Administrative and Maintenance Tools - vBMQN - Moderation Queue Notifications + Desktop App

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THE VB3 VERSION IS LOCATED HERE !

Introduction
There are many scenarios where this mod would come in handy for administrators. There are too many for me to cover them all, so I will give you the scenario this mod was developed for...

If you have a hand full of moderating staff and a large number of forums, adding each moderator to each forum can be quite a pain, however doing it that way would give you notifications for those moderators when something dose need their attention from within those said forums...

Another option would be to setup staff to be Global Moderators, this removes the need to add them to specific forums but it also removes queue notifications because moderators wouldn?t be assigned to individual forums...

We require new members to be moderated and/or that their first submissions to the forum require moderating, this can become quite a pain because again staff would need to continually check the moderation queue for new items...

The Solution and Requirements
What we need is moderation queue notifications via email and possibly a desktop app for those staff that would rather not use their email/inbox.

Features:
- Email Notifications for multiple users/addresses
- Notifications for every item type (posts, threads, attachments etc.)
- Email sending using the vB mail method/system (plain text emails)
- Email generation should use the vB Phrase system (multi-language support)
- Automated checking of the moderation queue (vB Cron system)
- Should support the Scheduled Task log system (debugging, report actions taken)
- Support for external applications and their development (xml based status)

All of the above are present in the first release of this mod (v1), please see the screen shots.

This mod is setup as a vB Cron task; I could not see/find a better way to make this an automated system working with anything else from within the vB system. By default the Cron task is setup to run every 30 minutes, if you would like to adjust this, simply go in and adjust the Cron job as you wish.

Desktop App
At the moment I am still developing a windows (.net) desktop app to work with this, right now we don?t have a big need for this so it?s not a priority for me to develop this and get it out to you any time soon, when the moderation queue is checked regardless of its current state the included xml file is updated to reflect this. So all your own app would need to do is read in this xml file and take the action you require.

If there is a massive interest in the desktop app for this I could be persuaded to push it to the top of my job list, for now though it is work in progress and with no planned deadline or release date.

Support
We have been using this mod in a production environment for almost 12 months now with no problems at all, it is really quite a simple mod and I?m surprised it hasn?t been done already, given the number of requests I have seen.

I will support this as best I can, I am a busy guy so you will need to understand this if you do run into any problems and request support.

Install/Upgrade
Installing this mod is much like any other, upload the files in the download to the same locations on your server, import the product xml file, go to the Admin > Settings > Options > vBMQN: General Options page and configure as you wish. If you are upgrading from an older version simply follow the same steps as installing for the first time.

Change Log
v1.0 - 11 Feb 2013
- First version

v2.0 - 12 Feb 2013
- Added support for table prefix's ( config.php > $config['Database']['tableprefix'] = ''; )
- Rewrite of the database query code, now uses the vB Database Class ( $vbulletin->db->query_first )
- Changed from the use of the php "number_format" function to the vB function "vb_number_format"
- Added instant email notification rather than sending emails to the vB mail queue ( $notsubscription = true )

Enjoy!
This has helped us allot and I hope those of you who have requested this before find it to be ?just the job? as well.

Regards,
Lee Roberts

[weave]

This looks great, tagging for when I have some time to test this one

[deadlySniper]

Originally Posted by Lee Roberts

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for your feedback, what kind of things would you like to see from its development?

.Me

For app that you have planned

• Manage Moderation
  • Accept
  • Ignore
  • Delete
• Ban User If Spam
• Popup Alert
• Manage vBMQN Settings

Zip File
Just advise. Put the include folder that it contains in a folder called upload. I know there are some users out there that not up to speed on everything.

[Lee Roberts]

Originally Posted by deadlySniper

For app that you have planned

• Manage Moderation
  • Accept
  • Ignore
  • Delete
• Ban User If Spam
• Popup Alert
• Manage vBMQN Settings

Good Morning Ryan,

Ok, well for the app the plan is for this to just be a notification tool. So no management features are planned in that sense, there will be some vBMQN settings for things like the URL of the xml file i.e www.example.com/forums/includes/xml/vbmqn.xml so the app would know where to look for updates, notifications and queue status.

