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
***

[Smoothie]

Originally Posted by Smoothie

Once again I am noticing a slight problem. I added a new usergroup to the settings. The setting is 90 and 30 days. In this usergroup I added, out of the 12 users, 2 should have been sent the email. Based on days of inactivity and "Receive Admin Emails" set to yes. According to the task log, no emails were sent............

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

sorry - so many posts to go through, i missed your question.

have the users got enabled admin emails?

Yes, see above post.

[Beermonster]

This has had really good results for me, brought back a lot of members that had forgot about me, thanks

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Smoothie

Yes, see above post.

try running it a few times - the code selects from all users before it checks their usergroup - if you up the quantity to something ridiculous just to test it, im sure it will send out emails to the expected members.

[mat.knott]

sorry if this has been asked already..

"How often to send a reminder email once a member has become inactive."

is that days, weeks, months???

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by mat.knott

sorry if this has been asked already..

"How often to send a reminder email once a member has become inactive."

is that days, weeks, months???

Days: Enter the number of days between subsequent email reminders.

[mvigod]

If you set the email quanity to 500 and have 5000 inactive users does that mean only 10% get an email? If the frequency is set to 180 does that mean in 6 months only the original 500 will get an email and the other 4500 ignored? Or does it send to all 5000 but just 500 at a time during each cron?

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by mvigod

If you set the email quanity to 500 and have 5000 inactive users does that mean only 10% get an email? If the frequency is set to 180 does that mean in 6 months only the original 500 will get an email and the other 4500 ignored? Or does it send to all 5000 but just 500 at a time during each cron?

ALL inactive users will get emails, sent out 500 at a time.

The frequency (180 in your example) does not refer to how often emails are sent out but rather to how long before a second or subsequent email is sent out to the same member.

[Fungsten]

has been sent out yet. I'm sure everything has been setup correctly.

[d8tabyte]

Installed and working great - awesome add-on!

[MafiaMaster]

I know that I keep posting this everywhere, but would this work for version 3.6.5, or is it purely 3.6.4?