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Selling advertisement space on websites, is one of the oldest methods of generating revenue for your site. However this can still be one of the most effective in many cases. Our commerce application allows you to sell specific locations on your site to advertisers for periods of your own choosing. Selling Advertising Selling advertisement space to your visitors can easily achieved within Commerce by adding a new product within Products. See the Commerce products article for more information. You will be able to set an expiration period for the product as well as the maximum dimensions for any banners which are uploaded when a visitor buys an ad space. This allows you control over the size and period that a banner is shown for. You can see more information on this within our commerce guide. Any ad purchases will show up within Advertisements as a pending advertisement. This enables you to ensure that the ads are suitable for your site before showing them. You can also add an email to your created product to notify you of any new purchases, should you wish to be notified of these immediately. When a clicks to purchase advertising space, they will be prompted to upload their advertisement image to be used, along with the URL this will lead to. Purchasing ads Optionally, the user can select to upload smaller versions of the advertisement image. These would then be used for devices such as tablets and mobile devices Tablet and Mobile Ads

Your client area on our site, is your area in which to manage your client licences, interact with support, make any payments, and generally manage your account on the platform. Below is an overview of the various functions of your client area. Client Area Overview Manage Purchases (1) On first logging into the client area, you will see the "Manage Purchases" section. From the screenshot above, you can see there are 2 items present (one cloud and one self hosted license). You can manage any of these items by selecting the button on the right. Once you have clicked to manage an item you will be able see information about that purchase, and manage items such as access information, licensed URLs and keys. In addition, if you would like to add any items to your packages, you can do this from the same location, by selecting the "Manage your community" tab. Orders (2) From the orders tab, you can see every order you have had on our system. Items such as new purchases, renewals, and other items. Orders List If click on the View Details button next to any of the order numbers, you can see more details about that order, including the ability to print your invoice or add a PO number. Order Details Support (3) Clicking on the support tab will give you the ability to submit a support ticket, or view any existing support tickets. For more details on obtaining support, please see the following guide My Details (4) The "My Details" drop down menu contains many items where you can change/add details. These are detailed in brief below Personal Information - This is where you can add a telephone number and company name if needed Addresses - You can change your billing address within this area, and add any other addresses required to use for your licenses. Payment Methods - You can add payment methods here, which you can then use to make purchases and process renewals on your items. If a valid payment method is on file, this would automatically be used for any renewals. Account Credit - You can add credit to your account here, which can be used for purchases of IPS products. It is important to note that this cannot be used in the marketplace. For this you must add to marketplace credit on the community. Alternative Contacts - Here you can add other people who are allowed to contact us on your behalf, either for billing, support, or both. You can also select which purchases to allow them to view. Referrals - Here you can find your personal referral links for the invision platform. Change Email/Password - Links for to change each of these corresponding items.

