Administrative and Maintenance Tools - EPC vbMailer [LITE] All in ONE E-mail Solution

EPC vbMailer [LITE] for vBulletin

*** Image removed as it was hotlinking to another site and site does not allow for hotlinking ***

(Not just a hack, just a HUGE expansion in getting your communication professionally delivered effectively and efficiently to your forums members)

Brief Introduction:

What we have here is an expansion of a lot of tools that deal with ?effective? communication with your forums members by and through the vBulletin forums system. As you know there are many modifications on the vBulletin.org website that?ll help you manage all of these means, some are lacking other essential needs or you are simply too tired to figuring out which one doesn?t work with what hack. Overall, we have built EPC vBMailer to be the overall and ONLY solution to your vBulletin e-mailing needs. Because you request it in here, we will build it without any questions!

After endless reading on the forums at vbulletin.org, we have found it to be a wise decision to release a LITE and a FULL version, basically a trial version before you buy? Where the trial will not ever end, it?s just a lighter version to the FULL version which has an extended amount of features in it that handles ALL of your e-mailing needs in one!


Core Feature List:

• Templates
  • Add templates
  • Edit templates
  • Delete templates
• Autoresponders
  • Add autoresponders
  • Edit autoresponders
  • Delete autoresponders
• Compose Email
  • Type an email, or
  • Use a template
  • Schedule when to send
• Bounce Management
  • Logs into your SMTP info
  • Inactivates bounced emails
  • Deletes bounced emails from server
• Settings
  • Easily edit vbMailer Settings inside your config file
  • FULL version has it all built into the /admincp/ with more support

Templates Overview

• Enter a subject, text email and HTML email to easily send them out on-the-fly later
• Templates, like anything else in vbMailer, support variables

Autoresponder Overview

• Setup autoresponder sequences to automatically send out emails
• Very powerful for those of you who want to seamlessly and automatically advertise your forums, or give your users a friendly "nudge" to come back
• Yep, autoresponders support variables too

Compose Email Overview

• Choose a previously created template or enter a subject, text and HTML email
• Choose a time to run the campaign, allowing you to schedule the campaign for whenever you want

(meaning you can setup that advertisement email to run while you are on vacation, phew!)

• And did I mention, composing an email directly also supports variables

Review Campaigns Overview:

• Track how each of your campaigns is doing, by looking at how many emails were SENT, FAILED and READ
• Delete any upcoming campaigns

Bounce Management Overview:

• No more annoying bounce emails filling your Inbox
• Every time the cron runs, it automatically sets the email status to inactive on any bounced emails
• PM sent to user to update his/her e-mail address!

Example of a log when one is bounced:

Email sent [sadfjasdfj2234rr32ff@email.com] using [smtp]

#-Bounces---------------------#
Connected to mail.mydomainhere.com
Logged in as username@mydomainhere.com
Fetched message list

Found bounce [sadfjasdfj2234rr32ff@email.com]
sadfjasdfj2234rr32ff@email.com: Email inactivated
sadfjasdfj2234rr32ff@email.com: Bounce email deleted

Connection closed

Done

EPC vbMailer Variables Overview:

Although you can use anything in the 'user' table as a template variable, the most useful are provided in this list:
[userid]
[username]
[email]
[homepage]
[icq]
[aim]
[yahoo]
[msn]
[skype]
[posts]
[ipaddress]
[pmtotal]
[pmunread]
[warnings]

EPC vbMailer Variables Test Email

So basically you would setup and form e-mail going out to all as an example:

Dear [username],

Today it has come to our attention your posts total today are [posts] posts on the forums.

Total warnings you have on file are [warnings] warnings!

You have a total of [pmtotal] PM?s inside your inbox on the forums, also do note that you have a total of [pmunread] unread PM?s

Your webpage is located at: [homepage]

On file we have the following Instant Messengers:

ICQ: [icq]
AIM: [aim]
YAHOO: [yahoo]
MSN: [msn]
SKYPE: [skype]

Your User ID, which is a number and can be found to be as follows: [userid]

Your sign-up IP address was: [ipaddress]

Best regards,
EPC vbMailer and Team

EPC vbMailer Outcome E-mail

Enough of that one, below you?ll see the outcome of the e-mail:

Dear BillyBoyGates,

Today it has come to our attention your posts total today are 0 posts on the forums.

Total warnings you have on file are 0 warnings!