Originally Posted by deadlySniper

Zip File
Just advise. Put the include folder that it contains in a folder called upload. I know there are some users out there that not up to speed on everything.

Well spoted, i will change the zip when/if there will be an update.

.Me

[Zakalway]

Would it be possible to include reported posts from a reported post forum in the notifications? That would be amazing.

[Lee Roberts]

Originally Posted by Zakalway

Would it be possible to include reported posts from a reported post forum in the notifications? That would be amazing.

Humm,

Possibly yes, however I?m thinking it may be better to just have reported posts put into the moderation queue anyway, when they get reported.

What do you think?

.Me

[Foxx.]

installed on 4.2.0 PL2 did receive email however after deleting the test posting I am still receiving emails notifying me that the queue needs attention. ie; there is still posts there that need to be looked at when in fact there are none. do I have a setting wrong?

also: this seems to not be the case and is a byproduct of the repeated emails I am receiving
changelog
v2.0 - 12 Feb 2013

- Added instant email notification rather than sending emails to the vB mail queue ( $notsubscription = true )

[Foxx.]

Originally Posted by Zakalway

Would it be possible to include reported posts from a reported post forum in the notifications? That would be amazing.

just "subscribe" to the "Reported Posts" forum and you will automatically receive an email to your account on file.

[Zakalway]

Originally Posted by Foxx.

just "subscribe" to the "Reported Posts" forum and you will automatically receive an email to your account on file.

...I'm an idiot. Thank you so much. Is there a way to get these emails sent instantly? I only see subscribe through control panel or email weekly or daily.

[Lee Roberts]

Originally Posted by Foxx.

installed on 4.2.0 PL2 did receive email however after deleting the test posting I am still receiving emails notifying me that the queue needs attention. ie; there is still posts there that need to be looked at when in fact there are none. do I have a setting wrong?

also: this seems to not be the case and is a byproduct of the repeated emails I am receiving
changelog
v2.0 - 12 Feb 2013

That is a strange one, a setting from this mod's options wouldnt do this. Instant email notification was actually present in version 1, i just forgot to document it, so added it to the change log to highlight it better for the guys upgrading...

Try running the repair and optimize wizard (AdminCP > Maintenance > Repair / Optimize Tables), i dont know if that will fix something for you or not but its the only thing i can think of doing, the mod dose a very simple database query and then performs an action based on the returned results, the results will be a 0 or a number above, there really is'nt any other way (that i know of) for the script/mod to think there is items waiting, it only knows this from something in the database telling it there is items waiting.

Originally Posted by Zakalway

...I'm an idiot. Thank you so much. Is there a way to get these emails sent instantly? I only see subscribe through control panel or email weekly or daily.

By default vB treats anything "subscription" based as a lower priority, so these types of email always go to the email queue, you could install a MOD to stop this (if one exists) or you could turn off the "Mailqueue System" (AdminCP > Settings > Options > Email Options

Use Mailqueue System
When enabled, subscription emails generated by your site will be processed in batches to lessen the load on your server. Account activation, lost passwords and other vital emails are sent instantly regardless of this setting. If your site has low traffic, subscription emails may be delayed.

I'm thinking of making another MOD that puts Reported Posts into the mod que at the point of those posts being reported, its really simple and easy to do. If a user reports a post, then they are asking for a member of staff to review that post, so it makes sense to me that it should happen that way.

.Me

[deadlySniper]

Originally Posted by Lee Roberts

By default vB treats anything "subscription" based as a lower priority, so these types of email always go to the email queue, you could install a MOD to stop this (if one exists) or you could turn off the "Mailqueue System" (AdminCP > Settings > Options > Email Options

Or what I did was just change the cron times. Made it run more often. This is if your host is decent since cron can make the site run slow

Originally Posted by Lee Roberts

I'm thinking of making another MOD that puts Reported Posts into the mod que at the point of those posts being reported, its really simple and easy to do. If a user reports a post, then they are asking for a member of staff to review that post, so it makes sense to me that it should happen that way.

.Me

Kudos, if you need help I can offer to be a contributor or supporter