Using Variables outside vBulletin

[ScottC2105]

I'm having some issues using variables outside vbulletin. For the username I'm using $vbulletin->userinfo['username'] which is fine. Now, for notifications I'm using $notifications_total which works outside of vBulletin but for some reason this variable doesn't work when I include a php file in the header of vBulletin it is just "blank".

Is there anyway around this? Also, I am using $pmbox['lastvisitdate'] to show the last time a user visited outside vBulletin which, again, is fine but again, on vBulletin it is "blank".

Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks very much!