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
***

[bugzy]

Originally Posted by bugzy

So I sent the CRON Schedule Task to run every day at 4:00AM and increased the Email Quantity to 25 each time. Is that right?

It seems the default schedule was every minute, which seems excessive.

weird, i guess the CRON was setup incorrectly, since i read the OG and its suppose to be once a day

oh wells

[Hannan]

thank you for this useful MOD. I installed some days ago but I think its not working. do you know how can I test this MOD?

[odeezie]

Newbie here...will this work with 3.6.8?

[SoftDux]

My inactive users email doesn't seem to work. How do I debug it? It is enabled, and when I run it manually then I can see it sends out an email to some users

[RetroDreams]

Does this work well in 3.7?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by bugzy

Perfect, shouild probably add that definition in the original post

Originally Posted by Sempiterna

Hmm, why not put that clarification in the options

I agree. However, I'm not sure the Chris, the author of the add-on is still checking in:

Developer Last Online: Sep 2007

and I can't edit that post.

Originally Posted by odeezie

Newbie here...will this work with 3.6.8?

Yes it will.

Originally Posted by therogueforums

Right... used this product for quite some time, loved it. Upgraded to 3.7.... now all emails are showing the default account email as the sender, which is NOT good. Uninstalled until support can be provided.

What do you mean? The sender should be whatever email address is specified for the forum in vBulletin options. That's always been the case.

Originally Posted by RetroDreams

Does this work well in 3.7?

I'm still using 3.8.6 PL2. Beyond that, I have no idea. If you're using version 1.09 of the add-on, I think it should work but I'll have to wait for the 3.7 final release to see.

Also, if you are having trouble with version 1.11, uninstall and install version 1.09 instead. Version 1.09 was the last stable version and it's still working fine for me.

[todays-women]

Installed it and did setting under vbulletin option> inactive user reminder emails..but now how I will send mails? Do I need to click send some where or some thing eals?

[Habsy]

Installed. Excellent! THanks!

[rwoscott]

Originally Posted by todays-women

Installed it and did setting under vbulletin option> inactive user reminder emails..but now how I will send mails? Do I need to click send some where or some thing eals?

Should run automatically if everything is setup correctly, once inactive users are found.

[therogueforums]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

What do you mean? The sender should be whatever email address is specified for the forum in vBulletin options. That's always been the case.

I know- again, it just decided to stop one day, after I upgraded. Everything is set properly, but for some reason, it's using the wrong email account to send the reminders out.