vBulletin Owners: Handy FAQs

[Matt]

Due to the increased interest in our products from vBulletin users over the past few days, I thought it would be convenient to collect pertinent information in one place and give you an overview of who we are and what we do.

About Invision Power Services
We've been creating forum software for over seven years. We work closely with our community and we're very open about our development and we're all very active on this forum. Our customers range from small focused communities through to Skype, Vodafone, EMI, Sony and more. We take pride in our customer service and treat all feedback equally.

Our Products
We offer many community products and services:
IP.Board
IP.Board has come on leaps and bounds since the early days of 1.3 and 2.0. We've invested heavily into development and the result is on your screen now. A feature set overview is available. It has a built in report center, reputation system and warning system. It also extends the classic PM system into personal conversations that enable you to host private topics rather than a simple email-like PM conversation. It is very extensible with its new hooks system and applications framework. Not forgetting it's incredibly easy to write your own single sign on code or log in module to allow single sign on with your existing website or systems. It also ships with log in integration for OpenID, LDAP, Windows Live and Facebook.

IP.Board also has many SEO tools built in. It allows for customizable 'friendly URLs' with proper 301 redirect headers is tampering is attempted. It also offers meta keywords and descriptions automatically populated based on post content. 301 redirects from standard 'old' URLS (showtopic=xxx) and more.

IP.Board is available for $149.99. This entitles you to run the board indefinitely (for life). You get six months access to technical support, services (Spam monitoring) and to download the latest version of the software. Once that six months is up you can optionally renew for another six months for $25.00. You can allow your renewal to lapse without penalty and renew at any time.

Licenses are not tied to versions so, for example, if you purchased IP.Board in 2006 and now want to renew for $25; you'll be able to download IP.Board 3.0.

We offer one installation completely free and we can upgrade the board for you when requested. 30 days telephone support is also included free of charge. You will also get access to our peer-to-peer customer only forums. It's worth noting though that all our feedback from customers is in this public forum. We don't try and hide it, good or bad.

We also offer a "Business License" - the main difference being that phone support is included while your license is active (not just for the first 30 days). The Business License is $349 and renewals are $50 per 6 months. As with the Standard license, it is not tied to a version and you can let it lapse and renew whenever you like.

IP.Board and its applications require PHP 5.1+ (although we recommend 5.2+) and MySQL 4.1+ or MSSQL 2003+ (MSSQL driver available for an additional $60). IP.Board is just as happy on apache as it is in IIS.

IP.Content
IP.Content is our new community content system. We have avoided labeling it as a CMS as this gives certain expectation. IP.Content can do many things inlcuding pulling content from your forum to display on your home page. More information on IP.Content is available here and here.

Charles put together two short videos to help illustrate what it can do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBObss_5JRk&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNhJXlN8NIs&feature=player_embedded

It's worth mentioning those videos were taken during a beta of the first version. The next version adds much more functionality. Information available here.

IP.Content is on offer at $49.99 currently and includes 1 year technical support and access to download the latest version of the software. Renewal is $30 per year.
Just like with IP.Board, we'll be happy to install or upgrade it for you at no extra charge.

IP.Blog
This is our blog application for IP.Board. The best way to see what it does is to have a look at our company blog.
IP.Blog allows your users to create their very own blog within your community, and because it's part of our Community Suite, it's fully integrated and easy to use!
IP.Blog is available for $49.99 and includes 1 year technical support and access to download the latest version of the software. Renewal is $20 per year.
Just like with everything else, we'll be happy to install or upgrade it for you at no extra charge.

IP.Gallery
This is our full gallery application for IP.Board. We have the gallery installed here.
IP.Gallery is our easy-to-use photo sharing application. Fully integrated with our other Community Suite applications, it allows your users to create albums and share their favorite snaps with others!
IP.Gallery is available for $64.99 and includes 1 year technical support and access to download the latest version of the software. Renewal is $30 per year.
Just like with everything else, we'll be happy to install or upgrade it for you at no extra charge.

IP.Downloads
This is our full download application for IP.Board. We use the download system here.
If you need to share files with your users, or want them to share amongst themselves, IP.Downloads makes it easy. Documents, updates, utilities, media - whatever you want to share!
IP.Downloads is available for $49.99 and includes 1 year technical support and access to download the latest version of the software. Renewal is $20 per year.
Just like with everything else, we'll be happy to install or upgrade it for you at no extra charge.

Other Products
We also offer the following:
IP.Converge
IP.Converge is our innovative authentication system that enables separate applications to centrally authenticate users, and optionally share data such as profiles. IP.Converge works with all IPS products, and third-party products such as Wordpress and Joomla. It effectively provides a central log in system that all your applications can use so that your members only need one username and password. It does not need to be on the same server, either so you can link up a dozen IP.Boards from all over the internet if you wished.
IP.Converge is free to all IPS customers.

IP.Subscriptions
This is an application for your IP.Board that allows you to sell subscriptions to your members. It is based on elevating permissions via the member group system. It works with PayPal, Sage and Authorize.net. PayPal allows for recurring payments.
IP.Subscriptions is a free application for all IPS customers.

