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
***

[Brandon Sheley]

sounds great
but I get this error

XML Error: XML_WAR_UNKNOWN_VERSION at Line 146

[djbaxter]

Chris, your add-on has been updated for vBulletin 3.7x as version 1.13 at https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=180025

I'm using that version now and it seems to work well for me, although others are finding glitches. Perhaps you and robertjandreu should collaborate on any future updates.

[abrecher]

I just ran the latest version and received the following error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.7.2:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT * FROM user WHERE lastactivity < '1216091182' AND emailDate < '1216091182' AND reminders < 3 AND options & 16 LIMIT 3;

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'reminders' in 'where clause'
Error Number : 1054
Request Date : Wednesday, August 13th 2008 @ 11:06:22 PM
Error Date : Wednesday, August 13th 2008 @ 11:06:22 PM
Script : http://www.domain.com/admincp/cronad...cron&cronid=89
Referrer : http://www.domain.com/admincp/index.php
IP Address : hidden
Username : hidden
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.51-log following error:

[abrecher]

Originally Posted by abrecher

I just ran the latest version and received the following error:

Database error in vBulletin 3.7.2:

Invalid SQL:
SELECT * FROM user WHERE lastactivity < '1216091182' AND emailDate < '1216091182' AND reminders < 3 AND options & 16 LIMIT 3;

MySQL Error : Unknown column 'reminders' in 'where clause'
Error Number : 1054
Request Date : Wednesday, August 13th 2008 @ 11:06:22 PM
Error Date : Wednesday, August 13th 2008 @ 11:06:22 PM
Script : http://www.domain.com/admincp/cronad...cron&cronid=89
Referrer : http://www.domain.com/admincp/index.php
IP Address : hidden
Username : hidden
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.0.51-log following error:

I had to completely uninstall the mod and reinstall for it to work correctly again. All is good now!

[PoetJA-1975]

Hi - Thanx for the update CHRIS - I too was gonna mention that your modification has been updated by another Member - It would nice if you could possibly release an "official" version for the 3.7.x series. Would love to see the the updates/improvements added

Thanx,

Jacquii.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Chimpie

So you've done the update or you're going to update it?

And it says that you are reverting back to ver. 1.0.9. Does this mean that the features, like the report, are gone now?

I have just release a tiny update last night which does limit the number of emails that the product will send.

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Chris, your add-on has been updated for vBulletin 3.7x as version 1.13 at https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=180025

I'm using that version now and it seems to work well for me, although others are finding glitches. Perhaps you and robertjandreu should collaborate on any future updates.

Im going to soon overhaull the entire code and release a version for 3.7x I just need to sort a few things out - read through all of these posts making a note of all suggestions and errors etc.

Originally Posted by PoetJA-1975

Hi - Thanx for the update CHRIS - I too was gonna mention that your modification has been updated by another Member - It would nice if you could possibly release an "official" version for the 3.7.x series. Would love to see the the updates/improvements added

Thanx,

Jacquii.

Thanks for all the support and feedback everyone. I will get you all a fully functioning awesome plugin that is supported by as many versions as possible.

[reteep]

Working great, thanks for the update!

[RedTrinity]

Just tried to import the new 1.1.2 xml file in my ACP and got the following error...

XML Error: XML_WAR_UNKNOWN_VERSION at Line 146

Forum version is 3.7.2

[Leo Brazil]

I'm using your previous version on 3.7.2 PL1 and working fine so far.

The only problem I'm facing is the e-mails sent to users are not sent using admin e-mail address just like regular Vb notifications. It tooks the sender as origin path of my system like directions for admin mail box. The e-mails are sent anyway but e-mails systems like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail put them as spam.

I tried to find in your code a reason for this but no lucky so far. Any tips ?

Tks

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Leo Brazil

I'm using your previous version on 3.7.2 PL1 and working fine so far.

The only problem I'm facing is the e-mails sent to users are not sent using admin e-mail address just like regular Vb notifications. It tooks the sender as origin path of my system like directions for admin mail box. The e-mails are sent anyway but e-mails systems like Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail put them as spam.

I tried to find in your code a reason for this but no lucky so far. Any tips ?

Tks

I shall look into this for you. Watch this space.