CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Can you include a screenshot of the scheduled reminder configuration? 

Do you have repeat selected? Repeat doesn't work the way you think it would when the entity is memberships.

Once a contact has been added to the list of people to receive the scheduled reminder (which happens in your case when they meet the criteria of 30 days before membership End Date) they stay on the list forever. (see http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,34912  for one person's proposed solution)

( A related issue is what happens the following year http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,35024)

I have no idea if creating a smart group works, as ttrezren didn't report back, but I don't think it will.

Removing the "repeat" check won't do what you want either as that will mean the reminder is sent only once to each person, the first time they meet your criteria of "30 days before end date".

The way we handle it is to create a series of scheduled reminders for membership that aren't set to repeat.  In our case we have 3 scheduled reminders ( 3 weeks before, 2 weeks before, 3 days before).  That way a member is only sent the next reminder in the sequence if they haven't renewed by then. It has the added advantage of letting us escalate the reminder message as the membership end date approaches.

HOWEVER, because the reminder is not set to repeat, next year anyone who received a particular reminder this year will not be sent that reminder again.  For example if Mary Smith was sent the "3 weeks before" reminder in 2014 and renewed that day, she wasn't sent either the "2 weeks before" or "3 days before".   In 2015 she won't be sent the "3 weeks before" reminder even though she meets the criteria as she has already received  that email. She will receive the "2 weeks before" (and "3 days before" if she hasn't renewed by then). 

If you set the reminder to repeat every 12 months you introduce another set of problems. If Jane Wood didn't renew until the "3 days before" reminder in 2014 then in 2015 she will be sent the "2 weeks before" reminder even if she renews the day she get the  "3 weeks before" reminder. People only get added to the "send to" list, they don't get removed from it, she was sent it in 2014, so she will be sent it in 2015.  And if you have 2 year renewals as well as one year renewals things get even worse.

For the moment, to get around those issues you need to create a new set of reminders each year ( http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,35024).  This is not ideal,  I had to recreate 16 scheduled reminders in late 2014, but there is an issue dealing with this that might get back ported to 4.4.LTS. https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-15728