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
***

[BlueBulletRL]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Maybe there aren't any emails to be sent?

Version 1.09? 1.11? If the latter, uninstall and reinstall 1.09.

Setting in vBulletin options | Inactive Users Reminder emails?

I do have 1.09, I only installed that one because I've read the thread before installing this hack. As stated before I have it set to 1 day inactivity email 2 and usergroups is 2 for registered users still not working for me. According to my log it says there is no emails to send out.

[RichTJ99]

I have the same issue. No emails to send when I have plenty of users that are inactive. I also set it for 1 day & 1 email per day.

I also set on of my guest accounts to be inactive for more than a day (for testing).

[BlueBulletRL]

Same thing I have a ton of inactive accounts. I appreciate the help you can give as I would really LOVE to use this mod on my forum. Thanks

[b6gm6n]

Is this the mode that kills servers? i have many members and regardless it'll send a billion emails saying "come back...we miss you" then your host says NO - STOP! - then you disable it

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by b6gm6n

Is this the mode that kills servers? i have many members and regardless it'll send a billion emails saying "come back...we miss you" then your host says NO - STOP! - then you disable it

Not if you configure use version 1.09 and it correctly.

[b6gm6n]

Yes it is this one... i was just about to remove it, kills me every time... turned it on once 2 days ago and my email system used it's 1000 a day quota and tons of returned emails since because of this... I have 1.1.1, you would think instead of being retrogressive and going back a version it would have the ability not to jam your email system... I have a 1000 email limit per day, my host contacted me last time about this mod, then i wonder why normal emails are being returned today... (limit reached), I've set the thing for 6 months, whats it trying to do email everyone ? i have setup this thing correctly and I'm not too sure it's my error, i have a lot of members, you would hope it wouldn't kill your server... cron is set to 1 hour, setting correct, user groups correct, should i set my cron to every 2 days? at least when it tries to send out thousands and thousands of emails I'll have one day at least to play with...

ahh i dunno, don't think it's right some how

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by b6gm6n

Yes it is this one... i was just about to remove it, kills me every time... turned it on once 2 days ago and my email system used it's 1000 a day quota and tons of returned emails since because of this... I have 1.1.1, you would think instead of being retrogressive and going back a version it would have the ability not to jam your email system... I have a 1000 email limit per day, my host contacted me last time about this mod, then i wonder why normal emails are being returned today... (limit reached), I've set the thing for 6 months, whats it trying to do email everyone ? i have setup this thing correctly and I'm not too sure it's my error, i have a lot of members, you would hope it wouldn't kill your server... cron is set to 1 hour, setting correct, user groups correct, should i set my cron to every 2 days? at least when it tries to send out thousands and thousands of emails I'll have one day at least to play with...

ahh i dunno, don't think it's right some how

*sigh*

Try reading the damn thread. I'm not the creator of this add-on (Chris is) but I've said many times that you should consider version 1.11 a beta version and 1.09 as the stable version. Use 1.09 and you won't have that problem.

[LoreleiWeb]

thanks for the awesome mod, just installed it!

just a techniqal q, since my server limits the amount of emails i can send per hour / day - i installed it today and my forum has about 11k members, half of them are inactive. will it send emails to all the 6k at once now, or after 30 days on inactivity (these are my settings) to ALL the members that were not active over the past month, or just the ones that will be active and then leave?

if it;s one of the first 2 options, is there any way to throttle these emails somehow? thanks!

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by LoreleiWeb

thanks for the awesome mod, just installed it!

just a techniqal q, since my server limits the amount of emails i can send per hour / day - i installed it today and my forum has about 11k members, half of them are inactive. will it send emails to all the 6k at once now, or after 30 days on inactivity (these are my settings) to ALL the members that were not active over the past month, or just the ones that will be active and then leave?

if it;s one of the first 2 options, is there any way to throttle these emails somehow? thanks!

1. Make sure you installed version 1.09, NOT 1.11

2. Set the options in vBulletin Options | Inactive user reminder emails to reasonable values:

Days of Inactivity = 90
How many days a user can go without posting before they are considered inactive.

Email Frequency = 30
How often to send a reminder email once a member has become inactive.

Email Quantity = 3
How many emails to send each time cron runs (Lower means faster board, but longer to send all emails. Higher, vice versa.)

[b6gm6n]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

*sigh*

Try reading the damn thread. I'm not the creator of this add-on (Chris is) but I've said many times that you should consider version 1.11 a beta version and 1.09 as the stable version. Use 1.09 and you won't have that problem.

thank you, i will