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
***

[xandizitxu]

This mod helped me a lot! Thanks!

[SuperTaz]

Very nice. Installed

[htscpl]

Great mod ! Thanks ** installs **

[Ribena88]

Thanks, great mod!

[ski diva]

Question: when this is made active, does it send an email out immediately? I have it set so that the email frequency is 90 days, if a user has been inactive for 90 days. Does this mean that it will be 90 days before the first email goes out? And how will I know if an email has been sent? Is there any notification process?

Thanks!

Edited the following day: Never mind -- I received notification. Another question, though -- is there any way I can see an actual copy of any of the emails that went out?

[Datc]

I also have a problem with the sender address. The "from address" host name is the servers host name which is totally wrong. I'm afraid it doesn't get the entered email address in VB. I need to solve this immediately. Please help !

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by Datc

I also have a problem with the sender address. The "from address" host name is the servers host name which is totally wrong. I'm afraid it doesn't get the entered email address in VB. I need to solve this immediately. Please help !

It would be helpful if you would post the version number you have installed.

How do you know that the From: address is incorrect? Have you looked at an actual email that was sent out? Or is this on the basis of a returned ("bounced") email?

[Datc]

Version is 1.1.1.

I had a user registered that was inactive. So I received the email also. Which comes to the point that there also must be something to test the system before it starts sending out. I was just lucky... But the from field is still wrong..

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by Datc

Version is 1.1.1.

I had a user registered that was inactive. So I received the email also. Which comes to the point that there also must be something to test the system before it starts sending out. I was just lucky... But the from field is still wrong..

So you received the email as a bounceback? If so, depending on your server, it would not contain the forum email as sender but rather the mail server - unless I'm missing something, that seems to have been what happened here.

[Datc]

No its not a bounceback. I had an inactive user. I received it just like everybody else received it.

Yes the part about the mail server email is right. It was like forumname<forumname@sub.servername.com> whereas is should have been webmaster@forumdomain.com .