Mini Mods - Inactive Users Email Reminders For 3.7.x

Inactive reminder emails. This mod was designed to send out a reminder to inactive members to try and win them back. Earlier versions of this plugin have had great success, and has been installed on 1000's of forums.

This mod is a revised version of my 3.6 modification.
Someone pointed out that I needed to make a new thread in the right forum for this.

***1.2.7 Update***
Fixed the \ in the message.
Changed the way the mails are processed to try and stop duplicates
Made the bounce management monitor ALL outgoing emails
Added more stats
Added bounced email messaage viewing with management options.
***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
***

**1.2.6 Update***
Identical to 1.2.5, however EzBounce support added.
***

**Opps Update***
Sorry i somehow managed to not include the file in the zip. My bad.
***

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

Sorry i just found an error in the install code. im updating the zip straight away

uploaded fix. i forgot to prefix tables.

[tekguru]

Okay that seems to have resolved that issue (cheers for that).

0.70 / 0.45) even though the Mod reports that 0 people are to be contacted. Number of users set to be processed per cycle is set to 3.

On disabling the Mod the server load has once more dropped to normal levels.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tekguru

Okay that seems to have resolved that issue (cheers for that).

0.70 / 0.45) even though the Mod reports that 0 people are to be contacted. Number of users set to be processed per cycle is set to 3.

On disabling the Mod the server load has once more dropped to normal levels.

did you miss out half a post there?

[tekguru]

vB ate it (honest), yep I was saying (or trying to) that server loads had increased to 3.03 / 1.80 once the mod was activated but drops back to the usual 0.70 / 0.45 figure if disabled.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by tekguru

vB ate it (honest), yep I was saying (or trying to) that server loads had increased to 3.03 / 1.80 once the mod was activated but drops back to the usual 0.70 / 0.45 figure if disabled.

i imagine that it will increase the load especially to begin with - think about all the checking and emailing going out?

[tekguru]

Yes, but......

1) The prior incarnations load was not as high

2) I reports there are no emails to send out?

[jellybaby]

What should the top line on the stats say, mine is blank above Emails sent!

Thanks

[i156]

When I installed it seemed to work but then I noticed I got a lot of emails to a few of my own accounts and now a lot of people have complained about getting so many emails.

My settings were:
3 users per cycle
31 days inactive
2 max mails (it seems this didn't actually apply?)
7 days between subsequent emails
inactivity based on last post no
only on registered users
reports on for 31 days

I've turned it off for now for fear of pissing off more of my members but I'd really like to get this working as I think its a great feature.

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by i156

When I installed it seemed to work but then I noticed I got a lot of emails to a few of my own accounts and now a lot of people have complained about getting so many emails.

My settings were:
3 users per cycle
31 days inactive
2 max mails (it seems this didn't actually apply?)
7 days between subsequent emails
inactivity based on last post no
only on registered users
reports on for 31 days

I've turned it off for now for fear of pissing off more of my members but I'd really like to get this working as I think its a great feature.

Do the "Sent Emails" show that multiple emails have gone out?
Also - do you have a large board (how many members?) and if so have you enabled locking on your mailqueue system?

[RedTrinity]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

Also - do you have a large board (how many members?) and if so have you enabled locking on your mailqueue system?

I didn't mentioned it earlier but with the multiple emails issue, last time I tested this plugin, I was only emailing reminders out to a total of 2 members (test accounts with my own email addresses) even though our board has just over 1,000 members total.

I don't know whether the "large forum" issue (if you would classify ours as one with that many members - I don't know what number is considered large) affects the plugin in general, or only if its a large number of those members being emailed, but thought it worth a mention in case this info is helpful.