Spam Service
Even with a good CAPTCHA, communities are seeing a rise in human spammers that can bypass all "anti-bot" systems. There is no real way to automate protection against these spammers other than to learn and block them and that's precisely what this system does.
Each IP.Board has a feature to "Flag a user as a spammer". This will unapprove all their recent posts and flag them as a spammer in the Admin CP. It also sends a ping back to us with their email address and IP address. If enough people report the same details, they are marked as a spammer. You can then set your board to not allow these users, or manually review them before validating the account.
It's an incredibly effective tool and it's caught many dozens of spammers on this site alone.

The spam service is free to all active standard license holders.

IP.Tracker
This is a community developed free application for IP.Board that adds project tracking to your forum. We use it ourselves here.

IP.Shoutbox
This is a community developed free application for IP.Board that adds a shoutbox to your forum.

Modifications and Skins
IP.Board has a very healthy modifications and skinning community. There are many independent skinning and modification websites dedicated to IP.Board. We also maintain a list of resources here. IP.Board 3 is a new product but the modification authors are gaining traction and making use of the new systems to product easy to install modifications. There are modifications for donating via PayPal, arcades and more.

Please list any modifications you have and we'll try and match them up with IP.Board equivalents.

Other Information
Volume Discounts
Please contact sales@invisionpower.com to discuss volume licensing.

Standards of Service
Our average support response time is less than two hours but, depending on the nature of your request, it may take up to two business days for your issue to be addressed. Our technicians will work to keep you updated on your request's progress.

You can always view your existing tickets to see the progress of your request or what department your ticket has been assigned to. After a ticket has existed for 48 hours, you may use the management escalation feature to tag your ticket for management review if the issue is not being resolved properly. Billing, customer service, and special requests will only be answered during normal business hours.

Our full standards of service page is here.

A copy of our software license is attached below:
license.txt

Example Sites
Here is a list of some sites that make use of our software:
Skype - http://forums.skype.com/
Vodafone - http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/index.php?act=idx
O'Reilly - http://forums.oreilly.com/
nVidia - http://forums.nvidia.com/
Roxio - http://forums.support.roxio.com/
NBC - http://boards.nbc.com/nbc/index.php
Television Without Pity - http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/
Atlanta Falcons - http://life.atlantafalcons.com/index
American Idol Forums - http://idolforums.com/
Neowin - http://www.neowin.net/forum/

Conversions

We can convert your data from vBulletin, including converting vB Blog to IP.Blog, and the albums feature in vBulletin to IP.Gallery. If you use the popular Photopost gallery, we can convert that as well.
Almost every piece of data can be converted - and members will be able to log in with the same username and password they did on vBulletin.



You needn't worry about broken links after you convert either, we have some redirection scripts that will take users from your old vBulletin URLs to the new URLs on IP.Board - so if members follow links from search engines, they'll still be shown the right content on your community.

There are two ways to convert: firstly, you can download the free converter scripts on the conversions page and use them yourself, or you can purchase our conversion service and one of our technicians will handle everything for you.
The conversion service costs $120.
It's important to note that the free converters will only work with vBulletin version 3.8 - if you're not using 3.8 you should either first upgrade your vBulletin installation before converting, or if you purchase the conversion service we'll handle everything for you.

If you have any special requirements such as merging multiple forums - please contact sales@invisionpower.com and we'll do our best to accommodate.




Please feel free to reply. I'll maintain this post to add more information if required.

[Matt]

Updated with information on our IP.Subscriptions application, license information and more.

[Mark]

Updated with conversions information.

[.Ian]

Great article for all folks, not just refugees.
Business licence gives telephone support for 6 months, with $50 renewal fee. Also gives a faster SLA on tickets/installs etc.

[Mat Barrie]

You forgot to mention System Requirements. vBulletin if you recall runs only on PHP/MySQL, it's worth letting people know they've got more options including PHP/MSSQL and whether Windows/IIS is supported, etc.

[Matt]

Good point, FAQ updated.

[CFBZ]

This is a very good summary, thank you.

I'm glad to hear IPB is considering offering a competitive upgrade, because the time is certainly ripe for it! The vBulletin forums are buzzing like a beehive with angry customers and if IPB was to offer a meaningful discount as well as make it last longer than vB's "special offer" I think that could well be the tipping point that might entice many vB customers to switch. A vB customer with an active licence who doesn't fancy paying $130 now for a product they've never seen will be faced with paying $195 for it later (when it is released). If they could switch to IPB instead for, say, $90 that would be all they need to rationalise their emotional desire to move away from vB, having been screwed over by them. :)

[Majdi 2.1]

I suggest adding Kaspersky to the example sites list, they got a pretty busy forum:
http://forum.kaspersky.com/

[nexia]

[quote name='Matt' date='15 October 2009 - 03:30 AM' timestamp='1255591852' post='1866777']
Conversions

We can convert your data from vBulletin, including converting vB Blog to IP.Blog, and the albums feature in vBulletin to IP.Gallery. If you use the popular Photopost gallery, we can convert that as well.

