Andy Millne

Ever since Invision Community 4.x was launched you have been asking for the ability to categorize blogs in your community. We heard you loud and clear, but sometimes when a feature sounds straightforward, it requires some re-engineering of the framework. Because users in your community can create both blog entries and their own blogs to hold these entries, this was one of those areas. Starting with Invision Community 4.5 I’m pleased to announce that it is now possible for blog authors to categorize their blog entries and it's now possible for administrators to categorize blogs. Blog Entry Categories When creating a new blog entry, your members will now be able to create a new category for the entry or choose an existing one that had been created previously. Choosing your category when creating a new blog entry When a reader then visits the blog they can choose to display only those categories that interest them. Filtering by category Blog Categories Running a community where users can create their own blogs, you don’t only need to make sure individual pieces of content are categorized correctly, you also need to make sure the blogs themselves have a logical place. Well guess what? Now you can! As an admin you can now set up predefined categories in the control panel and Blog authors can then choose which one to create their new blog in. Managing blog categories We realize some of you have been waiting a long time to see these changes so we hope you enjoy this and everything else to come in Invision Community 4.5!

Invision Community has supported member referrals via the Commerce app since Commerce was called Nexus all those years ago. Community owners have been able to see at a glance who is spreading the word and members have received the kudos associated with a growing referral count in return. When planning Invision Community 4.5 we saw that this feature had the potential to be so much more… So what have we done to improve it? See Who Was Referred In addition to seeing a count of referrals, it’s now possible for both admins and members to see who they referred. If Commerce is enabled admins can also see how much commission (if any) was earned. The new referral settings page shows links, code snippets and who you've referred Member Promotion Seeing a rising count of who has been referred gives members a great feeling of community involvement but wouldn’t it be great if you could reward your members in other ways too? Referral counts now work as a member filter when using the group promotion feature. You can now automatically promote members that have referred more than a specific number of members to another user group and give them access to exclusive content. This still works alongside paid subscriptions so be another method for members not willing or able to pay for subscriptions to get access. Integration With Sharing If the feature is enabled, any time a link is shared via the built-in share links, referrals will be tracked. This occurs automatically without the member needing to think about it. It’s now easier than ever to see who your superfans are and who is bringing new people to the community. Blocks As well as the default share links we have added a new sidebar block that can be added anywhere across your community. This prominent call to action can be added on pages you think are most likely to result in recommendations. The new "Invite a friend" widget Given that referral capabilities have been expanded into many more areas outside of Commerce we decided that this should now be available as a core feature. Earning commission on sales as a result of referrals will still, of course, require Commerce to be installed. We hope that these are welcome improvements and they help you encourage more members to participate in your community.