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 GamerGirl27

I just updated to the latest copy to trial on a couple of test accounts of my own, and appears to be working well... however it is sending 4 copies of the reminder email to each one. There are 2 entries for each emailed member being listed in the log, so I am assuming its sending 2 copies for each?

Either way it should be just one log entry appearing, and one copy of the email being sent out to each member.

There is no recipient name being listed with the reminder email, its blank. Also basic HTML is not working (tried to use anchor links) which would be great if it worked otherwise

Hope this constructive feedback helps to iron out the bugs.

Cheers.

This is fantastic feedback! It looks like im getting closer to the goal! I will look into this and try and resolve the issue straight away.

[Gene Steinberg]

I did get a few complaints of people getting multiple copies, and I see some duplicate listings in the logs, so perhaps there's something to test.

I've tried external bounce management products, one for 3.7, and the EZ one, which is supposed to work in 3.7, but is listed in the 3.6 folder.

Neither works, really. The latter is mostly non-functional, and the coder isn't responding to my post on the subject. The former is being distributed mostly unsupported.

Can you possibly build that feature into your product? I think it's the missing link, and the other options are failures.

Peace,
Gene

[yahoooh]

it send e-mail but not support unicode utf-8

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by genesteinberg

I did get a few complaints of people getting multiple copies, and I see some duplicate listings in the logs, so perhaps there's something to test.

I've tried external bounce management products, one for 3.7, and the EZ one, which is supposed to work in 3.7, but is listed in the 3.6 folder.

Neither works, really. The latter is mostly non-functional, and the coder isn't responding to my post on the subject. The former is being distributed mostly unsupported.

Can you possibly build that feature into your product? I think it's the missing link, and the other options are failures.

Peace,
Gene

Originally Posted by yahoooh

it send e-mail but not support unicode utf-8

can you both give me more details of requirements?

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

can you both give me more details of requirements?

I'd like to see something that would, if a reminder message bounced, automatically send that user a PM to update his or her email address. If it happens a second time, the member is, in addition to getting another PM, automatically moved into another usergroup (Users Awaiting Email Confirmation or whatever group you create or select).

I'm assuming here that some users would return even without the inactive message and thus see they have to update their email addresses.

This may entail a bit of work, but in terms of running a forum efficiently and keeping members up to date, it would work beautifully. It may, in further consideration, be done as a separate product, to help with a general housecleaning of a forum, in which case any bounced email to a member would trigger it.

As I said, no existing product gets the job done efficiently -- or at all.

Peace,
Gene

[C Braithwaite]

I will seriously consider doing this. As a separate project or addition to this one i expect... i expect. For the time being i will work on removing all of the bugs in this mod.

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

I will seriously consider doing this. As a separate project or addition to this one i expect... i expect. For the time being i will work on removing all of the bugs in this mod.

Thanks. Meantime, I'll bumble along. That's what I do best.

Peace,
Gene

[Megatr0n]

Does this update fix all the bugs reported in GamerGirl27's post?

[grahamsmythe]

I just downloaded this update, and although the documentation shows it's version 1.2.4, version 1.2.2 is actually posted.

As far as I can make out, version 1.2.2 doesn't give you the option to change the email address of who the reminder came from

Nice product though!

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by grahamsmythe

I just downloaded this update, and although the documentation shows it's version 1.2.4, version 1.2.2 is actually posted.

As far as I can make out, version 1.2.2 doesn't give you the option to change the email address of who the reminder came from

Nice product though!

I noticed the same thing.

Something missing here?

Peace,
Gene