Sending Notification BEFORE Expiration

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by topfive, Jul 28, 2005.

  1. topfive

    topfive New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Messages:
    6
    Is there currently a way to notify users that their subscription is expiring soon?

    If not, this is something that I see as vital. It would be great to automatically send 2-3 messages at set points prior to a subscription expiring. My customers don't want to receive a message saying "Your account has already expired" with no previous warning -- and I shouldn't have to generate a report every day and send warning messages out manually.
  2. gswaim

    gswaim CGI-Central Partner

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2003
    Messages:
    641
    Absolutely

    Top5,

    You can do this two ways...

    From Setup/Configuration > Email
    You can configure "Expire Notification" to send an email notification about a product's expiration. You enter the number of days from the expiration date you want to send a message. Positive numbers occur before the expiration date and negative numbers occur after the expiration date. For example entering a "5" here would send out an expiration notice 5 days before the expiration. This setting would apply to all subscriptions.

    The message sent is the "expire_mail.txt" file found in the templates directory. You can modify this file it you want. This file would be sent out for all products that are expiring.

    Or

    If you want to send "several" notices, you would have to use the "Send Automatic Emails" setting on the products page. Here you can configure aMember to send email messages based on the number of days past the first day of the subscription. You can include as many messages as you want. For instance if the subscription was for 60 days, you could configure aMember to send out a different reminder notice at day 45, 50, 55 etc.

    You can custom write each email message and each product can have its own interval and messages. The aMember manual covers how to set this up.

    Good Luck!

    Grant
  3. topfive

    topfive New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Messages:
    6
    So you mean there's WORK involved?!? :mad:

    Just kidding. :D Thanks for the info, Grant. That sounds like exactly what I was looking for.
  4. eschulze

    eschulze New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2003
    Messages:
    2
    Question regarding this

    In the admin cp it describes the Send Automatic Emails function as:
    My question is this - is the start date being used to calculate when to send the email the date of sign-up/update or the begin date of the subscription.

    Our site has year long subscriptions and I want to send emails at 30, 14 and 7 days letting them know about their expiration date and to renew their subscripton. Following logic and instructions this is the code inserted into the Send Automatic Emails text box:
    I also set the automatic expiration notice for the product to 7 days.

    I know this will work for the first subscription, but what if the user renews 30 days prior to the subscription expiring? The new subscription will not start until the first ends, but when will the emails be sent? From the date of renewal(signup) or the date the subscription starts?

    Also, does aMember recognize that a renewal has been put in place? Meaning, would the user receive the expiration notice at 14 days and 7 days if he renews the subscription 30 days prior?

    Finally, (I think this is related to the above questions) how does Send Automatic Emails after Renewal function? The description is somewhat confusing.
    I'm not sure what to set this to, but does this hold the key to my questions above?
  5. alex

    alex aMember Pro Customer Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2004
    Messages:
    6,021
    1. You configure how days calculation will be done. THere is a parameter:
    Send Automatic Emails after Renewal
    When user renews subscription, aMember can
    resend days counter and start emails again from first one
    or aMember can continue old mailing cycle.
    at aMember CP -> Setup -> Email or in product settings.

    In short, if user renews his subscription, aMember can start days calcualation for emailing from new subscription begin date, or continue calculation from very first user payment date.
  6. microlinx

    microlinx Member

    Joined:
    Oct 26, 2004
    Messages:
    268
    Alex:
    Can the "Send Automatic Emails" text files include the same variables as the "Send Emails" function? (and do they work as such?)

    Such as:
    {$user.name} - first and last name (insert)
    {$user.email} - email (insert)
    {$user.name_f} - first name (insert)
    {$user.name_l} - last name (insert)
    {$user.login} - login (insert)
    {$user.pass} - password (insert)
  7. alex

    alex aMember Pro Customer Staff Member

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    6,021
    Yes, it is possible.
  8. mmba_webmaster

    mmba_webmaster New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2004
    Messages:
    20
    So it sounds likes there's basically there is no clean method for sending out multiple expiration notices. It still doesn't sound like sending notices from the start of a membership works for those of us who's members well renew ahead of time. I'm not sure it'd work for manually entered subscriptions that get backdated up to three months either, a common membership practice.

    Heck, I'd settle for aMember being able to mass email recently expired members. Or being able to export expired members. Or having a report showing recent expiration counts and rates. I'm very frustrated that these are basic membership processing features that are not in aMember.
  9. alex

    alex aMember Pro Customer Staff Member

    Joined:
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    6,021
    It is not a problem to implement multiple expiration notices - will be done in next release.

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