[Dev] Recurring Messages

[mr.trevor]

I can set up a timed message in advance but being busy (and forgetful) I am wondering if it would be easy to keep the message and have it recurring?

We just need blanks on the Month and Year selectors (Oh..! and a bit of code from Dean.)

For example:
If only  the 15th was set, maybe it could be sent every 15th of the month.
If the 15th May was set maybe every 15th May.
If (at present) the 15th May 2006 was set, then just that one time.

This first option would allow monthly reminders of payment due dates or order deadlines or just to remind of login details for a low contact 'back burner' list.

The second option would allow for annual subscription reminders or advance reminders to order for special anniversaries/public holidays and which could all be set in advance once without having to do it again each year. All the different 'order in advance' reminders can add up, and the user selection feature focusing these reminders could free up some time when you need it most.
 
Just think, when you go off on your holidays... (or working away) no more worry about sending those monthly reminders on time.

**
Of course if you wanted something reminded every two weeks you can just put two copies in two weeks apart.

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi Trevor,

The second option would allow for annual subscription reminders or advance reminders to order for special anniversaries/public holidays and which could all be set in advance once without having to do it again each year. All the different 'order in advance' reminders can add up, and the user selection feature focusing these reminders could free up some time when you need it most.

This is a good point, and very worthy - yes, you are right anniversaries and other dates need to fall on Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly boundaries and so many days before that... I have not yet played with it but assume something like 350 would be 15 days before the year was up, BUT, that doesn't take into account things like leap year...  

What I would like to see is an option to set recurring reminders on Monthly setup - you also cannot do that with a single day, for example what happens with Feb 29?   So there needs to be another way to handle it, for example 1 month and 1 week BEFORE that send out the first reminder, or more likely: 3 weeks BEFORE 1 year from now start sending reminders for renewals, etc.

DW, you've got your hands full on this, but I assume you've got some good date functions in PHP or can find some that will do this addition/subtraction without a hitch.... it's just how you present it that will make a difference too - perhaps as another option to what you have now?

Thanks,

[mr.trevor]

Thanks for reading my comments. :-)

I think what I said covers most (all..? ) of those points (maybe).

I was looking at the Scheduled Mail settings. I wasn't counting days ahead but considering actual dates. So if you want quarterly reminders you just set four reminders up for the year (four, I can handle as quarterly is a bit of an exception..! ). Lets say January, April, July and October. Pick a day but never 29th, 30th or 31st..! ...and set the Year to 'ANY'. So on one day of each quarter you get a message going out every year regular. You even get to customise for the actual quarter as there are four messages set..!
It's a small price to 'pay' not being able to have 29th, 30th or 31st..!
(..and I think doing it like this, most of the code is already there.)

If you want one, two, three etc. weeks notice then just look up the date of that reminder for one year and set up the message. Set the Year to 'ANY' and your done. It would go out on that day each year.

Set up a message and set the Month & Year to 'ANY and you have monthly reminders regular.
Only small limitation is never use 29th, 30th or 31st..! (Although there must be some perverse situation where you want to only send out a message on the months that have 31 days..!)
The coding for this seems simplicity itself for DW (see, I do think of these things).
When checking for Month, accept 'ANY' as true, and the same goes for Year.
The only other part is that if Month or year is set to 'ANY' then don't remove message after sending. (Well, it sounds easy to code, anyway..)  :-)

DW could fit it in during a coffee break.. ;-)
(Oh.. DW, I don't think I know of another system with this feature... yet)

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi DW, Trevor,

Only small limitation is never use 29th, 30th or 31st..!

That is NOT a good thing to do, you never want to create software with very specific LIMITATIONS to their usage, I'll tell you why, because you'll be answering questions ALL DAY LONG from people trying to put in 29, 30 or 31st.

Also, it makes testing a nightmare, so please DW, do NOT create it that way and please follow what I have written above, please allow the scheduler to handle quarterly, yearly, or monthly recurring messages WITHOUT any date exceptions...  if you run into a date beyond the last of the month, you simply make the date the last day of the month.

[DW]

Hi guys,

I've been keeping up with this post but haven't had time to give it any input.  I like the implementation suggestions - thanks Trevor. (Thank you both for being so active here in the forum, by the way - it's a great help)

I did some thinking about this feature shortly before the last update.  I, too, noticed that it would be tricky to work around the fact that each month has a different number of days.

