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IP.Gallery 5.0: More Administrator Control

One of our big goals with Gallery 5 is to restore a level of administrative control that allows different sites to dictate how their users and moderators will interact with the software. Some sites wish to allow their users to have control over their submissions. Some sites wish to control the submissions their members contribute once the file is uploaded. In order to accommodate the myriad of needs our clients have, we have implemented many new controls to IP.Gallery, and reworked how some existing controls function.


Moderators
One change we have made is to remove moderator-style permissions from the group management area and implement a full "Moderators" area of the ACP. When managing your categories in the IP.Gallery ACP, you can now add moderators to one or more categories. These moderators can be groups or individual members. You can specify the following permissions for your moderators:
Can approve images Can approve comments Can edit images and albums Can hide images Can delete images and albums Can move images and albums Can set cover images Can edit comments Can delete comments

Members will be allowed to move their own images between their own albums, but will not be able to move images from their albums to another member's albums, or to categories. You can still specify on a per-group basis if members can edit their own images and comments, delete their own images and comments, and you will also now be able to specify whether they can delete their own albums or not. This will allow administrators to control what their members can and cannot do in IP.Gallery.


Controlling Albums
In addition to the aforementioned moderator permission updates, administrators will now have more control over how users manage albums. You can now specify whether members can create public, private and friend-only albums separately (so you can allow members to create all 3 kinds, only public albums, or disallow members to create albums entirely). As with previous versions, you can also limit the number of albums they can create, and the number of images they can upload into each album.

Further to this, however, you can control the defaults for new albums and which of those default options members can override. Under the Album Manager area of the IP.Gallery ACP, there is a new page: Album Defaults. When you visit this page, you will be able to control the album default options and determine which of those options members can change.



To lock or unlock a field from being editable, you simply click on the green or red icon to toggle it. Fields that are locked will still display to users on the front end, but will be disabled and uneditable. This allows users to know what preferences are being enforced.

You will note in the screenshot that there is a message under the watermark field advising that the option is only honored when a category is set to "Allow members to choose per-album". When you create a category that allows album submissions, you can choose one of three options for the watermark preference:Do not watermark Force watermark on every image Allow members to choose per-album

The first two options are self-explanatory. The last option allows members to specify whether they use watermarks or not when creating their own individual albums (and of course can also be restricted by the album default preferences discussed above).

It is important to note as well - you can enable and disable ratings and comments at the category level. If you disable comments or ratings at the category level, this preference cascades down to the albums within the category. If comments are disabled in a category, they are disabled for all albums within that category. If a user does not have permission to comment in a category, they will not have permission to comment within albums contained in that category.


Image Control
Administrators have fairly good control over images in IP.Gallery already, however we are expanding this control in IP.Gallery 5.0. Some new options include:Ability to shut off "medium" and "small"-sized images. You cannot shut off the thumbnail or large-sized images, as both are used throughout Gallery in many different places. You will be able to shut off cropping of thumbnails. Instead of "unapproving" images, you will now "hide" images. These will show up in the Moderator CP when hidden. Members who can delete their own images will actually be "hiding" them, giving moderators a chance to review the deletion before it is carried out completely.

You will of course retain all of the previous image control options available in Gallery 4, and many minor interface changes will make handling your images easier and more intuitive.


Up Next
We realize control of your Gallery installation is important and we are working towards giving administrators sensible options to enable them to configure IP.Gallery to their needs. We have a lot more changes in store and will be discussing some of the more interesting changes in our next blog entry. Stay tuned!
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bfarber

Gallery 5.0 Goals

Development of Gallery 5.0 is well underway, and while we are not quite ready to reveal the product just yet, we wanted to give our clients an outline of what they can expect to see when the new version becomes available. Gallery 5.0 will build upon changes in the 4.x series, while restoring some of the functionality of the 3.x series, delivering a product you can easily understand and navigate that is both modern and fun to use. The next version of Gallery will not see many new features - instead, we are focusing on the existing functionality to ensure the released product is flexible, intuitive and dependable.


Goals

While our goals for Gallery 5 are simple and focused, don't let this fool you. A lot of changes are being implemented to accomplish these goals, and you will notice many small changes that add up to big differences in how the product is used.

We can outline our high level goals as follows:
Redesign the navigation, structure and hierarchy Gallery makes use of.
Terminology notwithstanding, many users find navigating the current release of Gallery to be confusing, and do not understand the relationship between "global" albums and "member" albums. Many changes in the previous iteration of Gallery were made to ensure the software could scale effectively. We have taken many of the concepts of Gallery 4 and merged them with concepts in Gallery 3 to present an interface we think is easy to understand and navigate, and allows the administrator to control the setup of their Gallery. Give administrators more control over their Gallery.
We have implemented or reinstated many software options that allow administrators to better control what members can do and where. Administrators will now be able to define what types of albums members can create, whether they can delete those albums or not, which album options members can customize, and much more. SEO and efficiency improvements.
In virtually every release, we review the search engine optimization and code-level optimization of the software, and this release is no different. Interface updates.
Much of the interface has undergone a complete overhaul as a part of the navigational restructuring of the software. In addition, some new functionality has been added to make navigating through images quicker and easier, and minor feature improvements or additions will be noticed.

By keeping our goals list short and focused, we can put more emphasis on the high-level things that matter most to our clients.


More Information

More information about each of the goals outlined above and changes made to the software to implement these goals will be forthcoming in future blog entries. The software is still very much under heavy development and we are not ready to show off everything just yet. Nevertheless, we wanted to highlight the higher level goals you can look to in the next release, and give everyone a small update on development.


A Teaser

For now, we will leave you with a teaser - the new index page.



Here you can see the top of the index page. In the right hand sidebar we have a block identifying the latest comments and a block identifying the most popular tags used in Gallery. The top of the content area is filled with a featured images slider (if you have any featured images - if you do not feature any, this block disappears, as expected). You can feature as many images as you like, and up to 20 will be displayed in a javascript slider. The slider will display the image (with some details along the bottom of the image), and will automatically show the next image after a couple seconds, cycling through them (and restarting when the last featured image is displayed).