You have a total of 0 PM?s inside your inbox on the forums, also do note that you have a total of 0 unread PM?s

Your webpage is located at: http://www.billyboygates.com/

On file we have the following Instant Messengers:

ICQ: 999999
AIM: bloggermania
YAHOO: yahoosucks@yahoo.com
MSN: billyboygates@hotmail.com
SKYPE: skyperockstotally

Your User ID, which is a number and can be found to be as follows: 1

Your sign-up IP address was: 131.0.12.125

Best regards,
EPC vbMailer and Team

You can unsubscribe at any time by visiting the forums where this was sent from and requesting not to receive emails from administrators any more.

http://www.yourforums.com/forums2

Conclusion:

You have installed at LEAST 5+ separate hacks to mount up to what we just created but coded you here in the LITE version, do note this, in the FULL version for less than a happy meal you will have even more flexibility. Whether you wanted to run a newsletter, or send out a series of e-mails (autoresponders) or simply schedule the sending times and letting EPC vbMailer will do it for you seamlessly.

In the LITE version, you will need to note, there is a set limit on how many e-mails that can be sent out due to the core of the LITE wasn?t designed to handle UNLIMITED.

Make sure you check it out in the LITE first to see if this is something you would like, with full SUPPORT too you if you clicked install. Bottom line, we are just happy to accommodate anyone and everyone.

How do I get support?

Also comes with a 22 page End-User Documentation, all clean and sectioned out for you in PDF. Make sure you have Adobe READER v6+ not a RIPPER

Support is given to those who click INSTALL...

However if you have questions before installing do let us know, we have tested this on 3.6.8, and if you have a forums that is prior, please let us know if this works and report this here! Others will appreciate it a lot.

All support for the LITE version will be held here only if you click install, and if you purchase the full version all support is handled in the order received by our full-time reps in the CSC, NO support is held here for the FULL version!

So here's the LITE version and it comes with a full set of instructions and if you require any assistance on how to find feeds and what places are best for feeds, do post them in here.

Also if you post anything in here that has NOTHING to do with the hack and support, question related issues, i.e. Starting drama on anything not related to this hack, "it is no good", "I guess this will ruin this", and blah blah, keep your drama out please!

Copyright

/*
Please do not remove this Copyright notice.
As you see this is a free script accordingly under GPL laws and you will see
a license attached accordingly to GNU.
You may NOT rewrite another hack and release it to the vBulletin.org community or ELSEWHERE using this code without our permission due to the fact we have a full version and this full version is a paid version, as this version will differ but some
of the logistics are the same. So do NOT try to release a hack using any part of our code without written permission from us!
Copyright 2007, BlogToRank
*/

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +
Change Log


#--------------v1.1-LITE--------------#

• 'Unique reads' statistic addition, no charts
  • vs. FULL 'Unique reads' & 'Link clicks', charts
• Attachment via compose email only
  • vs. FULL Saved attachments via templates, autoresponders or compose email
• Bounced emails set all communication via e-mail options to inactive
  • vs. FULL Bounced emails set all options to inactive & PMs user
• No link tracking
  • vs. FULL Link tracking and 'Link clicks' statistic

#--------------v1.2-FULL--------------#

• Campaign deletion
• Choose user group to send to
• Bounced email admin notification (Sent to admin PM)
• HTML/Text user option (Under User CP and upon user registration and is REQUIRED at registration)

#--------------v1.2-LITE--------------#

• Campaign deletion
• Bounced email user notification (previously only in FULL)

#--------------v1.2.3-LITE--------------#

• Fixed a security vulnerability to our the tracker and the /admincp/vbmailer.php
• Fixed a bug within our product install. (Recommend you do a fresh install of this product file)
• Fixed a few other minor things and we highly recommend a download and update immediately.

#--------------v1.5-LITE--------------#

• Fixed a hanging process within the Send E-Mail by the RUN Now being processed
• Added the Signature Line to be manually modified within the settings of LITE and FULL version
• Update to the nl2br to fix broken issues with Outlook Express of receiving text e-mails, because Microsoft decided to NOT respect the \r\n format, so it's known as the nl2br

  \r\n = "<br>"

• Few other snags cleaned up to put this to v1.5.

[military-space]

May have been mentioned earlier in this thread, not sure due to lack of sleep on my part and words blending together, but is there a way to make this product act also as a newsletter that members can actively subscribe to (noticed it had unsubscribe) so that the forums would have a better way of sending out a monthly newsletter to their members on a per subscribed basis?

[blogtorank]

Originally Posted by Axel Foley

Just bought the full version...waiting for the license file...looks promising...

Welcome to the most flexible solution If you have suggestions of adding more please post them here.

Originally Posted by OS Master

I feel terrible that I didn't know this. Sorry for bothering you.

No biggie, just we took the time to compile all examples and etc into one pretty PDF for you.

Originally Posted by AzzidReign

I have a question about how the mod handles bounced emails. I currently use EZ Bounced Email Management for Admins...I like the feature for the mod where it PM's the member saying that their email is out of date and that it has been removed until they update their email. What I don't like is that I have to go through the 100's of bounced emails a day and click a link to put the user into bounced management.

