CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Check lines 258-9 in UpdateMembershipRecord.php

//set membership reminder date to NULL since we've sent the reminder.
                        CRM_Core_DAO::setFieldValue( 'CRM_Member_DAO_Membership', $dao->membership_id, 'reminder_date', 'null');

HOWEVER, that code SHOULD only be executed if the membership type has a non-NULL value for renewal_msg_id or autorenewal_msg_id - which you said was not the case.  You may need to add some debug code in the script to see what's happening (after verifying the values in your civicrm_membership_type table).

I've started to work on this which is also a MIH campaign: http://civicrm.org/mih#multremind

Not sure if others have already started working on this (which is part of the reason I'm writing here) - I have attached a diff to UpdateMembershipRecord.php that - if run on a daily cron job - will send out three reminders ($this->reminder_dates = array(45,15,0);).

Updates would include:
 * support different reminder templates per reminder
 * create a UI for setting reminder dates (and templates)
 * support proper operations when cron is not run daily

Hi!  Wanted to share the membership reminders program that we are using in case it's helpful to the cause.  It's a hack that my brother wrote for me to send 7 renewal emails based on their expire date.  We bypass the reminder feature in membertype and do not use any of the reminder fields.  We use CiviMail and the message templates to send the emails but otherwise, this is a separate program which runs after the UpdateMembershipRecord.php script.  It also has some additional membership parameters like expire date and member type which we merge into the email to personalize it.

NOTE:  The membership reminders.txt file is a zip file.  Rename it to .zip and unzip it.  This is the code.

In a nutshell, this program provides the following:

Supports up to 7 renewal reminder emails to be sent based on their expire date.  NOTE:  The program provides parameters that can be changed to support a smaller or larger number of reminders but it must be an odd number, i.e., 3, 5, 7, etc.
Calculates which reminder letter to send based on their expire date.  Calculated nightly.  Nothing is stored.
Provides the ability to produce reminders that may have been missed should the cron job fail or the server go down.  A simulation mode that tells the computer which set of dates to run the program for.
Provides a way to test the program in simulation mode and not send emails but generate the log so you can see what would have been sent.
Logs an activity record of each email sent with the text content saved and the # of the renewal reminder stored in the description.

I've attached the code we are using.  Here's how to use it.  I've attached my documentation which is written more for the user than the programmer but it may help explain the concepts.

1.  Setup your member types in CiviCRM.  Find out the member type ids.  You will need to put these in the SendReminder.php file.  Do not use the reminder fields within member type setup.
2.  Setup your message templates in CiviMail.  Find out the template ids.  Keep these handy for the program.
3.  To Find the Ids, roll your mouse over the Edit button next to the template or member type.  Look at the bottom of your browser window in the status bar for the url link.  Look for something that says update&id=  The number after the equal sign is your ID.
4.  Rename the membership reminders.txt file to membership reminders.zip and copy it into sites/all/modules/civicrm/bin and unzip it.  You should have the following files:  SendReminder.php, VKutil.php and Arg.php.
5.  Open the SendReminder.php in a text editor and CHANGE the following lines to run this in test mode.

LINE 166:  define ("SIMULATE_DATES", false);  Set this to true to run in simulation mode.
LINE 170-175:  Set the date range to run the simulation.
LINE 183:  define ("SEND_MAIL", true);  Set this to false to NOT SEND EMAILS.  It will create output to your screen but it will not make any changes to your database.

LINES 202-203:  This is where you set how many reminders to send and how many days between reminders.  Read the notes above carefully.  The current settings are set up for 7 reminders.
LINE 204: define ("FROM_EMAIL", '"Membership at YourSite" <membership@yoursite.org>');  Change this to whatever email address you want to use for your org.

LINE 217: define ("INCLUDED_MEMBERSHIP_TYPE_IDS", "1, 2, 3");  This is where you specify your member type ids.
LINE 272:     $ids = array(45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51);  This is where you specify your message template ids.

To run this program in test in a browser use this string and replace with your sitename, username, password and site key.

http://www.yoursite.com/sites/all/modules/civicrm/bin/SendReminder.php?name=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&key=SITE_KEY

6.  Create a cronjob to run this program nightly AFTER the UpdateMembershipRecord.php program once you've tested it thoroughly and change the settings above to take it out of test mode and run it for real.

7.  I've attached a sample reminder so you can see how it looks and the parameter fields used.

Contact me if you have any questions or issues.  It's not perfect but it works....:-)

- Annalee

P.S. - We are currently running this on Drupal 6.22/CiviCRM 3.4.5.

Related note - this functionality is on track for being added to core for 4.2. You can help make it happen here:
http://civicrm.org/participate/mih#multremind