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
***

[Zia]

Helo...

55216 Inactive User Reminder Emails 01:03, 11th Oct 2007 Emails sent to:sreshto GKing rizz HonestBoy gontobboheen Chonchola Horini moharaj noman_auleek maria Amski arifbarbhuiya mhasan . We tried to email the following users, but their email address was invalid:

its really weired
the nick Gking- we always use to same mail id (even this morning) i got mail from his id- why it says invalid mail id?

we are using v 1.1.1
whats the probs?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by Zia

the nick Gking- we always use to same mail id (even this morning) i got mail from his id- why it says invalid mail id? whats the probs?

What version are you using? Does this help?:

Originally Posted by djbaxter

As I have said many times, I personally consider version 1.11 to be a beta version. I know Chris was trying to work on this but my guess is real life got in the way to delay it.

Uninstall version 1.11 and install version 1.09.

[IRCMedya]

thank you, installed

[bazzup]

@zia and redtailboa

when it reports like this

55216 Inactive User Reminder Emails 01:03, 11th Oct 2007 Emails sent to:sreshto GKing rizz HonestBoy gontobboheen Chonchola Horini moharaj noman_auleek maria Amski arifbarbhuiya mhasan . We tried to email the following users, but their email address was invalid:

that means all the users got the email and there were no invalid emails

the bit you are looking for in the message is this

We tried to email the following users, but their email address was invalid:username

note on the posts you have made nobodys email was invalid because there where no usernames after the invalid bit

hope this makes sense

[PinkLiquorice]

Why is the footer text so big?! Do we have to have the copyright for a mod on it as it doesnt match the rest of the site... cant I make it smaller at least?!

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by sw1

Why is the footer text so big?!

Originally Posted by sw1

cant I make it smaller at least?!

I don't think Chris cares how big it is as long as you leave the active link.

Originally Posted by sw1

Do we have to have the copyright for a mod on it as it doesnt match the rest of the site...

Read the instructions in post #1.

[PinkLiquorice]

Ok will make it smaller. thank you

[vbuser99]

Recently I have installed version 1.11.

I have 150K members, installing this add-on for the first time may put server on its knees as it may try to send lots of emails at once. This also may cause your site marked as email spammer (or something like that) due to high number of emails per batch.

I figured I needed more options, like maximum number of emails per batch (cron) and maximum number of reminder emails per user, so users do not continue getting reminders after X number of reminders.

So I added said new options and optimized and corrected SQL code (there were some bugs) in the add-on, and now it is working great!

I would love to share this updated add-on but I do not really know where/how to post it.

Shall I post it as a new add-on on a new thread, or ...???

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by vbuser99

Recently I have installed version 1.11.

You actually got v1.11 to work ...

Congratulations....

I've stuck with v1.09 and it has been working fine, but your addtional options would be nice to add.

I'd love to see your fixes posted and tried by folks who couldn't get v1.11 to function. If it works, I might just upgrade to it with your mods.

Thanks for your work.... :up:

Regards,
Badger

[vbuser99]

Originally Posted by BadgerDog

You actually got v1.11 to work ...

Congratulations....

I've stuck with v1.09 and it has been working fine, but your addtional options would be nice to add.

I'd love to see your fixes posted and tried by folks who couldn't get v1.11 to function. If it works, I might just upgrade to it with your mods.

Thanks for your work.... :up:

Regards,
Badger

Yes, it works and it is great, as SQL is optimized, it is fast too.