You will also note that the upload button is available. In fact, it is available on every page throughout Gallery, if you have permission to upload images somewhere.




Further down the index page, you will see the category listing. Global albums have become categories in Gallery 5.0. More information will be available on this in a future blog entry. For now, just know that categories are administrator-defined containers that can be set up to [*]Allow albums to be created in them [*]Allow neither (useful if you create subcategories and don't wish for images to be accepted within the category itself, but rather in a subcategory) Categories allow you to specify cover images, and allow you much of the same control you had with global albums in Gallery 4. You can think of categories in Gallery 5 as global albums, renamed, in part to help alleviate confusion and to clarify the relationship between the two different types of containers Gallery allows. You can see from this screenshot that the hierarchy and navigation of Gallery right from the index page has been restored to a more traditional container listing. Finally, at the bottom of the page you will see the 20 most recent images that you have permission to see, in the same slider that was used to display the featured images at the top of the screen. You can see the hint of arrows on either side of the image, allowing you to manually navigate to the next or previous image in the slider (although, as with the featured images, it automatically cycles through each image). [*]Allow direct image uploads










  • 14,082 views
bfarber

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Miscellaneous Enhancements

To wrap up our blog entries on IP.Nexus, there's a few more additional features and enhancements that we haven't previously covered:


Custom Advertisement Zones

IP.Nexus allows you to create advertisements and even sell advertisement space on your community.
There are several different areas where the IPS Community Suite has built-in advertisement spots where Nexus can place advertisements.

In IP.Nexus 1.5, you can create your own custom "zones" and then add tags into your skin templates, IP.Content pages or even external websites outside of your community to display the advertisements in the zones you have created.


Expected Output Monitoring

IP.Nexus can monitor your servers and report to you if any of them are not responding.
Sometimes though, a site can be having issues, but not actually be reporting as down - for example, if a database table had collapsed, the server would be reporting as online, even though the site isn't actually usable.

In IP.Nexus 1.5, you'll be able to create custom "Expected Output Monitoring" rules. IP.Nexus will then call the URLs you provide at regular intervals, and if the page output is not what is expected, will notify you that there's an issue.


Transaction Review

Details on the items being purchased is now available in the transaction review screen without having to click into the invoice.


Voiding Customers

IP.Nexus has a tool to quickly ban a customer, refund their transactions, close their support requests, etc.
Sometimes however, you might want to only perform a select few of these actions. In IP.Nexus 1.5, each "action" now appears as an individual toggle when you go to void a customer.


Resource Improvements

When we work on a new release of any application, we look at the resource usage to see if any improvements can be made.
We've made several changes to improve the resource usage of IP.Nexus.

The most significant of these changes is a change to how package data is cached.
Some communities use IP.Nexus with lots of packages in many categories. Up until now, IP.Nexus stored all packages in a cache so that they didn't need to be fetched from the database on every load. However, for communities with lots of categories and packages, this can result in a large cache which ends up using more resources to process than is necessary.
In IP.Nexus 1.5 we've reworked some of the logic to make this method of caching data no longer necessary, and as a result, Nexus is able to scale much more efficiently when there is a large number of packages.






This wraps up all of the changes we're making in IP.Nexus 1.5. Keep an eye on our pre-release testing forum over the next couple of weeks for public betas :smile:
  • 6,501 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Store & Billing Enhancements

Our last few blog entries on Nexus have talked about some of the larger changes we've been making to the storefront and how billing is handled.
In this blog entry, I wanted to go over some of the smaller changes we've made in these areas :smile:



Gift Vouchers

Starting with Nexus 1.5, customers can purchase gift vouchers, which can then be redeemed in your store.

If you have enabled this, when in the store, they'll see two new options underneath the package categories:


Customers will then be able to select a gift voucher amount from the options you have set in the Admin CP, or, if you have enabled it, enter their own amount:
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Vouchers can either be emailed straight to the recipient or printed off. The voucher is given in the form of a code, which can then be entered into the store to redeem.
Nexus will keep track of who used vouchers purchased by whom and will show all this information in the normal customer history screen.


And of course, all this can be done from the mobile skin too:




Multiple Billing Cycles

IP.Nexus allows you to create recurring packages with whatever renewal terms you specify.
Sometimes though, you might want to give several different options - for example, let's say you wanted a package which costs $10 per month or $100 a year (or whatever).

In IP.Nexus 1.5, this is now possible. You can create as many different renewal options as you like:


When a customer goes to purchase a package which has more than one renewal option, a drop down will be displayed for them to select their desired renewal option:




Self Purchase Management

You're probably very familiar with getting support requests from customers who want to renew their purchase for a period of time in advance (we, for example, often get people asking to pay for a year's hosting) or cancel their purchase.

In IP.Nexus (provided you have enabled it), customers will be able to renew purchases for any length of time up to what you have allowed, and cancel their own purchases.


Bulk Discounts

Nexus currently has several options for providing discounts to certain customers:
Usergroup discounts can be used to give customers in certain groups a discount. Loyalty discounts can be used to give customers who already own (or are purchasing) some of your products a discount. Bundle discounts can be used to give customers a discount on their entire purchase if certain items are purchased in combination.

In Nexus 1.5, we're adding a new discount type which we call Bulk discounts. Bulk discounts can be used to give customers a discount on an individual product if they are purchasing it with certain other products.

In this manner, it can be used for "Buy one get one free" type deals:

In this example, the first of this item the customer adds to their cart will be full price, the second will be free, the third will be full price, the fourth will be free, and so on.
You could also do "Buy one get second half price" or "3 for the price of 2" style deals, and so on.


Grouped Renewals


Let's say you have a setup where you want to adjust the renewal fees for a product based on additional products that a customer has purchased.

Currently, there are two ways to do this.
You can set up add-ons as product options which adjust the renewal price of the package - however this isn't feasible if the add-ons also need access to support, downloads, etc.
Alternatively you could set the add-ons up as packages which must be associated with a parent and have their own renewal costs - however, this means that if a customer purchases an add-on at a later date, their renewals won't be at he same time, which can be inconvenient and confusing.

