Mini Mods - Inactive Users Email Reminders For 3.7.x

Inactive reminder emails. This mod was designed to send out a reminder to inactive members to try and win them back. Earlier versions of this plugin have had great success, and has been installed on 1000's of forums.

This mod is a revised version of my 3.6 modification.
Someone pointed out that I needed to make a new thread in the right forum for this.

***1.2.7 Update***
Fixed the \ in the message.
Changed the way the mails are processed to try and stop duplicates
Made the bounce management monitor ALL outgoing emails
Added more stats
Added bounced email messaage viewing with management options.
***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
***

**1.2.6 Update***
Identical to 1.2.5, however EzBounce support added.
***

**Opps Update***
Sorry i somehow managed to not include the file in the zip. My bad.
***

[tekguru]

Well I left the Mod running overnight amd have had a number of complainst about duplicated messages, two users insisting I delete their accounts.

The log showed as attached, not sure if it helps at all...

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tekguru

Well I left the Mod running overnight amd have had a number of complainst about duplicated messages, two users insisting I delete their accounts.

The log showed as attached, not sure if it helps at all...

thanks. you should maybe delete that email as it contains email addresses.

what i need to find out is if the emails were sent out at the same time. do you have access to phpMyAdmin?

if so, could you open up the "remindermail_log" table and do a search on

"userid" and "dateline"

then post them here for me would you?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

with sendmail you can specify -f to force a from address. im not saying its not server configuration, however in a lot of cases it can be fixed with -f

You have a valid point, and this is the very reason why for the next version the modification will handle ALL emails sent out. I realised this was the only way when one member mentioned he uninstalled ezbounce.

from what i understand, with ezbounce you have to manually click a link in each bounced email to modify the user? that's just a manual process with a shortcut in my eyes. my vision was pure automation, and on request i might add.

he would just get a giant email instead - i am working on ways to organise the data better.

An email is easier to delete.

The other thing is that automation of a system like EZ Bounce is also a bad idea. Many of the bouncebacks are not from invalid email addresses but from "mailbox full", "mailbox temporarily unavailable", and such. Those members shouldn't be bounced and for that reason I prefer to inspect the bouncebacks individually. This takes a while the first time or two after it's installed but basically after the first sweep through the member database it's only typically a few a week.

[tekguru]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

thanks. you should maybe delete that email as it contains email addresses.

what i need to find out is if the emails were sent out at the same time. do you have access to phpMyAdmin?

if so, could you open up the "remindermail_log" table and do a search on

"userid" and "dateline"

then post them here for me would you?

Not a problem now deleted.

Also the search resulted in what you can see attached, hope this helps. Mod now disabled until this can be fixed.

I must admity I also second the EZ Bounce system for monitoring bounce backs unless it can be made intelligent of course.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tekguru

Not a problem now deleted.

Also the search resulted in what you can see attached, hope this helps. Mod now disabled until this can be fixed.

I must admity I also second the EZ Bounce system for monitoring bounce backs unless it can be made intelligent of course.

i'm sure this will help. thanks

I thought you said you would love an automation system as you found clicking on the links "a nightmare"?

[jlew24asu]

so is this mod good to go now?

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by jlew24asu

so is this mod good to go now?

some people are having issues with sending multiple emails. I'm trying to figure out why.

[tekguru]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

i'm sure this will help. thanks

I thought you said you would love an automation system as you found clicking on the links "a nightmare"?

Grin I did didn't ! ?

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tekguru

Grin I did didn't ! ?

don't worry though - i will come up with a solution for all.

[tekguru]

Good luck