Mini Mods - Email Reminder for inactive users

AS OF MARCH 16TH 2013 - THIS ADDON IS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT TIME AVAILABLE. THANK YOU ALL FOR USING THIS ADDON AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT. IF YOU OR YOU KNOW OF ANYONE THAT WOULD BE ABLE TO PICK UP WHERE I LEFT OFF ON THIS ADDON, PLEASE DO SO. I'M RELEASING THIS ADDON TO THE VBULLETIN COMMUNITY TO UPDATE AS NEEDED.
================================================== =======

What does it do?
=====================================
This mod will send out reminder emails to inactive members to encourage them to come back to your site.

I also want to give full credit and thanks to the developers of the previous versions from which this was derived:
technom8t (Email reminder for inactive users 1.0.0)
C Braithwaite and djbaxter (Email reminder for inactive users v1.2.7)
robertjandreu (Email reminder for inactive users 1.1.3)

*** See Updates section below for new feature list per release. ***

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS WITH THE ADDON, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE INSTALLED LINK!! THANK YOU!!

Features
=====================================
* Turn product on/off.
* Set the number of days a user can be away from your site before being considered inactive. (Default: 30 days)
* Send reminder emails once and once only during any inactive period. (Default: Off)
* Edit maximum number of reminder emails sent totally.
* Set how often an reminder email is sent during an inactive period .
* Set reminder email format - TEXT or HTML.
* Set the reminder email subject. (phrased) (site must be placed in debug mode currently to edit, not translate)
* Set the reminder email body. (phrased) (site must be placed in debug mode currently to edit, not translate)
* Set the usergroups to be sent a reminder email.
* Set userids to exclude.
* Log inactive users that have been sent a reminder.

Install Instructions
--------------------------
This was written specifically for VB4. The VB3.8.x version is here.

IMPORTANT BEFORE YOU INSTALL, IF YOU HAVE A PREVIOUS VERSION INSTALLED I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU BACK UP YOUR
CUSTOM REMINDER MESSAGE SUBJECT AND MESSAGE BODY THIS MOD WILL OVER WRITE THEM. ALSO, IN VERSION 2.x, REMINDER
MESSAGE CONTENTS HAS BEEN MOVED TO USING VBPHRASES. LOOK IN THE INSTALL.TXT FILE WITH THIS UPLOAD FOR A LIST OF
PHRASES USED IN THIS MOD.

1. Back up Custom Reminder Email Phrases that you have made.
2. Upload file in the upload folder to the forums folder on your server.
3. In your AdminCP:
a. If you've installed an older version of this mod prior to 1.1.4 you must uninstall it first as well as remove the files that came with it. I can not stress this enough.
b. Go to Plugs & Products -> Product Manager -> Add New Product.
c. Import the product xml from the zip file. (make sure to use overwrite)
4. The mod is disabled by default on install so you will need to enable it. Go to Vbulletin "Settings" -> Options -> Inactivity Reminder Emails.
5. Settings and the inactivity log viewer are also available on the left menu just above the users settings group.

History Log
=======================================
Update 2.2.1
* NEW : New plugin resets inactive members when they return to site.
* FIX : UserID field in inactivity log was showing 0, and UserID was not being added to the optout url.

UpDate 2.2.0
* CHANGE : Inactivity is now based on members Last Activity Date.
* ADD : Exporting the following additional values which can be used in reminder email templates. Check readme.txt in zip file for list of place holders.

Update 2.1.5
* CHANGE : Mod no longer has the option of adding a footer credit to the end of your website.
* CHANGE : Mod no longer has the option of adding a footer credit to outgoing emails.
* CHANGE : New Reminder Optout: Currently this is only accessable from emails being sent out.

Note: Please let members know that they may receive one more email at which time they can choose to optout/unsubscribe by clicking on the embedded link or copying/paste it into
their browser.