In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding the option for packages which can be associated with a parent package to have grouped renewals. This means that rather than having their own renewal dates, the renewal fees for add-on packages will be added on to the parent package.


Latest Products

The storefront in Nexus allows you to view featured products, popular products or browse by category.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, we've added an option to view the latest products.

Thumbnail Sizes

The thumbnails used in the IP.Nexus store are hardcoded to 100x100px. In IP.Nexus 1.5 you'll be able to set whatever thumbnail size you'd like to use.
When you adjust the setting, Nexus will set a flag on your products that the thumbnails need to be rebuilt, and this will be done on the fly as they're requested, so you don't need to sit around waiting for the images to rebuild.
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Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Selling Domains

IP.Nexus allows you to sell hosting packages with using integration with CPanel/WHM.
In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding support to sell domain names too using integration with eNom.

Once set up, customers purchasing hosting accounts will see a new option to purchase a domain name:

The TLDs available and their prices can be set in the Admin CP.

When selecting this option, the domain will be added to the cart like a normal item:


When the customer then pays, the domain will be registered through eNom. The domain then shows as a normal purchase associated with the hosting account:

A renewal invoice will be generated as normal when the domain is due to expire, and when renewals are paid, the expiry date will be updated with eNom.


This feature requires an eNom reseller account. In future versions of IP.Nexus we will add additional registrars based on interest.
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Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Gateways & Payments

IP.Nexus currently provides support for a number of gateways: Authorize.Net (with ARB and CIM support), PayPal (Website Payments Standard and Pro), 2CheckOut and manual payments (check, bank wire, etc.)

In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding more gateways and extending the functionality of some existing gateways.


Gateways


Stripe

Stripe is a relatively young payment gateway. They support all major cards and have no monthly or setup fees which makes them great for smaller companies wanting to accept card payments.

One of the more interesting aspects of Stripe is that they have a clever solution where although the customer can enter their card details right in Nexus, these details never actually hit your server - which is great for security.
Those interested in the technicalities of this - the card form elements are displayed without having a 'name' attribute, meaning that their values are not sent in the POST data to your server. Instead, Javascript on Stripe's server extracts these details and provides Nexus with a token which is what is then sent.

In addition, Stripe supports "storing" card details (again, technically, Nexus only actually stores a token) meaning when paying your customers will be able to tick a box to save card details, and these details can automatically be used for renewals, future purchases, etc.



Authorize.Net DPM

Nexus already provides support for Authorize.Net's AIM (that's "Advanced Integration Method") service. This allows customers to enter card details directly into Nexus.

The way this works is that the card details have to be sent to Nexus - this is a concern for some as it means that, even though it's very briefly, your server has the customer's card information, which means that certain security precautions need to be considered.

Authorize.Net now have a new service called DPM ("Direct Post Method") - to the customer, this seems to work exactly the same, however, rather than posting the card data to your server, and then Nexus sending that data to Authorize.Net, the form submits directly to Authorize.Net's server - meaning your server never deals with the sensitive card information.

Unfortunately, due to the way this works, Authorize.Net's ARB and CIM services (both of which are a form of recurring billing) are not compatible with DPM. Those who need recurring payments can keep using the AIM method.



Sagepay

Nexus 1.5 also adds support for Sagepay.



Refunds

Currently, Nexus allows you to refund transactions right from the Admin CP for Authorize.Net and PayPal transactions.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, PayPal Pro and 2CheckOut can now handle this too. Authorize.Net DPM and Stripe, which are added in 1.5, also support it.



2CheckOut Improvements

2CheckOut payments are now handled with their INS service. Not only is this more secure and reliable, using it has also allowed us to add support for recurring payments.



So where does that leave us?

IP.Nexus now supports 7 different payment gateways (8 if you include manual payments like check and bank wire), each of which have their own features and merits over one another.

We've created a little table to show the key differences between each gateway:


As always, we'll continue to gauge interest and add additional gateways to Nexus over time.




But wait.... there's more!



Split Payments

Sometimes, people might want to pay for an invoice using two different cards (or other payment methods). In IP.Nexus 1.5, this is now possible:



You can set a minimum invoice amount before this feature is available, or disable it completely if you don't want to use it.


Package Methods

In IP.Nexus 1.5, you'll now be able to set which payment methods can be used to purchase a particular package:

  • 9,809 views
Mark

License Changes, IP.Board 3.4, and the Future

We have started work on IP.Board 3.4 and this blog entry will give you a general idea of our goals and also introduce some important license changes and future plans from IPS. It's an important entry so read on!

IP.Board 3.4

As always we will be blogging about specific features as they are completed. IPS does not post traditional roadmaps as roadmaps are subject to change. Instead, we post blog entries when a topic is completed and include screenshots and details so you know what you see is for sure going to happen. Here are the three high-level areas of interest for IP.Board 3.4:
Very few front end changes so version 3.3 skins will work with little changes on 3.4. Focus on back-end improvements (AdminCP user experience, SSO integrations, SEO options, and so on). Versions 3.2 and 3.3 were more about front end experience so now it's time for the AdminCP and other areas to get some focus. Work will be put into making areas that are difficult for non-technical/non-designer clients to use. Examples include skinning system, Visual Skin Editor, and upgrade system.

Three areas of focus will result in a lot of great changes and of course we will be doing other, smaller changes outside of those three areas but these will be the focus. Beyond this we have some bigger things planned but that will be revealed later. In addition to IP.Board: IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery are receiving large updates and other apps will receive smaller updates for maintenance and consistency.

We do not currently have a release date for IP.Board 3.4 (and if we did ... well you know :smile: ). Our continuing goal of offering the most stable platform possible will see continued maintenance releases on the 3.3 series and other applications. Expect to see an IP.Board 3.3.3 release coming out soon.

License Changes

To make our licensing system easier to manage for everyone we are going to be restructuring how they work and are displayed.

Here is how licenses show now:IP.Board Standard License
IP.Blog IP.Gallery IP.Nexus IP.Content etc.


Here is how the new structure will be implemented:IPS Community Suite
IP.Board IP.Blog IP.Nexus etc.


