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
***

[Tigur]

Well after playing around with the settings on this one i've decided to turn it off... especially since I just got a couple hundred angry messages from users saying they've been spammed multiple times.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Tigur

Well after playing around with the settings on this one i've decided to turn it off... especially since I just got a couple hundred angry messages from users saying they've been spammed multiple times.

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.

[djbaxter]

Installed version 1.11.

I get the following error when I try to run it manually.

Inactive User Reminder Emails

Found 0 Inactive Users.


Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /path/to/forum/includes/class_mail.php(261) : eval()'d code on line 12

Addendum: this is in version 3.65

[Smoothie]

version 1.0.9 seems to running dandy for me. I don't understand all the problems some users are having.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by Smoothie

version 1.0.9 seems to running dandy for me. I don't understand all the problems some users are having.

Same here.

What seems to have caused the problems is the switch to the vBulletin mail queue system starting in version 1.10. I'm not sure it's worth it.

I've gone back to 1.09 myself.

[itsblack]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Same here.

What seems to have caused the problems is the switch to the vBulletin mail queue system starting in version 1.10. I'm not sure it's worth it.

I've gone back to 1.09 myself.

But thanks v1.10, before v.1.09 there's always problem with email sending. After update to 1.10, everything goes well.

[RDX1]

Now it has stopped working since upgrading to 1.11, I'm going back to 1.09 as well.

[C Braithwaite]

hmm it looks like there are problems either way.

Im not sure how to fix this really, as i only have the one board to test it on - my own (which is 3.6.5)

[djbaxter]

Chris, why not revert to just sending out emails as you did prior to 1.10? There were other bug fixes in 1.10 and 1.11, I think but if you just change the "sendmail" parts that might solve it all.

If nothing else, it will eliminate one variable as the possible problem.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Chris, why not revert to just sending out emails as you did prior to 1.10? There were other bug fixes in 1.10 and 1.11, I think but if you just change the "sendmail" parts thjat might solve it all.

yeah i think i will do.

ill have a look at it in the morning. will bring back HTML emails too.. ;-)