Send an alert and/or email on a member's birthday

[Paul B]

OK, this is a totally pointless "feature" I agree, but it might just add a little personal touch if a member receives a "Happy Birthday" alert on their birthday

And/or an email.

A lot of forums list members' birthdays at the bottom of forum home but as we all know, XenForo is all about less is more, so this would just be a way of acknowledging those members who have gone to the effort of entering their full birth date in their profile, without bloating the forum home page.

Besides, everyone likes being wished "Happy Birthday", even if it is via an automated script

Don't forget to like vote for this post if you agree

 

[Shadab]

If this had been implemented then Kier would have had 1 extra alert today

A drop in the ocean...

 

[Grover]

...but it might just add a little personal touch...

I am also gonna support this one.

XenForo is the most social oriented forum package out there, so more functionality that stimulates the social/personal experience even more is always welcome. Members have to fill in their birthday anyway to begin with when they register, so why not make valuable use of it indeed?

 

[Member 3639]

I vote for this as well, it's a feature i feel is needed for a more personal touch.

 

[wi11ie]

I would like to see this email added as well

 

[Veer]

+1 this.

 

[cmeinck]

I get plenty of responses that are positive regarding birthday emails. I get a few nastygrams, but they are in the minority. I'd like to see this feature or an add-on.

 

[Paul B]

A little birthday block in the sidebar wouldn't go amiss too

 

[Null]

I agree with the other replies above, XenForo is huge on the social aspect, this is one feature which would add a small personal touch.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I get a few nastygrams, but they are in the minority. I'd like to see this feature or an add-on.

This is when a "do not reply" email address comes in handy.

 

[Paul B]

With the new features in 1.1, I've got a workaround for this now.

First I created a notice which is displayed to the member on their birthday, using the {name} token in the notice text.

<div class="messageText ugc baseHtml" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-weight: bold">Happy Birthday {name}!</span> From all at Clip The Apex.</div>

Then I edited the sidebar_online_users template to add rich user name styling:

class="username{xen:if '!{$user.visible}', ' invisible'}{xen:if {$user.followed}, ' followed'}">{xen:helper richUserName, $user}</a><xen:if is="{$i} < {$onlineUsers.limit}">,</xen:if>

I then created a Birthday user group with a display styling priority of 10,000 (or as high as it needs to be), with a user title of:

<span style="font-weight:bold;color:#FF6600">It's My Birthday!</span>

And user name CSS of:

color: #FF6600;

Finally I created a user group promotion which adds the member to the Birthday user group on their birthday.


So the member in question gets a little birthday messages, and the other members can also see when it's their birthday due to the changed title and user name and title styling.

 

[Paul B]

There is a slight problem with the above...even if a member has unchecked Show day and month of birth in their Privacy settings, it will still show the mark up.

So be aware if you implement that on your own form.

 

[DBA]

While that would be cool, something I have found extremely useful in getting people to comeback and participate is the email on their birthday option, which could be a PC which could initiate an email, which would show up as an unread PC when they log in.

A reasonable # of people who join our site, forget about it, but with the 1/year email tend to come back.

Exactly, it's a yearly reminder to come back and check out your site.

Whenever I get some automated birthday message, I think great: another piece of useless, impersonal spam. In fact, the impersonality of it is somewhat insulting: it implies that I'm not worthy of a personal touch. It's the same reason why most people would prefer to talk to a human on the phone.

This is why I'd added a discount code to the email, gives it some value.

 

[Rob]

Imagine my delight last week, on my birthday to wake up to so many emails from so many forums. I was especially touched by the lovely email I received from vBulletin.com wishing me many happy returns.

One day, I hope to receive such an email from many xenforo powered forums

It seems the little tiny things (like threads and forums and a developer framework) have taken precedence but the big, important features like sending me a birthday greeting have been overlooked.

 

[ragtek]

here's the query to grab the users with today birthday http://xenforo.com/community/threads/ragtek-todays-birthdays.18397/ (but it's ignoring the timezone i think)

Maybe somebody else can create the cron and mail stuff
You can check this add-on http://xenforo.com/community/resources/inactive-user-mail-notifier.517/ to see how it's implemented...
You could copy it 1:1 and only change the query and remove the other stuff^^

 

[Rob]

I refuse to code this. It would be like sending myself a birthday card! Someone should code it for me

 

[mmoore5553]

[itsallaboutmeonmydayemail] Happy Belated Birthday [/itsallaboutmeonmydayemail]

 

[Rob]

 

[EQnoble]

here's the query to grab the users with today birthday http://xenforo.com/community/threads/ragtek-todays-birthdays.18397/ (but it's ignoring the timezone i think)

Maybe somebody else can create the cron and mail stuff
You can check this add-on http://xenforo.com/community/resources/inactive-user-mail-notifier.517/ to see how it's implemented...
You could copy it 1:1 and only change the query and remove the other stuff^^

I will give it a try over the weekend.

 

[AzzidReign]

Those emails are annoying...

 

[EQnoble]

Those emails are annoying...

possible option dually noted...
(opt out of misc. mailings - non administrative)