The main change is that IP.Board will no longer be the "root" license item. You will instead have a license to the IPS Community Suite and will then have the various applications as additions under that root license. Anyone with a current IP.Board Standard License or IP.Board Business License will see this change happen automatically in their client area in the coming weeks. There will be no change to your services of course.

Another change we are making is consolidating renewal dates. It's very cumbersome for both IPS and our clients to have the various apps under a license have different renewal dates. So we will be changing this to prorate purchases so they all have the same renewal dates. Of course the renewal frequency and amount will not change from how it is now. For example, if you choose to add IP.Nexus to your existing IPS Community Suite license the order system will automatically give you a credit based on the number of days until your next renewal cycle so everything balances out.

When we switch over to this new setup your existing purchases will also be prorated and your renewal date for your licenses will adjust based on a formula that gives you credit for all days remaining on all of your licenses. Said formula is a bit involved so check out this topic if you are so inclined to pull out your calculator :smile:

Finally, if your license is currently expired then you will still be put into this new structure but just in an expired state so nothing will change. Legacy license holders will see no change to their license terms but will also see an adjustment in the structure shown here.

This will all be implemented soon after IP.Nexus 1.5 is released which offers many great enhancements.

So why are we doing all this?

Future Plans

IP.Board 3.4 will be a milestone in the history of IPS because it will be the last release of IP.Board as we know it. It's pretty amazing to think that after 10 years this will be the last time IP.Board is released on its own as the flagship product.

After IP.Board 3.4, we will introduce the IPS Community Suite. The new Suite approach will see IP.Board become an application under the Suite just as IP.Gallery, IP.Nexus, and all of our other apps are today (hence the license structure change). There are some huge advantages to this way of doing releases:


















Of course beyond these changes we have lot of exciting changes in store for IPS Community Suite 4.0 but that's for the future after IP.Board 3.4, new versions of IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery, and continued laser-focus on stability.


Summary

To clarify everything here is a summary timeline:

Very soon: IP.Board 3.3.3 maintenance release
Near future: Blog updates about IP.Board 3.4, new versions of IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery, and working toward releases
After next release cycle: Changes to the license structure

Then we will start work on IPS Community Suite 4.0!

The good news here is that we are not talking a long period of time. Since the IP.Board platform is very stable we can develop these releases in months rather than years.


We have disabled comments on this blog entry as a lot of various subjects were presented that clients will surely want to discuss and comments would get overlooked. However, feel free to start topics in the Client Lounge. Thank you for your support and continual feedback!Only one versionCurrently we have a version number for each of our products. This gets very confusing for everyone to know what version works with what other version. When we release IPS Community Suite 4.0.0 at that time all of our Suite will also be on 4.0.0. No longer will each application have its own release cycle and version numbers. Just one version number for you to look to when you are checking to be sure you're up to date!Suite consistencyAs we will be releasing our entire Suite at once for both new features and for maintenance releases you will always know everything is consistent and up to date. For example, if we add a new feature to moderation in one area it will be available in all areas without having to wait for a separate update.Tighter integrationIPS community products have always had great integration with each other. Our new Suite offering will further this integration by offering total uniformity and compatibility between all the features of the Suite.No forums requirement Currently if you want to use IPS products you are required to buy IP.Board even if you don't need a forum. Even though you might just need a commerce platform or a CMS you have to buy IP.Board as it is also the "core" application. No more with IPS Community Suite. You will be able to run a community with just a gallery, blog, and member list if you so choose. Maybe you are just looking to run a site and need a CMS and commerce system. The ability to mix and match our great product line will finally be here!
  • 31,504 views
Charles

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: FedEx Integration

IP.Nexus allows you to set up shipping prices with customisable rates, destinations and tax. Once an item has been shipped, you can then provide a tracking number which will provide the customer with a link where they can view tracking information.
While this solution allows complete control over shipping prices, it can be tedious to set up methods, and arrange shipments with couriers - particularly if you receive lots of orders.

In IP.Nexus 1.5, we're introducing direct integration with FedEx. In future versions of IP.Nexus we plan to integrate with other providers like UPS and USPS in a similar way.



The setup

To get started, you simply need to enter your FedEx account details in the Admin CP. You can also specify which services to use (if you don't want to use them all), add a surcharge to FedEx prices and more:


Once that's done - you're all setup. FedEx options will automatically become available when a customer selects a shipping method - you just need to make sure you have provided an accurate weight for shippable products. You can of course disable FedEx services for any individual product.


Purchase

When a customer goes to purchase a product they'll now see FedEx services in the shipping methods select box:


You'll notice that each option shows the price as well as an estimated delivery date. This data is coming straight from FedEx based on the customer's shipping address and the items being purchased.

The customer can also edit their shipping address on this screen which will adjust the prices accordingly - the shipping address can be different from the billing address provided in step 1 (but will be automatically filled out with that data). The address entered is also validated with FedEx to check for any mistakes in filling it out.


Shipping

In the Admin CP, you'll now see a button on the shipping order to arrange the shipment:


Clicking this will show you a screen like this:

As you can see, there are several options for how you want to provide the package to FedEx. The nearest FedEx drop boxes and service stations are listed and clicking on any will provide the opening hours:


You can also have Nexus schedule a courier to come to you to pick up a package which will present you with this screen:


Once shipment has been arranged you'll be able to print a shipping label. When the package has been delivered, you'll be able to see a proof-of-delivery with the signature that signed for the package. Both of these are provided by FedEx:





Tracking

The shipping order page in the Admin CP provides tracking information from FedEx:


The customer also has a page in the client area where they can view the same information:

  • 6,791 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: More New Support System Features

Our last two blog entries have focussed on large new features to the support system in IP.Nexus.
But we're not stopping there! In this blog entry I wanted to talk about some of the smaller new features and enhancements we've made to the support system for IP.Nexus 1.5.