When starting a new community, one of the first questions that is often asked, is how to get the site to look the way you wish. Below we discuss the various tools you can use in order to achieve this. It should be noted that this guide is intended as a brief overview. Links are provided to guides with further information. However you can find more in depth topics in the "Themes and Customizations" section, on the left menu. Themes First of all, we need to know what a theme is. A theme is a set of colors, fonts, layouts and more, that changes the overall design of your site. Changing theme can by uploading one created by a 3rd party, or creating one yourself in one of 2 'modes'. 3rd Party Themes The easiest way in which to change the look of your site, is to pick a theme from a 3rd party author. Many 3rd party authors will offer themes within our marketplace, which you can find in the following location of our site https://invisioncommunity.com/files/category/162-themes/ These may be free or paid solutions. Once you have found a 3rd party theme you wish to use, you would then upload this to your site within the AdminCP, at the following location Customization -> Appearance -> Themes Once in this location, click on "Add theme" to upload the theme you have downloaded from the market place Add New Theme Select the Upload tab on the popup. You will notice that when creating a theme yourself using easy mode or manual, you also do this from the same place Select Upload Tab Click to select the xml theme you downloaded, and click next to add the theme Choose the Theme You Wish To Upload Once the theme is uploaded, you can set this as the default by clicking the edit button (Pencil icon) at the side of your new theme Easy Mode Easy Mode, is the simplest method in which to create your own theme. This allows for the changing of colors and settings, without the need for coding knowledge. You can then select colors for each element of the site, as you see in the screenshot below. Easy Mode Theme Creation You can see more about how to do this, in our Easy mode guide Design Your Own For some, you will wish to create more complex themes using html/css/javascript. If you are looking to completely write your own themes in this matter, take a look at our guides on the left, under the "Themes and Customisations" section Theme Guides Blocks Within the IPS Community Suite, you are provided with the ability to add items to your pages by way of a 'Block Manager'. This drag/drop facility allows you to quickly add items to create a sidebar, or add items to the top and bottom of your page. This facility is also used within our pages application to facilitate the easy creation of new pages. Adding Blocks Adding blocks to your pages is a simple process. When logged in as a member of staff with the moderator permission "Can use sidebar", you will see a tab sticking out from the left of the site. Clicking on this will open the block manager, and reveal available areas of the site where you can place your blocks. This is shown in the gif image below Block Manager Usage Editing Blocks Some blocks that you add to the page will have their own configuration to them. Where this is the case, you will see an edit button where you can add further configuration. Clicking edit reveals setup options In this example, we are using the topic feed. As you can see from the image below, you can configure many of these blocks to very specific needs. For example, you may want a block named "News" which is fed from your news forum. This would easily done with the topic feed block. Topic Feed Config You can see more about the block manager in the following guide Languages 3rd Party Languages For most people who require a language pack, outside of the default, the simplest method would be to obtain a 3rd party language pack. This is a pack which has already been created by someone else. You can find many 3rd party language packs, within the translations category of our marketplace Once you have a language pack, you would then upload in the following location, by clicking on "Create New>Upload" Customization -> Localization -> Languages Visual Translation Within the languages section of our suite, we provide a way of quick translation, through the front end of the site. Which allows you to see what you are editing. This can be handy if you are changing just a few select phrases, or need to quickly find where to edit a word or phrase. To see more about how to use these features, please see our guide in the following location Full Translation For some, only full manual translation will do. It may be that you are translating to a language that nobody has done before, or you wish to create one of your own to share within our marketplace. We provide a range of guides for this, which you can find in the menu, at the left of our guide area Language Guides

This guide covers the various areas of our billing system, within our client area. Answering various common questions we are asked about purchasing items, and managing billing items such as addresses, credit, and payments. Orders Section Once you have logged into the client area, you will see there is an order tab in the menu, as shown in the screenshot below. Orders Every order/invoice that has ever been on your account, can be seen in this area. As you can see at the top, there is an order that has not yet been paid for a renewal. These can be paid by selecting the "Pay Now" option provided. Clicking on the "view details" button on any order, will show you all the details related to that order. From here you can add a PO number in the top right if needed, and print the invoice. Order Details Payment Methods If you would like for your renewals to be paid automatically, you can add a payment method to the system, which will then be charged automatically when an invoice is generated. In order to add a new payment method, you would do this from the following location in the menu 'My Details->Payment Methods' If you have any existing payment methods, you will see them listed here. To add a new payment method, select the 'Add New' button Payment Methods Once you select to add a new method, simply add your card details that you wish to be saved securely for future payments Add New Account Credit In addition to adding a new payment method, you can also add credit to your account for future invoices. Therefore if you wish to pay for items up front, you can do so by pre-paying on your account. To add credit to your account, visit the following location 'My Details->Account Credit' From here, simply click the 'Add Credit' button, and enter the amount you wish to add. You will then be taken through the checkout process to pay the amount. Any future invoices would draw from this credit automatically. Account Credit Managing Addresses When purchasing your suite, you will be asked for your address details. Should you need to change these details, or add new details for new purchases, you can do this from the following location. 'My Details->Addresses' Once a new address is added, you can, if you choose, change they default addresses using the buttons provided under any of the 'Other Addresses' Addresses

