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AS OF MARCH 16TH 2013 - THIS ADDON IS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT TIME AVAILABLE.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.
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What does it do?
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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
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* 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
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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
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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

[archet1337]

But if it's the host that is the cause of this issue, why aren't they blocking the senders name on the emails admin receive?

Also, if that is the case, is there a way to get around that?

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by archet1337

But if it's the host that is the cause of this issue, why aren't they blocking the senders name on the emails admin receive?

Also, if that is the case, is there a way to get around that?

Good question!!! Answer: I have no idea, at the moment. However, I'll definitely look into it more and include it in my testing of later versions.

[archet1337]

Sounds great! Thanks for providing A+ support for your mods.

I've subscribed to the thread and will keep my eyes open for any updates

Keep up the good work.

[shyguy82]

Thanks a lot for this mod, I just installed it. So from what I understand, it will send a number of emails specified in settings every N number (times) specified in CRON JOBS settings (default 1 hour 30 min). I have a large board with 115k users with about 20k inactive users, I've set the number of emails to send to 10 and an interval to 30 min, is this a good setting? Because if I leave it at 5 emails per session and 1 hr and 30 min, it will take forever to send them.

Thank you very much again and I will rate this mod in a couple of days.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by shyguy82

Thanks a lot for this mod, I just installed it. So from what I understand, it will send a number of emails specified in settings every N number (times) specified in CRON JOBS settings (default 1 hour 30 min).

You're correct to a point. It's not 1 hour and 30 mins, it actually means that the cron job will run every day at 1:30 in the morning.

Based on a tutorial I checked out just to confirm my understanding. If you look at this chart, it will show that the cron job is laid out like this:

minute hour [day of month] [Month] [Day of Week]

Field Locations and Meaning:

1.Minute (0-59)
2.Hour (0-23)
3.Day of month (1-31)
4.Month (1-12, Jan, Feb, ...)
5.Day of week (0-6) 0 = Sunday, 1 = Monday, ... or Sun, Mon, etc)
6.Command to execute

I have a large board with 115k users with about 20k inactive users, I've set the number of emails to send to 10 and an interval to 30 min, is this a good setting? Because if I leave it at 5 emails per session and 1 hr and 30 min, it will take forever to send them.

I would strongly recommend resetting it back to process at midnight or in the early morning hours. You may want to check with your host provider and see if there is a limit to now many emails you can send at one time. I imagine it would also depend on how you have vBulletin itself configured. Do you use the mailqueue or do you send email out immediately? I haven't worked with large amounts like that before so I don't know what your hosting situation you have or what it will support. To be on the safe side till more can be determined I'd try small batches of maybe 100 - 200 then increase it by 100 or so.




Members get an inactivity grace period... which a site admin would set to 1 or more days. This means that a user would have to be inactive for that number of days before they would receive their first reminder email. In the example above, users would have to be inactive for 30 days. They would receive an email reminder on their 31st day.



Depending on what you have set in this field. If for instance you have 7, this would send out a reminder every 7 days until that user logs back in and/or posts a message.

Does this answer your questions and/or concerns? Please let me know if you have any other questions.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by archet1337

Sounds great! Thanks for providing A+ support for your mods.

I've subscribed to the thread and will keep my eyes open for any updates

Keep up the good work.

Thank you very much Archet! I'm still fairly new at this but this is kind of my stepping stone to developing larger addons and mods for vBulletin. I know this is a small mod but my goal in is to provide quality software and support... "Knock your socks off" support is what I like to call it. lol

[Tize.]

5 Stars, Installed.
Thank you.

I have a question, as it starts and when it send the mails? The active or only when you have to give somewhere.
Thank you.

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by Tize.

5 Stars, Installed.
Thank you.

I have a question, as it starts and when it send the mails? The active or only when you have to give somewhere.
Thank you.

Thank you as well! I'm not sure I understand your question though. The mod is disabled on install so you would need to go into the mod settings to enable it after you install it, if that's what you are asking.

[Tize.]

Hello, thank you very much for your reply.
My question forgiveness that I could not explain well is the following.

When I install it as I make starts sending messages from the moment I put it. Or as begins automatically sent to the 7 days? thanks.

Pd. Sorry i am spanish :-)

[TalkVirginia]

Originally Posted by Tize.

Hello, thank you very much for your reply.
My question forgiveness that I could not explain well is the following.

When I install it as I make starts sending messages from the moment I put it. Or as begins automatically sent to the 7 days? thanks.

Pd. Sorry i am spanish :-)

?No un problema!

La Opci?n del Per?odo de gracia de la Inactividad deja de pagar a 7 d?as en instala primero.
Los usuarios o los miembros tendr?an que ser inactivos 7 d?as antes de recibir un correo electr?nico.
Quiz?s sea preferible poner esto a un n?mero m?s alto

La opci?n para cuando correos electr?nicos son enviados son puestos a 30 d?as en instala primero.

Perm?tame saber si esto no es traducido correctamente y contesta su pregunta.