Pay-Per-Incident
IP.Nexus 1.5 adds the ability for you to define a support department as "Pay-Per-Incident".
Each department allows you to enter a Pay-Per-Incident amount. When a customers tries to create a support request in this department, they'll see a message like this:

Clicking the "Submit Request" button will take them straight to the payment screen to provide payment for the support request. After submitting payment, they'll be redirected straight back to the support request submission form - the title and department will even be remembered and filled in:



Contact Us
Nexus allows guests to create support requests which can be used for sales enquires, etc. Currently, this is usually done through the incoming email support, however in 1.5, we've added an optional "Contact Us" link to the footer which will allow anyone, including guests, to submit a support request:



Tracking notifications
IP.Nexus allows staff members to "track" support requests, tracked requests can be accessed quickly from the main support request list and are highlighted in that list.
In IP.Nexus 1.5 we've also added the option to receive email notifications when a customer replies to support requests you are tracking:

Staff members can reply to these notifications directly via email and their reply will be added to the support request.


Reply to notifications
IP.Nexus allows you to send a notification to any email address(es) for new support requests or emails within a particular department.
Previously, the notification just said that a support request had been created or replied to, and gave you the title and ID number. In IP.Nexus 1.5, the notification email will contain the full body of the message and can be replied to directly by email.


Improved Incoming Email Handling
IP.Nexus supports the ability to receive incoming emails as support requests and replies. In IP.Nexus 1.5 we've rewritten a lot of this code to make it more reliable and secure.
We've also added a setting to allow you to control whether you prefer Nexus to parse emails as HTML or in plaintext. Each message now also has a toggle which allows you to quickly toggle (it uses AJAX) between HTML or plaintext on any message:




Merge
Staff members have been able to split a support request into two requests in Nexus for a long time. In 1.5, we've added the option you can merge two together into one.


Reminder Emails
IP.Nexus allows you to assign support requests to staff members. Staff members can quickly see all support requests assigned to them from the support request list, however, if you don't regularly check the list, you may not know a request has been assigned to you.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, if a staff member has any support requests assigned to them, they'll receive an email each morning with a list of the support requests that are assigned to them.


Edit Title
In IP.Nexus 1.5, staff members will be able to edit the title of a support request:



Stock Actions When Logging a Support Request
Stock Actions allow you to quickly set a department, status, assigned staff member and reply on a support request.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, when logging a support request in the Admin CP on behalf of a customer, you'll be able to use these Stock Actions in addition to when replying.
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Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Custom Support Fields

Those familiar with IP.Nexus will be familiar with the ability to create custom fields both for packages (so when a user purchases a package they can provide custom information such as the size, colour, etc. of the item being purchased) and for customer accounts (so you could add additional fields for customers to provide when making a purchase, etc.).

In IP.Nexus we're adding the ability to use custom fields with support requests.


You can choose from several different types of field, select the departments it applies to, and choose whether or not it is required.
Here I've created a field to ask users what "software version" they're using:


Now when a user goes to create a support request in the "Support" department, they'll be prompted to provide this information:

This works on the mobile skin too, of course:


The values of these fields can then be viewed both by the customer, and admins:


  • 4,851 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Customer Satisfaction

IP.Nexus provides a great support system, allowing customers to submit support requests through your community or directly through email.
The support system also includes robust reporting tools allowing you to see the volume of support requests over time and audit individual members of staff to view how many replies they're making and the quality of those replies.

Ensuring customer satisfaction is important to anyone running a support system, and in IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding a feature that will allow your customers to rate, and provide feedback on, the support they receive.


When the system is enabled, customers will see a star rating system below each staff member's reply:


They can then click on their desired rating, which will bring up a popup where they can enter additional feedback. This is completely optional, and customers can just leave a star rating if desired.



In the Admin CP, you can control using ACP Restrictions if administrators can view the ratings given and optionally also view the feedback given.
If a rating is given and the administrator can see it, it will appear user the message, just like in the front-end:


If the customer left a note, and the administrator has permission to view it, they can do so by clicking on the rating:



IP.Nexus has a "Staff Audit" tool allowing you to view how many support requests each staff member has answered over time. The audit now has an additional column providing the average rating for their replies in that time period:


And of course, when you click on the number to view the staff member's responses, the rating and the note if available will display here too:



Finally, we've added an additional report page in the Admin CP which allows you to view the average rating for different staff members over time:

In this screenshot, I'm comparing two staff members average ratings throughout 2012 on a bar chart. But just like the other reporting tools in Nexus, you can select any date range, chart type (options are bar, line, pie or a plain data table) and can customise the series too (you could compare any particular staff members, group staff members by their department to compare departments, view everyone on one series, etc.)





As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum
  • 6,459 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Referrals System

IP.Nexus has for a long time included a referrals system, allowing your customers to refer their friends to your community and subsequently earn commission on any purchases they make in IP.Nexus.

The problem with this set up though is that you might not want referrers to continue earning commission forever, or you might want to specify different commission amounts depending on what the referring user is purchasing.

In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding much better control over the system - you can now create custom rules which control the commission amount which will be paid out to referrers. Nexus will loop through the rules you set up and give the highest commission amount out of the rules that match.
You can base your rules on:
The number of purchases that the referring user has made (as a number, or as a money amount) The group that the referring user is in The number of purchases that the user making the purchase has made (as a number, or as a money amount) The group that the referring user making the purchase is in The packages being purchased The amount of the transaction

You can then specify a commission amount to give as a percentage, and optionally a hard limit on the maximum amount of commission that can be given.


Here you can see I've set up a rule which will give the referrer 50% commission on the first purchase that members they refer make, provided the purchase is at least $10:




We've also made some improvements on the front-end. Firstly, users can specify any URL to use as the URL the people they refer are directed to.
In addition, users will be able to see the commission rules that apply to them:


If however, you don't want users to be able to see details of the commission rules, you can replace the content of that popup with your own custom message, or remove it all together.


Just like before, you can also create banners and upload them in the Admin CP, which will provide users code for using your banners on that page:


And you can of course keep track of who referred whom on the customer pages and customer history page:


  • 6,264 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Mobile Skin

As mentioned in our last blog entry, we're hard at work on our next version of IP.Nexus.

One of the more visual features we're adding in this version is an updated mobile skin - here are some screenshots!