* FIX : Reminders were still being sent out incorrectly. I believe this is now fixed finally.
* FIX : Issues when emails were sent out had the incorrect "From" address and listed the host domain name. This should be resolved now.
* FIX : Issue regarding special characters in the usernames being added to the database has been resolve.
* NEW: New data fields have been implimented for keeping track of when reminders are sent out and how many a member has received. If you have a had this mod installed since version 1.1.4, it will look for those fields and rename them so you do not loose previous data in those fields, otherwise new fields will be added.
* NEW: I've added the ability to turn off the admin report. In this version, if it is enabled, you may receive 2 reports. One report for members that have never received a reminder and one for members who haven't received a reminder since the last reminder based on the frequencey setting in the mod settings screen.
* NEW: Reminder's sender and email address are correctly determined now. Should now reflect site name with the webmasteremail address as the reply to.
* CHANGE :Translations for 2.1.1 may not work for versions after since some templates and phrases have been removed.

Update 2.1.1 (6/24/2010) - German Translation - (Thanks Semmi)
Thanks to Semmi for translating the Admin menu, Phrases and Reminder Phrase Templates to German.

Update 2.1.1 (3/30/2010) - Bug Fix
* FIX - Removed extra where clause in query where scheduled task script was performing an update when inactive reminders where based on last post count.
* FIX - Email Phrase Templates - Changed $bburl variable to $forumurl to correct a broken unsubscribe link.
* NEW - Includes tool to reset the date and count of reminder emails that were previously sent to users. This tool is mainly for testing purposes.

Update 2.1.0 (3/26/2010) - Bug Fixs and some new features
* Edit number of emails send totally
* Choose whether inactivity is based on members "Last Post" or their "Last Activity"
* Keep a log of all inactive users contacted
* Opt-Out Feature for members - Include an opt-out link in reminder email. (Thanks to Gene Steinberg)
* Added a link to the bottom of the default email template phrases that members can use to unsubscribe from reminder emails.

Update 2.0.1 (03/15/2010 9:00pm) - Bug Fix
* FIX - Issue related to processing users in a batch configuration. Mod was checking for a field length greater than zero instead of a numeric value greater than zero.

Update 2.0.0 (03/15/2010) - Complete rewrite of mod
* NEW - Can specify number of users to process during nightly scheduled task.
* NEW - Send reminder emails in either text or html format.
* NEW - Email subject and message body uses vb phrase templates. I've included sample content in email phrase templates so all you need to is customize as desired.

Update 1.1.4 (03/05/2010) - Initial release for vBulletin 4.x
* FIX - Would continue to send out email more often than specified intervals due to incorrect setting in cron job.
* NEW - Exclude userids from processing.


IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS WITH THE ADDON, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. THOSE THAT HAVE NOT INDICATED THE MOD IS INSTALLED WILL BE A LOWER PRIORITY.

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE INSTALLED LINK!! THANK YOU!!

PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO NOMINATE.

If you like this mod and it has helped your site, and would like to see more features added, please consider donating.
Your support is very much appreciated! Thank you - Thank you

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by TalkVirginia

Where you able to send reminder email out at least once to inactive users? The way it works is the first time reminder emails are sent out, each inactive user will get a timestamp for that reminder mail run. Each time the cron job runs after that it will use the number of days set in the field "How often should we send inactivity reminders". For example, if a user has been inactive for 180 days, this user would get a reminder. If you have 30 in the field mentioned above, this user would not receive another reminder for 30 days. If you want them to get reminders more frequently, then you would need to set this to a lower number. For instance, 7 days then they would get reminders, once a week.

It works the same way when sending reminders in lastpost mode.

Crapola my bad.... I had used this member to test a few days back and I forgot it. The mod is working just like it should. :up:

However the last sentence in the reminder message I had to change from $bburl to $forumurl to get the url to display and work properly. Just thought I would let you know in case you want to correct in your next update.

