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.
***

[Megatr0n]

Before I update is there suppose to be too reminder.php files? If not which, one do we delete?

[RedTrinity]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

It should send in HTML...

How about formatting of anchor tags - ie:

<a href="http://www.test.com.au">Click here to visit our site</a>

Into:

Click here to visit our site

If that makes sense? This is not working at the moment, but would love to see it implemented as it makes emails a LOT cleaner!

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

Have you tried "use mail queue? - yes, with locking"? or could you maybe disable the mailqueue and let me know if it still sends 2 emails?

Yep I tried locking the mail queue, but 2 emails are still being sent out

Cheers

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

there is only 1 in the new zip - delete all previous files.

Edit - please read the install instructions (posted above) carefully!

I uninstalled the previous version, removed EZ Bounce, and installed your new version.

First problem: I cannot get it to store the setting to move the bounced messages to the Bounced usergroup I created in two of my forums. In both cases, I could make it work with Users Awaiting Email Confirmation, which is not what I wanted.

Second, the formatting is still messed up:

Hello, Test User! We\'ve noticed that you\'ve not been active on Attack of the Rockoids Forums for quite some time now, and we miss you! Could we not tempt you back? If you don\'t remember your password, you can request it here: http://forum.rockoids.com/login.php?do=lostpw We hope to see you soon. Kindest Regards Gene Steinberg Attack of the Rockoids Forums http://forum.rockoids.com

In the above case, the actual message is correctly formatted with paragraph breaks and all.

Third, wouldn't it also be nice to automatically insert a PM in which the user was notified that their email bounced, as EZ Bounce does, and, at the same time, disable their privileges appropriately in the new usergroup (not receive email from people, etc.)?

It's getting there, though.

Peace,
Gene

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by genesteinberg

I uninstalled the previous version, removed EZ Bounce, and installed your new version.

First problem: I cannot get it to store the setting to move the bounced messages to the Bounced usergroup I created in two of my forums. In both cases, I could make it work with Users Awaiting Email Confirmation, which is not what I wanted.

Second, the formatting is still messed up:



In the above case, the actual message is correctly formatted with paragraph breaks and all.

Third, wouldn't it also be nice to automatically insert a PM in which the user was notified that their email bounced, as EZ Bounce does, and, at the same time, disable their privileges appropriately in the new usergroup (not receive email from people, etc.)?

It's getting there, though.

Peace,
Gene

I will work on the formatting issue - thanks for the bug report.

I could add the option of sending a PM but you have to take into account that 1) the user has been inactive for a long time and 2) there is no way of letting the user know they have a new pm.

if anyone feels that it is a good idea then i will be happy to do so but do take these to points into consideration.

thanks for the suggestion all the same

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by genesteinberg

I uninstalled the previous version, removed EZ Bounce, and installed your new version.

First problem: I cannot get it to store the setting to move the bounced messages to the Bounced usergroup I created in two of my forums. In both cases, I could make it work with Users Awaiting Email Confirmation, which is not what I wanted.

what version are you running where the settings dont store? are they pre 3.7 boards?

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

what version are you running where the settings dont store? are they pre 3.7 boards?

All three forums are separate vBulletin 3.7.2P2 licenses, with basically the same mods and settings. And look and feel, for that matter, but they deal with different subject matter.

Peace,
Gene

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

I will work on the formatting issue - thanks for the bug report.

I could add the option of sending a PM but you have to take into account that 1) the user has been inactive for a long time and 2) there is no way of letting the user know they have a new pm.

if anyone feels that it is a good idea then i will be happy to do so but do take these to points into consideration.

thanks for the suggestion all the same

I'm assuming, probably as EZ Bounce's author does, that the user with the invalid email address might eventually login and thus be notified that they need to update their email address.

Then again, I'm also hoping for a product that'll let you send mass PMs to a specific usergroup. The only thing I can find is a hack that does this directly to members you check in the member list, but that's not what I want to do.

Peace,
Gene

[Gene Steinberg]

And: does the report section notify you that bounced addresses are being appropriately moved? I installed your filter in cPanel and would love to test the thing.

Peace,
Gene

[Gene Steinberg]

One more thing:

Evidently it isn't recognizing the bounce email address, and thus the bounce handling isn't functional.

I did create a bounce email address for that domain, and configured the mail filter per your instructions.

Here's what I received this evening (at least the formatting is not as bad as it was previously):

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

Return-path: <nobody@server.paracast.net>
Received: from nobody by server.paracast.net with local (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <nobody@server.paracast.net>)
id 1KX5eR-0005wB-IA
for <email omitted>; Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:48:23 -0700
To:
Subject: We miss you!
X-PHP-Script: forum.theparacast.com/showthread.php for 65.55.211.161
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
To: <email omitted>
From: The Paracast Discussion Forums Reminder Service <news@theparacast.com>
X-Remindermail-BounceId: 272
X-Remindermail-BounceSalt: :jC
Message-Id: <E1KX5eR-0005wB-IA@server.paracast.net>
Sender: Nobody <nobody@server.paracast.net>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:48:23 -0700


Hello, <name omitted>!

We\'ve noticed that you\'ve not been active on The Paracast Discussion Forums for quite some time now, and we miss you!

Could we not tempt you back?

If you don\'t remember your password, you can request it here: http://forum.theparacast.com/login.php?do=lostpw

We hope to see you soon.

Kindest Regards
Gene and David
The Paracast Discussion Forums
http://forum.theparacast.com

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by genesteinberg

One more thing:

Evidently it isn't recognizing the bounce email address, and thus the bounce handling isn't functional.

I did create a bounce email address for that domain, and configured the mail filter per your instructions.

Here's what I received this evening (at least the formatting is not as bad as it was previously):

did you enable '-f'? this is very important.