Main store page:


Category listing:


Product screen:



Cart view:


Checkout screen:



Client area - menu:


Client area - invoice view:


New support request form:

  • 6,419 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Fraud Rules

IP.Nexus is our hugely popular eCommerce and business management application for the IPS Community Suite. Over the past few weeks we've been working on lots of new features and enhancements for the next version of IP.Nexus (version 1.5).

The first change we wanted to share with you is called Fraud Rules.


For a long time, IP.Nexus has provided integration with MaxMind for anti-fraud measures. However, this is limited only to holding or refusing transactions based on the MaxMind score. You might want to, for example, manually review all transactions where, for example, the user's billing address doesn't match their physical location (which MaxMind can detect) - or perhaps you don't want to use MaxMind and want to manually review all orders over a certain amount, or all orders from particular countries - this is where Fraud Rules comes in.

IP.Nexus 1.5 allows you to create as many Fraud Rules as you like based on a wide range of criteria - each Fraud Rule is checked in the order you specify and the last that matches is what is used.

This is what the management screen looks like:


Here you can see I've set up a number of rules (the names are assigned by you as a reference for what the rule does) - I've created rules so that if the amount is over $100 or the the customer is paying by PayPal and has not made any previous purchases, the payment will be held for manual approval, unless the customer is in the "Administrators" group.

This is just an example of what you might do - there is a wide range of criteria that you can base rules on. Here is what the add/edit page for a rule looks like:


If MaxMind is enabled, even more options are available:


The full list of what you can base rules on is:The transaction amount (greater than, less than or equal to X) Payment method used was (multi-select) Customer is in usergroup (multi-select) Customer's email address (is/contains X) Customer's billing address country (multi-select) Customer has made X approved transactions (greater than, less than or equal to X) Customer has made X approved transactions which have been blocked by Fraud Rules or manually refused by an administrator (greater than, less than or equal to X) Coupon was used (yes/no) MaxMind: Score (greater than, less than or equal to X) MaxMind: Customer's billing address is valid (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's billing address matches their IP address location (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's phone number matches their billing address (yes/no) MaxMind: Likeliness that customer is using an IP address proxy (greater than, less than or equal to X) MaxMind: Customer is using a free email provider (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's email address is considered "High Risk" (yes/no) MaxMind: Customer's username is considered "High Risk" (yes/no)

You can then choose whether the transaction should be approved, held for approval or refused based on the conditions specified.
You can also set the rule to ban the customer if it used (which you might use, for example, to ban someone if they make X transactions which are blocked by Fraud Rules).

For each rule, you can specify any number of the conditions available - the conditions you don't specify will be ignored and the rule will only be used if all conditions specified match.

As mentioned earlier, the rules are checked in order and the last that matches is used, with this in mind and the ability for a rule to approve a transaction, you can add additional rules to specify circumstances where a customer can bypass a rule (in my example above, I've set it up so Administrators are exempt from all rules).



The new Fraud Rules feature gives complete control over your transactions and will hopefully ease some of the headache of manually approving transactions.

This is of course just the first of many features and enhancements we have planned for IP.Nexus 1.5 - stay tuned for more updates over the coming weeks!

As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:
  • 5,544 views
Mark

IPS iOS App Now Available

Referencing our coming soon blog entry ... Apple was fast and has already approved our new app!

Download now


A few things to keep in mind:
The app will work on all IP.Board 3.3 versions for the most part but will be much smoother with the soon to be released IP.Board 3.3.2 Please submit bug reports as we will be releasing updates to address any issues often over the next few weeks. Be sure to keep your app up to date! Your feedback on how to improve the app is appreciated. There are some known issues with those using IP.Content as their front end that will be addressed.

We will be releasing frequent maintenance updates to polish this new app. Please let us know your feedback but we will not be adding new features until we also have our Android app released. Once both iOS and Android are out and working great then we will start adding many fun features on our roadmap. We think it important to keep iOS and Android on equal footing as much as possible.

Once we are happy with the quality and stability of the app we will start promoting it to the broader audience but you as an IPS follower can get a head start and let us know how we can improve.

IPS is very excited to be investing in our mobile services and we look forward to continued development on our mobile apps!
  • 13,430 views
Charles

New iOS App Coming Soon

UPDATE: The app is now available!

We are happy to announce that the new version of our iOS app is in the Apple App Store review process now! Once approved, the app will be available for members to enjoy for just $1.99 one time. The new app will work with all IP.Board versions 3.3.2 or newer.

This new version has a native interface, push notifications, iPad support, and multiple community support. Check out this video for a walk through of the new app:

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Admin Control

As an administrator you can also upload new image packs for the app to use for the interfaces. You can change colors and such to match your community branding.





Another great option will be admob integration for administrators to monetize users browsing their community through our App. IPS will not get involved or take a cut so it's directly between you and your visitors.

More to come...

IPS is investing in the mobile space and has brought on new staff to continue development in this area. An Android version is in development and will soon follow this release (really it will). We have also opened a new forum for feedback and a bug tracker category so you can report any issues.

Features coming very soon include uploading files on your phone as attachments to posts, images to IP.Gallery, and camera shots directly to IP.Gallery. Future feature ideas include integration with IP.Nexus for on the go customer service, more push notification options, and more fun ideas!
  • 8,026 views
Charles

Developer Documentation

While working toward the release of IP.Board 3.3.0 and IP.Content 2.3.0, the development team took some time to refresh our developer documentation, aiming to provide useful information for our third party developers in order to help them update their work as necessary. We are still very much working on expanding and updating the developer documentation we have in place, but we wanted to go ahead and reveal the new documents that are ready to give you a head start.

PHP Docs

We have refreshed the phpdoc export using doxygen.

View the phpdoc documentation


Developer Documentation

In addition to the generic phpdoc export, the development team has written several more specialized articles aimed at helping developers utilize our framework. While we have had developer documentation in place for some time, these articles are up to date and based on IP.Board 3.3.0. We have a list of several more articles we intend to publish over the coming weeks, and relevant developer documentation already available will be retained or updated as needed.

