email validation on registration combined with the Manage Activation add-on.

I cant remember off the top of my head, however im sure it just checks the emails for correct syntax, not if the emails bounce or whatever..i will check when i get home.

[djbaxter]

D'oh!

Sorry. I am using this add-on in combination with the EZ Bounced Emails add-on. My comments are appropriate to the latter, not this one, of course.

I blame it on waking up an hour earlier than normal and lack of coffee...

[subnet_rx]

Anyone got suggestions on good settings for this mod? I had several users email me that they were getting several messages over the course of a week. I don't want to look like a spammer. Maybe even just email all inactive users once, and that's it. If they don't want to come back after that, I'd rather not remind them again. Should I use 360 in the amount column?