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
***

[djbaxter]

Great update, Chris.

One point: The add-on is set to "Active = No" by default. I almost missed this... I would suggest that the default should be "yes".

[s0lidgr0und]

Originally Posted by GearTripper

unadvertised hotlinking/self-promotion is SPAM IMO... as much as i hate it, it's done rather often with hacks released here. i always just remove the occurance if i decide to use the hacks... AND rate negatively appropriately.

Agreed. I'd be more apt to allow the link to stay there if there was an obvious link to every member's board that uses his hack. Only seems fair to me.

I did forget to mention in my rantings that I do think this is a good hack. I'm not sure if it works yet because I have no way to really test it out, but emailing these members is something I've always done manually and it'll save me the time it took to do that. Thank you.

[lolo?]

thanks for your update great evolution

[GCC LLC]

Hi, I have this installed and it's seemingly working correctly with the exception that I'm not receiving any emails. I set it to send out only to the Admin usergroup (group 7 in my case) based on last activity. I went into the AdminCP for another administrator I set up and set it's last activity to June of last year. Then I run the cron job and I don't receive the emails. Any ideas? I want to test it on myself before I add all of the regular usergroups. Thanks!

[JoeWho]

I installed your e-mail reminder and it works great. I have received several think use from people who have just forgot to check back in.

I do have a question: I have also received an e-mail from somebody who just joined saying they have received the notice also, how does this determine who will receive the notice and who won't?

I only signed up not more than a week ago! And this is the second email of this kind that I have received...
dg

I have it set:
Days of Inactivity: 30
Email Frequency: 15

Has anybody else had a problem with this? Or is my settings incorrect and causing the problem?

Thanks.

[ehsanix]

thank u very much

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Great update, Chris.

One point: The add-on is set to "Active = No" by default. I almost missed this... I would suggest that the default should be "yes".

my reasoning was that i didnt want emails to be sent out before people had updated the template.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by JoeWho

I installed your e-mail reminder and it works great. I have received several think use from people who have just forgot to check back in.

I do have a question: I have also received an e-mail from somebody who just joined saying they have received the notice also, how does this determine who will receive the notice and who won't?




I have it set:
Days of Inactivity: 30
Email Frequency: 15

Has anybody else had a problem with this? Or is my settings incorrect and causing the problem?

Thanks.

that is one thing that i thought might be a problem, and was my next update - sending emails to new users. ill fix that asap.

[GCC LLC]

I should add the following to my post above. Even though I have a user in my Admin group who has not logged onto the board since 2006, I get the following results when I run the cron job manually:

Inactive User Reminder Emails

Done

Looking at the php code, it appears that it should say:

Inactive User Reminder Emails

mailing test@test.com (done)

Done

but I don't see anything in between the lines even though clearly this test user i set up does qualify for a mail according to the parameters I set up..

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by GCC LLC

Hi, I have this installed and it's seemingly working correctly with the exception that I'm not receiving any emails. I set it to send out only to the Admin usergroup (group 7 in my case) based on last activity. I went into the AdminCP for another administrator I set up and set it's last activity to June of last year. Then I run the cron job and I don't receive the emails. Any ideas? I want to test it on myself before I add all of the regular usergroups. Thanks!

you mean you are logging on as a diferent admin, setting your other account's lastactivity to june, and while on the second admin account running the cron resulting in no emails?

what is output when you run the cron manually - it should say who is being emaild?