My final thoughts were to do it like this to avoid the issue:

- certain day of each month (if the day doesn't exist, it could automatically send on the last day of the month)
- last day of each month
- last day minus X days

While we're on the topic:

- certain day of each week
- daily,weekly,yearly,starting on a certain date

new ideas:
- 1 week/month/year/X days after subscription and weekly/monthly/yearly/every X days after that

That's pretty much everything you guys have repeated here. (Did I miss anything?) The code would be fairly straightforward - the hard part is working it into the interface on the Send Email page.  :x

Keep 'em comin'!

[mr.trevor]

I can see your point and appreciate your view.

If someone schedules a date for the 31st April, I wonder what they would expect to happen?

So if you schedule something Monthly on the 31st of the month, surely you wouldn't expect it to go out if there was not a 31st or adjust to an earlier date.?

Personally, If I was to schedule a monthly message, I would know that some months do not have a 31st and arrange a reminder a few days earlier. Maybe send at beginning of month as confirmation.?

I had thought of this use more as a 'Just a quick reminder, your subscription charge  will show on your account for next month. Your account details...etc.. '.
Or maybe 'Christmas is coming, remember to get your orders in early.
Final order date will be  7th Dec.'
I didn't think that the actual date would be that critical for a reminder.
Accounts processing would be more specific but messages in the form '...in the next few days...' seemed ok to me.

I had thought also that it might only take perhaps a couple of lines (well maybe four) in the code that Dean has already done to add a useful and unique feature.

If there were lots of questions why a message didn't go out on 31st April, well, I think the answer would be obvious.

I didn't want to cause Dean a lot of problems or make the actual interface more complex. Just an extra selection on two existing boxes.
Dean already has the scheduled message code done. This seemed a quick and easy change to prevent message from deleting and to accept (or not check) Year and/or Month selection.

Sorry if you do not think that this 'simple' approach would suffice for all needs. I am only thinking of the simplest and most obvious way of achieving a useful extra.
(I could actually find a use for an 'occasional' (and not completely routine 'reminder'. Using the 31st of the month would also achieve that. This gives 4 repeats irregularly during the year..! I can see that not many perhaps would find a use for this, but there are all of the other days of the month to send out reminders on.)  :-)

I really can't think why there should be that importance to use the 29th, 30th or 31st, or where a reminder couldn't go out on the 28th instead?

Well, maybe others have an opinion if they would find recurring reminder messages useful and if sending them on the actual last day of the month is imperative for this?

Hey, Dave hasn't even said he would think about this yet..!  :-)
He may think the whole idea is silly.  :-(


**
lol... Dean types faster than I do and I have dial-up at present so messages out of order.. :-)

[mr.trevor]

I think that the user interface is very important.
This is where most questions come from, '..what is this control for..?'. Do these settings conflict?
A cron type interface would fox many users who don't run the webspace.
If, maybe, there was a 'quarterly' selection, there would have to be another setting if users did not want the 1st of the month. 'x days before 'this_date'. If you are putting in a date then you still can't use 29, 30 or 31.
I still think my original suggestion is more straightforward and the more obvious to use (perhaps).
It would of course be possible to have an alternative 'x days before mmm month' but it just seems to be more confusing.
It seems simplest (still) to me to look at calendar and think 'ahh. so we want 6 days before this date... so that will be (nn)th. of each month.. oh, can't have 31st so send it a couple of days early.'

Well, it would be interesting to hear what some others think about it. I wonder what dates were being put in before I mentioned this?

I find it interesting to hear how others would use the features. I expect it would also be helpful for Dean when considering his website advertising.

++

OK... I was started off thinking about this and I was thinking about the anniversary of subscription date. Then I realised that a message set in a sequence for circa 360 days would already give that.

[DW]

Trev

I see why you suggested what you did - to keep it simple.  Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to work these features into the current interface easily.  I may need to add an extra line in the header of the Edit Email page, etc.  I will make sure that most things mentioned in this post are supported.  I hate choosing one way or the other - I believe in more options!   I could very well include the option to turn on or off sending on the last day of the month if the set date exceeds the # of days in a month.  That way my two top posters don't have to argue!  Now, shake hands!  Trev, BTW, who's Dave?   Is that me?

Regards

[mr.trevor]

lmao... Sorrry.. names are not my strong point. I had to ask my brother on one occasion what his was.. :-(
Yes, almost anything starting with 'D' could be yourself.
I am much better at logic and system design (no.. really.! That's what my 'work' is.).

...and... we werent arguing, honest..!  We were discussing different viewpoints.  :-)

I have every respect for the opinions of others and it is much better that they are expressed BEFORE any work is done, than complaining after the event.

Once we have all the views in the open we leave the final decision to yourself. THEN we form an alliance and complain about what you did.  ;-)