If you have any special requirements such as merging multiple forums - please contact sales@invisionpower.com and we'll do our best to accommodate.

This is what people will really look at... maybe you can put this on top of the OP so people can read quickly and be convinced... :)

oh, i'm a spy!

[Marko Schmuck]

Thanks for the great summary, this helps me a lot to make also my decision to move from vB to IPB, as a longtime license owner i lost my trust in IB and vB so this summary answers a lot questions. :cool:

[RKF]

+1 disenchanted VB license holder.

I'll read over as much as I can tomorrow and over the coming weeks, but have one question to start with - is there anything in your terms and conditions that guarantees that the 6 monthly support renewal will be offered for lifetime licenses? The sudden removal of that particular item from sale over at vb.com when we assumed it was part of "lifetime" is the one factor that has me actively looking at other options such as your fine product.

Thanks for your time.

[Alex K.]

[quote name='RKF' date='15 October 2009 - 05:52 AM' timestamp='1255611158' post='1866877']
+1 disenchanted VB license holder.

I'll read over as much as I can tomorrow and over the coming weeks, but have one question to start with - is there anything in your terms and conditions that guarantees that the 6 monthly support renewal will be offered for lifetime licenses? The sudden removal of that particular item from sale over at vb.com when we assumed it was part of "lifetime" is the one factor that has me actively looking at other options such as your fine product.

Thanks for your time.

This is currently the case; you can renew your support at any time after letting it expire (even several years later). In the past, when license terms have changed, IPS have consistently allowed existing customers to keep their old licenses and license terms (such as when the lifetime license was discontinued for the current standard license, the existing lifetime customers kept their license terms and are still receiving support and upgrades for free).

[Charles]

[quote name='RKF' date='15 October 2009 - 08:52 AM' timestamp='1255611158' post='1866877']
is there anything in your terms and conditions that guarantees that the 6 monthly support renewal will be offered for lifetime licenses?


Of course who knows in the distant future but it would be very hard for us to change the way we structure our renewals. The 6 month renewal allows us to not only offer support and upgrades but also addon services like spam monitor (and some future ones we're planning) at no extra cost.

[Matt]

We have always 'grandfathered' our licenses when we've introduced new ones. For example, we previously offered lifetime licenses (lifetime usage and access to downloads) which we still uphold today and the same with our old perpetual licenses.

That said, we've not changed our current license for years and the six monthly renewal is a good model for us.

[Rhett]

You guys are great..... I just spoke with Charles this morning and was very impressed, being a current vb user.... I'm sold on what I see here.

I'm looking forward to getting to know the rest of you and thank you for all this information while we transition to our new home.


Rhett

[Rikki]

Welcome!

[ApertureForums]

Wow, lots of great information and an awesome post to cover it all!

Man that was genius!

[Sickofvb]

Thank you for creating this FAQ. Very useful.
I am of course interested by the competitive upgrades and the volume discounts.

[Mat Barrie]

[quote name='Matt' date='15 October 2009 - 11:53 PM' timestamp='1255607629' post='1866845']
Good point, FAQ updated.


Ahem, what's MSSQL 2003? You either mean MSSQL 2000 or MSSQL 2005...

[Matt]

Ah. Yes, I mean 2005. I think it does work on 2000 but 2005 is much better.

[MGSteve]

Thanks for posting that - very informative. I just need to find two replacement mods and I'm moving over. Sadly, I'm not sure I'm going to find them and I've only just paid out for them as well :(

[Carl M]

[quote name='MGSteve' date='15 October 2009 - 09:35 PM' timestamp='1255638900' post='1867122']
Thanks for posting that - very informative. I just need to find two replacement mods and I'm moving over. Sadly, I'm not sure I'm going to find them and I've only just paid out for them as well :(


What mods? Im sure someone here can help :)

[capbiker]

[quote name='Arctic Monkeys UK.com' date='15 October 2009 - 09:47 PM' timestamp='1255639620' post='1867130']
What mods? Im sure someone here can help :)


If there isn't any mods that you want available you could post a mod request once you have become a customer to see if somebody is willing to do it for you.

Or else see if you can find somebody out there who you can pay to make the custom mods for you.

cap

[Kaelon]

A couple of quick questions:

1. I am a Big Board owner, and my premiere community currently on vBulletin has nearly 2 million posts and 40,000 users. How well does IP handle these sorts of numbers? What does your Search algorithm look like? Do you have examples of Big Boards that run your software?

2. Can you point me in the direction of more information about how your templating system works? One of vBulletin 3.x's benefits is its customization of all HTML pieces surrounding variables using a purely HTML templating system.

Thanks!

[Charles]

http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com has like 10 million posts (or something like that) and is owned by NBC

http://life.atlantafalcons.com/index Atlanta Falcons has 2 million

For big boards specifically for search we suggest Sphinx wherever possible. It's supported as standard in IPB3.

For templating you could always get one of our demos and have a click around :)