For now, you can view the new articles in the Developer Docs (New) category. Over time, these documents will be merged back into the main Developer Resources category. We have some cleanup and reviewing of our documentation structure to tackle first, but we didn't want this to hold up our valued third party developers in the mean time.


We are working hard at bringing all of our documentation up to date, and we hope that our community find these resources useful. More information to come!
  • 9,039 views
bfarber

Additional IPS Community Enhancements

Following on our previous blog entry about our enhancements to the IPS Community here at http://community.invisionpower.com ...

A few more things to note that you may be interested in that we recently changed. These changes are related to us getting ready to release IP.Board 3.3 and generally our continual process of review and refinement of everything we do.

Enhanced Access for Expired License Holders

We have opened up previously restricted areas to expired license holders as mentioned in our previous blog entry. Expired license holders can also now read and post in our feedback forums and can now also have full access to the IPS Marketplace! We are sure that everyone will enjoy a larger user base with access to the IPS Marketplace from both clients and those that contribute to the IPS Marketplace while still ensuring that the security and trust-level is maintained in the IPS Marketplace by restricting access to known persons.

Visitor and Guest Access

Guests and Vistors (those with an account but who have never been a client) can also now read and post in our feedback forums. They can also now read (but not post) in the support forums. Note that sometimes feedback from non-clients could be moderated as we often get off the wall feedback from people who have never actually used our products. We even sometimes get feedback from people who think we run our clients' sites! It's hard to explain to someone who is confused that we provide the community software but don't run the community.

Upcoming Documentation Improvements

We are investing a lot of time and effort into our documentation section to go along with 3.3's launch. We admit and own the fact that right now our documentation is weak and really want to make this a key area of improvement. Rather than try to document every button and function in our software (which really is pointless and impossible) we will be doing a lot of tutorial based documentation. Yes, as if often requested, narrated video demos will be heavily used. We all know that a 30 second video can explain things better than pages of text.

There are many obvious things we can document and once those obvious areas are finished under our new format we will be opening suggestions up to our community on what areas could use some more explanation. Also, once the core documents are done, we plan on merging in the community article sections so all the great knowledge in our client community can be harnessed. Our clients come up with unique solutions to specific situations that are sometime really fun to read.

Finally, one area we think will benefit all in the long run is a greater link between development and documentation. Once we get into client feedback on documentation we are going to keep internal track of areas that, while they work just fine, cause our clients to have to stop and scratch their collective heads. I am sure you have all had to pause at times and say "ok now how do I do this?" when trying to customize your community. One of our long term goals that we started on with IP.Board 3.3 was making things more obvious and flow better. One could easily argue that if a feature needs documentation then we didn't make that feature very easy to use. That is an area we will continue to work on in future updates.

Mobile Apps

Yes we are in the process of making all new mobile apps. The iOS version will be out soon after IP.Board 3.3's release. No details yet (sorry!) but the app is shaping up very nicely. I personally cannot wait.




So yes boring stuff and some future plans in this blog entry but I hope you all enjoy the overall approach we are taking. We are very proud of IP.Board 3.3 and want to be sure that all the other areas around a release (documentation, future planning, spotting client trends, etc.) are of the same quality and attention to detail you expect from IPS.
  • 8,749 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.3 and IP.Content 2.3 Coming Soon!

We are well into beta testing for IP.Board 3.3 and IP.Content 2.3 and so far it's going very well. Practically no bugs are being reported and often times our staff have literally 0 open general bugs in our bug tracker. That is quite an accomplishment and something of which we are very proud!

If you are an IPS Client and are comfortable beta testing we would love for you to take some time in the next day or two and visit the pre-release testing forum. There you can download the latest beta releases to try out yourself. Please report bugs to the bug tracker so we can fix any issues before we go for the final, supported release.


One of our primary goals for these releases, in addition to feature changes and enhancements of course, was to fix as many issues as we possibly could. While there will always be bugs and such in any software package, we are very proud that we have been able to address every general operational bug report that has come in. That's not something many can say. Of course once this release is used by thousands of people we will need maintenance releases but going out of the gate with basically no known issues is a great way to start!

Thank you to everyone who has assisted in beta testing so far. The final, supported releases will be here before you know it thanks to your help.
  • 13,769 views
Charles

IPS Community Enhancements and IP.Board 3.3 Note

We are happy to announce that we have made a few changes to enhance the community experience here on the IPS Community.

Access to Support Forums

Based on client feedback and the mass of good will from many helpful clients who want to assist others, we have opened up access to our support forums to both current, active license holders and those that may have a license but it is expired. As our support forums are peer-to-peer we thought this only fair. Please keep in mind that IPS Staff do not actively post in the support forums but many helpful clients do and it is a great place to get help from your fellow clients. If you ever need official support from IPS please submit a ticket in the client area.


Community Tips

We have created a new Community Administration Tips forum that we hope everyone will use to learn and share your experience. We already have some great discussion going on in this new forum and encourage you to post a topic with your own ideas. Feel free to link to your own community as a great way to promote your own community. Share your experience and learn from others!


OpenID in IP.Board 3.3

Just a quick note regarding IP.Board 3.3:

IPS is removing support for OpenID as a login method in IP.Board 3.3. While OpenID seemed to show promise several years ago it has been overtaken by other login methods. More importantly, the PHP libraries that we use to connect to OpenID have been all but abandoned by those that created them and they do not work on the latest versions of PHP. As more and more people will start upgrading their PHP versions, OpenID will start to work on fewer and fewer installs due to the incompatibles in these abandoned libraries. Therefore we will be removing support for OpenID in IP.Board 3.3.
  • 11,042 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: New SEO Tweaks Roundup

We released IP.Board 3.3.0 as beta yesterday to our clients and I wanted to just round-up some of the very latest SEO changes we've made this week.

We've invested a lot of effort into making sensible non-invasive changes to IP.Board to encourage search engines to spider pages we want them to spider and to remove extraneous links, potential crawler errors and non-desirable keywords. We routinely check progress on this forum in Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools to identify any areas that need further work. I spotted a few things which I've fixed which include the following.

Tags
We added tags back in 3.2 and we've continued to make improvements including adding 'other items tagged' which is now an option when viewing a topic. However, guest and search engine access to tags was largely blocked and the URL to fetch a list of matching items wasn't very friendly.