Your mod says it handles the bounced emails itself, does it also send the PM's the members saying they need to update their email? If not, I would love for this addon. I'll be checking out the FULL version once I get home...I'm pretty sure I'll get it. Anything to support a great cause and great coders

If it sends the PM we have to make sure they are not to receive any sort of e-mail after they have been de-activated. So yes this can be done both ways, so yes if you are wanting this portion added we will add it.

Originally Posted by lazyindian

awesome stuff .. to say the least

Great and let us know your thoughts after you run it and test it out! Love hearing feedback.

Originally Posted by radarhunter

is it compatible with 3.6.7 PL1 ???

Yes another has it 3.6.7 PL1 and has told me it works perfectly for her. Please let us know if you have any issues so we can make sure this works for even v1.0.0

[blogtorank]

Originally Posted by military-space

May have been mentioned earlier in this thread, not sure due to lack of sleep on my part and words blending together, but is there a way to make this product act also as a newsletter that members can actively subscribe to (noticed it had unsubscribe) so that the forums would have a better way of sending out a monthly newsletter to their members on a per subscribed basis?

Blending words do sound good to the ears when mixed right after a lack of sleep. We have a solution that has a subscribe to which is our MadMailer (universal plug-n-play see my sig for this.), which vbMailer was derived from.

I think they should sign up for your forums, knowing and acknowledge that they are signing up for any and all e-mails from the admins/ of the forums, which gives you the authority to send out what you like and how you like as long as they keep receiving e-mails from the admins if they opt to sign-up.

So you are saying you would like an opt-in type of form that vbMailer would make for you to place on your forums for others to sign-up with?

[military-space]

yes exactly, an opt-in type for a regular newsletter. We already send out emails to all users when needed to announce site upgrades, server downtime expectations, things like that. I have yet to see a plugin/product that would accomplish a full featured newsletter mod for the forums.

[blogtorank]

Well you know, you've already downloaded the mod, let us know if you have installed it yet to go through it all in the LITE version... Because after you install it, it'll be better to make recommendations and ideas to better suit your needs. Also this will enable us to understand fully what you need and want.

[blogtorank]

I am quoting the funniest of all PM I have ever seen:

Can I send spam email with this ????

That's up to you on how you use it, why would I say yes to a certain question like this? That's up to you and how you do it. Remember the old rule of thumb, "If you do S!@# in your bed, you have to lay in it!" Unless you clean it....

Anyhow, point is these kind of questions are the funniest ones, that's like me asking the FBI if we can sell illegal materials... So not to look down on others or slam others, please be careful and don't ask us questions like this...

[Inkybro]

Originally Posted by blogtorank

I am quoting the funniest of all PM I have ever seen:



That's up to you on how you use it, why would I say yes to a certain question like this? That's up to you and how you do it. Remember the old rule of thumb, "If you do S!@# in your bed, you have to lay in it!" Unless you clean it....

Anyhow, point is these kind of questions are the funniest ones, that's like me asking the FBI if we can sell illegal materials... So not to look down on others or slam others, please be careful and don't ask us questions like this...

Besides, anyone with a little computer sense could easily track the email back to your forums' website.

Do what you will, but don't whine when karma takes its toll.

[blogtorank]

v1.1 Updating coming shortly:

#--------------------- EPC vbMailer-v1.1 ---------------------#

• Charts for campaigns (flash charts / popup window from 'Manage Campaigns', 'Statistics' link)
• Email attachments through all systems (compose, templates and autoresponders)
• PM bounced users / set other email options to inactive
  • So to not make loops we are going to make it where it disables all e-mails sent out within the User Options:
    • From time to time, the administrators may want to send you email notices.

      Receive Email from Administrators

    • You can allow other members to send you email messages.

      Receive Email from Other Members

    • The forum can send a message to your email address to inform you when someone sends you a private message.

      Receive Email Notification of New Private Messages

Where each of these options will be disabled on the user until they update their e-mail or manage their settings to update the next time they login and read their PM.

• Automatic link changing to allow link tracking (Marketers should love this)

So do you have anymore recommendations or adds to this easy v1.1 roll out? If so do add it to our list. If not we will be looking at your suggestions and recommendations here within the forums to get an overview of what everyone wants in this "All in one" solution. See below of a couple screenshots of what's done so far for the campaign tracking...

Where it'll have charts and all the goodies to keep the ones satisfied in figuring out who clicked what and how many!

[Inkybro]

Originally Posted by OS Master

OK when I visit /admincp/vbmailer_config.php I get a blank page. I have uploaded the file in ASCII mode and I have installed the product.

Maybe you could have a "vbMailer" option in "vBulletin Options" instead.

Did you get this all worked out?

[Hornstar]

Great! looking forward to the update that has my suggestion in it