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
***

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by MikeHolohan

Ok finally got it working but I can see all the html tags, is there a way to fix this, what will happen If I remove all the tags and just use plain text?

This is the email I got on my test account...

<p>Hello, Paddy!</p>
<p>We've noticed that you've not been active on Faith Forum for quite some time now,
and we miss you!</p>
<p>Could we not tempt you back?</p>
<p>If you don't remember your password, you can request it here: <a href="http://www.faithforum.eu/login.php?do=lostpw">http://www.faithforum.eu/login.php?do=lostpw</a></p>
<p>We hope to see you soon</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Kindest Regards</p>
Faith Forum
<p><a href="http://faithforum.eu">http://faithforum.eu</a></p>

Mike.

I'm afraid you are in the same boat as the rest of us until the developer can figure out a work around for this problem.

[mediax]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

1. check that you have enabled the add-on in vBulletin Options

2. check that you have the latest version installed

All these things are oke but it doen't work

[kenfuzed]

What DOES this mod do, because it sure doesn't send emails or anything remotely close to what it says it can do. Three days and 3 pages of complaints ranging from "only sends out text as html" to "sends nothing". WOW, this is the best mod ever! Thanks, where do I vote for MOTM?


I'm clicking Uninstall, I'm so done with this pile of steaming nonsense. Someone should pull the plug on this one, because its a gonner'.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by kenfuzed

What DOES this mod do, because it sure doesn't send emails or anything remotely close to what it says it can do. Three days and 3 pages of complaints ranging from "only sends out text as html" to "sends nothing". WOW, this is the best mod ever! Thanks, where do I vote for MOTM?


I'm clicking Uninstall, I'm so done with this pile of steaming nonsense. Someone should pull the plug on this one, because its a gonner'.

Correction: Three days over a holiday weekend.

But thanks for sharing.

[MikeHolohan]

Even tho it sent out the mails as html, I am still getting people coming back, so it gets a thumbs up from me, just hope some of this other stuff gets sorted out, good job, thanks Chris... Mike.

[GreeceMonkey]

Having read through most of the posts for this mod, it does seem this is not as straight forward as it seems. I installed this yesterday and got the same results an many other people who posted.

It logs the email as being send the schedual task log, it show them as sending if this is run manually - the problem is it does not send the emails.

Does this require the SMTP option to be configured, or can this work using the normal PHP methods.

I am trying to get this to work on 3.6.5 and dont have SMTP configured with in VB options.

I would if anybody knows the exact config of any users who got it working.

I wounder if this depends on the forum name as it uses the name as part of the FROM address.

Any ideas, I would like to help in getting this one sorted out, as this is an automatic way of keeping my forums alive.

Graham

[djbaxter]

The problem is the use of the vBulletin mail system, not whether it's SMTP or PHP. Earlier versions actually worked very well. Someone suggested using the vBulletin mail-system and it seems in switching to that something went awry.

Chris, perhaps as a temporary fix, you could repost version 1.09 as a an optional download?

[rapsearch]

Hi,

Awsome mod!

One issue i'm having though. I've set the amount of emails at 2 but it keeps on mailing to inactive accounts. now some people get it like 10 times already and they want to report me to spam protection sites ...

What's wrong and how can i make sure it only emails the reminder like 2 times and then never again.

[trickfly]

I installed this mod like as directed by the instructions, I have set the following options as:

www.trickfly.com/vb.JPG

Bu when I go to schedule tasks and click run on the Inactive Email reminder task I get:
-------------------
Found 0 Inactive users

Done
------------------

I have over a thousand members and it found 0 ?

Please can you help

Thanks

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by rapsearch

Hi,

Awsome mod!

One issue i'm having though. I've set the amount of emails at 2 but it keeps on mailing to inactive accounts. now some people get it like 10 times already and they want to report me to spam protection sites ...

What's wrong and how can i make sure it only emails the reminder like 2 times and then never again.

You can't.

Set "Days of Inactivity" to something reasonable, like 30 minimum - 60 or 90 better.

Set "Frequency" to something reasonable, like 30 minimum. This isn't the number of emails to send out - this is the number of days to wait before sending out another "nag". You have it set to nag your members every 2 days - no wonder they're getting annoyed.

Originally Posted by trickfly

I installed this mod like as directed by the instructions, I have set the following options as:

www.trickfly.com/vb.JPG

Bu when I go to schedule tasks and click run on the Inactive Email reminder task I get:
-------------------
Found 0 Inactive users

Done
------------------

I have over a thousand members and it found 0 ?

Please can you help

Thanks

Answered in PM. The problem is, I think, the switch to the vBulletin mail system in version 1.10. I understand that the author is working on this.

See my post above where I've suggested he make version 1.09 (which worked well) available for download until the fix is determined.