This has now been changed. The old format URL was 'index.php?app=core&module=search&do=search&search_app=forums&search_tag=tagName'. It's now a much snappier '/tags/forums/tagName/'.

Search engine bots now have access to the tag results page within the search engine so they can spider the results of specific tags. This should increase good keyword density.

Guests and 'unread' links
The default setting in 3.3.0 is to disallow topic tracking for guests. This means this setting applies to search engines too. However, the 'last topic' link when viewing a list of forums still retained the '/unread/' parameter. This is fine as it sends a soft redirect header which Google correctly picks up. That said, it is an unnecessary hoop for Google to jump through and as topic marking is disabled, there is no benefit to this parameter.
This has now been removed in 3.3.0.

Title tags
We've also gone through and removed some more unnecessary title attributes from links such as the 'Go to latest unread' which preceded almost every 'last topic' link when viewing a forum, search results and sub-forums. This further reduces undesirable keywords.

Soft 404s
On reviewing the crawler errors listed within Google Webmaster Tools, I noticed a lot of largely irrelevant pages were listed as being 'soft 404s'. Google declares a page a soft 404 if it sends a standard OK header (200) but it seems to contain no valuable data such as a generic 'No data to show' message within a table. This occurred with regularity with the 'Who Posted' feature as well as the 'Display Name History' button on user's profiles. I've now removed both links to Guests as arguably they serve little purpose to a non-member.


Ratings
I've added schema data to the IP.Board topic rating system so Google will detect and show the relevant rating with the search result.



These are all fairly little changes but they'll further improve your forum's SEO which can only be a good thing! We're looking forward to seeing these new changes and features in action on your forums.
  • 20,954 views
Matt

IPS Anniversary - 10 Years Online

Ten years ago today Invision Power Services was born and we continue to go strong today providing community software to thousands of clients. Ten years on the web is practically forever and we are proud to have reached this milestone!

IPS has grown over the years to one of the leading providers of community software. To our many thousands of clients including large, well-known brands like NBC, NFL, NHL, many music artists and more we have been able to offer a quality community experience.

Our staff, past and present, have made this possible through their dedication to providing quality software and great support for our clients. We apply the feedback we receive from clients, experience from running our own site, and information from running our own hosting to our product line to create a community suite that is stable, innovative, and easy to use.

Thank you to all of our dedicated clients who both give us the feedback we need to improve and also promote us to their friends and colleagues as the best choice for community software.


The future is bright for online community solutions. After all: from day one the web was all about communicating and sharing information. Through the crazes of newsgroups, personal web pages (Geocities anyone?), everyone having a blog, MySpace, Second Life, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever is next the common theme has always been communicating and sharing. IPS will continue as it has for the past 10 years with a focus on connecting people so they can share their world online.
  • 13,726 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Microformat and Schema Updates / SEO

IP.Board has made use of micro formats and schema data since IP.Board 3.0. We added to this in 3.2 to include breadcrumb data in our navigation. This enabled Google to display our navigation links within search results.


The schema data has been read from our page which enables the green navigation links and post/author data.

We've further extended the schema data for 3.3 which is great news for SEO:




Topics and posts
At the head of each topic, we've added schema information to the title and author details. This will help search engines locate the title of the topic.



We've also tagged up the posts to help search engines extract relevant information.



As we can see, Google can read this schema data very easily and quickly locates the data we want it to focus on.



Forum View
We've added schema data to the forum view also. This will help search engines locate relevant data. The screen shot below shows the data Google extracted from the forum view page.



As you can see, there is a row for each topic in the forum.

Events
We've added schema data to calendar events and even the sidebar 'Forthcoming Calendar Events' block so they display correctly when your site is searched. Here's the result of Google's rich snippets tool preview. Note the 'Meeting!' event underneath.


These unobtrusive changes should greatly assist search engines in locating relevant content which is good news for everyone!
  • 15,082 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Auto-share on posting

IP.Board was one of the first commercial products to make use of Facebook integration to allow logged in Facebook users instant membership. We extended this in subsequent releases to include the ability to share status updates and links from the board such as topics. During this time, we also added Twitter as an authentication system and the ability to tweet out links and status updates.

You don't have to be an active Facebook or Twitter user yourself to appreciate the advantages of tapping into the millions of users these sites receive daily. It's a great way of driving more traffic to your site and to encourage activity.

Auto Sharing
In the current version of IP.Board, you can quickly share and 'like' content such as topics, gallery images and blog entries when you read them. In IP.Board 3.3.0, we've taken this a step further and added the ability to auto-share content during creation.



You simply check the boxes for the services you want to share with and it'll share the content as soon as its been saved. You can even make the current preferences default so you don't have to remember to check them each time.

Of course, these buttons don't show if you've disabled sharing for that forum and you can optionally disable the entire feature from the Admin CP.

Authentication Flow
In the current version of IP.Board, you have to be connected to Facebook before you can share status updates and links. This means you'd have either registered with a Facebook account of you'd have linked them via your UserCP. Not everyone will be aware of this functionality so there's a chance that some of your members will never make use of those features.

In IP.Board 3.3, we've utilised the Facebook Javascript SDK into our own code so you can connect to your Facebook account without leaving the page.

The Facebook auto-share button is visible even if you're not currently connected (assuming of course that the feature is enabled and you've set up Facebook via the Admin CP). When you click the checkbox, if you're not connected, the request for permission dialogue loads automatically. Once allowed, the connection is finished in the background and you're all set up ready to share without leaving the page.



This drastically reduces the barrier for connecting your Facebook accounts with IP.Board and further encourages sharing.

Changes to meta data
When you share a link, Facebook checks the page for specific Open Graph meta tags. Once of these determines the image that is shown next to the link. By default this is the IP.Board logo. In IP.Board 3.3 when you attach images to a post, these are used as the shared image bringing context to the link.



These changes will no doubt increase the number of topics shared with Facebook which in return will increase visitors to your forum for those that embrace social media as a way to drive traffic.
  • 25,819 views
Matt

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