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
***

[ComputerVitals]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Yes, exactly.
Just change the 3 to 30.

Thanks a bunch!

[SCRIPT3R]

"Inactive User Reminder Email Report",

i'm looking to begin an additonal paragraph between each section of listed emails; will adding the additional \n\n\n (bolded) in the php respectively accomplish this?

This email shows that the product is installed and working as it should be.\n\n\nEmails sent to:" . $sentlist . ".\n\n\nWe tried to email the following users...

[SnitchSeeker]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Read the thread!

Set your email frequency to something longer than 1. At that setting, it will try to send out emails to every inactive user every day.

Set it to something reasonable like 30, or 60, or 90 (days). Or longer if you wish.

It would be really nice if there was a way to set it to send out ONLY ONE e-mail and then stop. Like if setting it to "0" would make it only send out one mail.

I had it set to "3" thinking it would send out three mails and then stop, but it was sending mails out every three days FOR EVER until users deleted their accounts. Not at all cool and not making us popular with the members.

Thanks for considering this!

(For now, I have changed it to send out only once every 120 days, but would prefer to set it to zero, meaning no-repeat.)

[SCRIPT3R]

Originally Posted by SnitchSeeker

It would be really nice if there was a way to set it to send out ONLY ONE e-mail and then stop. Like if setting it to "0" would make it only send out one mail.

I had it set to "3" thinking it would send out three mails and then stop, but it was sending mails out every three days FOR EVER until users deleted their accounts. Not at all cool and not making us popular with the members.

Thanks for considering this!

(For now, I have changed it to send out only once every 120 days, but would prefer to set it to zero, meaning no-repeat.)

i actually like that aspect of this hack... who cares what your INACTIVE users think; they're INACTIVE.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by SnitchSeeker

It would be really nice if there was a way to set it to send out ONLY ONE e-mail and then stop. Like if setting it to "0" would make it only send out one mail.

I had it set to "3" thinking it would send out three mails and then stop, but it was sending mails out every three days FOR EVER until users deleted their accounts. Not at all cool and not making us popular with the members.

Thanks for considering this!

(For now, I have changed it to send out only once every 120 days, but would prefer to set it to zero, meaning no-repeat.)

You can include instructions in your email about how to set an account to NOT receive emails from Admins. Or you can set it to something like 365 or even 3650 days.

Originally Posted by GearTripper

i actually like that aspect of this hack... who cares what your INACTIVE users think; they're INACTIVE.

I agree, sort of - I wouldn't want to annoy active users (after all, the intent is to remind them about the forum and invite them back) but I also like the fact that I can send out a reminder every 30, 60, 90 days or whatever.

[eNforce]

Does this hack send an email soon after you install it, or does it need to wait for the time specified in Email Frequency?

[SCRIPT3R]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

I agree, sort of - I wouldn't want to annoy active users (after all, the intent is to remind them about the forum and invite them back) but I also like the fact that I can send out a reminder every 30, 60, 90 days or whatever.

but, that's just it... you wouldn't be annoying ACTIVE users, just the INACTIVE ones.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by GearTripper

but, that's just it... you wouldn't be annoying ACTIVE users, just the INACTIVE ones.

That was a typo. I meant I don't want to annoy any users, even the inactive ones, if I can get them to rteturn.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by daPLAYBOY

Hi there, djbaxter

Got a little problem here...can you kindly advise, plz?

I ran the mod, and got the message below! How can I correct this?

Cheers!

Can you post your settings - I can see the problem, just gotta figure out why..

[LordDB]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

Can you post your settings - I can see the problem, just gotta figure out why..

I switched over to v1.09, and still encountered the DB error!

I've since uninstalled it until a solution can be found, so waiting on you my friend!

Thx!