Thanks for all your hard work and time you have put into this mod. It really helps me keep my site cleaned up and old members returning.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by archet1337

I have only tried it once. Give me a couple of minutes and I will check and get back to you.

Edit: I'm having a hard time reproducing it as I can't get the cron to send out any emails even though I have set last activity/post of two test accounts back one and three months.

When I get the email reports sent from the same email address to admin, they show up with "Digi-Tech Forums" as sender, so I can only assume it's working as intended?

If not, I will give you a shout

I put this little tool together to make it easier to reset the reminders for testing purposes or for some other reason. All this does is reset the emaildate and emailcount fields to zero so that you can do a test run for a test account or reset all users to do them all over again.

It consists of 2 files:
1 new file: resetreminders.php
1 updated file: cpnav_remindermail.xml

1. Unzip the attached file and upload the contents to your forum root.
2. Go to and/or refresh your admincp.
3. Go to Inactive Reminders -> Reset Reminders
4. Enter the user ids you want to reset separated with a comma, or enter 0 for all.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by Alibass

Crapola my bad.... I had used this member to test a few days back and I forgot it. The mod is working just like it should. :up:

Not a problem! Glad to hear it's working good for you.

Originally Posted by Alibass

However the last sentence in the reminder message I had to change from $bburl to $forumurl to get the url to display and work properly. Just thought I would let you know in case you want to correct in your next update.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll make a note of that.

Originally Posted by Alibass

Thanks for all your hard work and time you have put into this mod. It really helps me keep my site cleaned up and old members returning.

Not a problem! I enjoy doing it and I get my 15 mins of fame. LOL j/k ... but I do enjoy making the mods. I'm glad to hear it's helped your site. Now if I could only get members to be active on my site...

[archet1337]

Originally Posted by TalkVirginia

I put this little tool together to make it easier to reset the reminders for testing purposes or for some other reason. All this does is reset the emaildate and emailcount fields to zero so that you can do a test run for a test account or reset all users to do them all over again.

Thank you, that did the trick. I was able to reset and run the cron job once more.

This is the result I got:

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by archet1337

Thank you, that did the trick. I was able to reset and run the cron job once more.

Ah ok - Thanks for the info! I don't think there is anything I can do with that. I'm not 100% sure, but that may be a gmail issue. I have some work I have to get done for a .NET class I'm taking ( I know... Boo! Hiss! Micro$tink goop... lol ) Anyway, I'll try to reproduce that on my end with a test gmail account asap. Is there any way you can view the hidden mail header info, and attach that in a text file? I'll see if there is anything in the header that might cause that or if there is anything I need to change or possibly include.

[archet1337]

Great stuff. Thanks Jim

Will keep an eye out for updates.

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by archet1337

Thank you, that did the trick. I was able to reset and run the cron job once more.

This is the result I got:

I have tested this on a user with a gmail acct and it worked fine. Are you sending your emails through your hosting server? If yes try sending through your ISP or another service. Your hosting server or ISP maybe blocking sender info.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by Alibass

I have tested this on a user with a gmail acct and it worked fine. Are you sending your emails through your hosting server? If yes try sending through your ISP or another service. Your hosting server or ISP maybe blocking sender info.

Yes, I'm sending reminders through my host (bluehost.com). I quickly created a Gmail account and was able to reproduce the issue as well. I also looked at the header when I received one through my ISP (comcast) account and that worked fine.

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by TalkVirginia

Yes, I'm sending reminders through my host (bluehost.com). I quickly created a Gmail account and was able to reproduce the issue as well. I also looked at the header when I received one through my ISP (comcast) account and that worked fine.

I run all my mail through my host and it works fine. Some host companies put a block on somethings so you do not use their server for spam.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by Alibass

I run all my mail through my host and it works fine. Some host companies put a block on somethings so you do not use their server for spam.

ah ok. Well.. as long is it's not crashing it's a good thing. lol