Applies to self-hosted customers only This guide on changing of URL, is related to self hosted customers. If you have your own domain, and you are looking to use this on our cloud platform, please see the following guide Licensed URLs Before we continue through this guide, a brief explanation of how URLs work may be beneficial. Each license entitles you to installation on one URL only. On installation of the platform, your licensed URL is set, and will show within your client area, next to your license. Set URL In addition to the main live URL, you are allowed also one test instance. Your test instance should use the same license key, but suffixed with -TESTINSTALL . For example if your license key is 000-0000-000 then your test key would be 000-0000-000-TESTINSTALL. IMPORTANT:- Test installations must be protected by htpasswd protection, and must not be accessible to the public. Installation change First of all, we need to change the URL on the installation itself. To do this, you simply do the following Open your conf_global.php file, which can be found at the root of your installation. Here you need to change any references to your URL, to show the new URL Log into your admin control panel and run through the support tools by visiting System>Support>Support, and selecting "something isnt working correctly". You will need to select next only until it states cache has been cleared. Client Area change Once this has been done, log into the client area, and select "Manage this Purchase". Purchases Scroll to the "Licensed URLs" section and click on "Change URL". This will wipe the URL on your license, allowing the new URL to be picked up automatically from your install again. Change URL Option

Within the IPS Community Suite, there are several routine maintenance tasks, which need to be performed at regular intervals. You can see these by looking in the following location of your AdminCP. System->Settings->Advanced Configuration Here you will see a "View Tasks" button just below the task method selection. As you can see, various tasks are run at different intervals, and are important to keeping your site running as designed. Items such as sending out digest emails, updating your leaderboard, and general cleanup tasks, are all tended to through this system. Tasks can be run in one of 3 ways. This can be set within System->Settings->Advanced Configuration, each of which are described below. Applies to cloud customers only If you are running on the cloud platform, the way in which tasks are run is taken care of automatically by our cloud team. Therefore the changing of methods is not something you need to worry about. Run with Traffic This is the default option within the IPS Community Suite, when your product is installed. The system will automatically run tasks as members browse the site. This is fine for most sites, but if your site does not receive much member traffic, tasks could become backlogged. Tasks will only be triggered by regular members, not guests. If it looks like a backlog is being generated, an error will display on the AdminCP dashboard. Traffic warning If this message is seen, then you would need to look at one of the below 2 methods, should it continue to occur. Cron The Cron option is our recommend option. Cron is a task service which is available on most web servers. You may be able to set these up yourself, or may need to speak to your hosting company to set these up for you. If you are unsure you should contact your hosting company. When selecting this option, you will be shown what command to run. This must be run once per minute, and should be run in full, including the alphanumeric key, Cron Setup Web Service While unusual, there are some hosting companies which will not allow for the use of cron jobs. In these circumstances, if you cannot run automatically with traffic, you can use a web service such as EasyCron to remotely trigger these tasks. Once you have an EasyCron Account, add the URL given in the description of that setting Web Service Setup

Introduction In this tutorial, we are going to run through the basics of creating your own calendar sections of your community. Note that this tutorial is intentionally basic in nature, and intended as a guide to "Get you going". More guides can be found in Suite Applications -> Calendar, within the guides area. First Open When you first install the software, there is 1 calendar create by default. This is the community calendar, which your members can enter into. Community Calendar Deleting Existing Calendars First of all, lets get rid of the community calendar that is there by default, so we can set things up in a manner of our choosing. We first need to log into the AdminCP, where we can start building. To do this, sign in on the top right, then click on your name. You will see a link to the AdminCP here. Click this and log in. Now we are in the admin CP, we need to get to the forums section. Point at the 'community' section on the left, which is the chat bubble icon, then select Calendar as shown. Getting to Calendars Now you are in here, you will see the Community Calendar, which is added on a default install. Click on the menu on the right, and select "Delete", to remove that default item The Sports Calendar Our Aims For the purpose of this guide, we are going to create a set of calendars suitable for our sports site. Here is our plan for our sports calendar. You can of course create any calendars you wish. General Football Season Baseball Season Creating Calendars Now we know what we want to see, we can go ahead and get our 3 main categories of General, Hobbies, and Staff Area created. To do this, click on the "Create New" button in the top right Create New Give the new calendar a name of General, which is our first category. We're happy with the default settings here. Note that the color item you see, is the color that your calendar items will show in, when you are viewing all calendar items together. New Calendar When we click on save, we are asked to set permissions. On the left you see each user group, and the permissions you can set for that group along the top. Category Permissions Now we have created our first calendar, we can go ahead and create the other 2. You can use the create button as we did in the first instance, however there is also a copy option as shown below. This you will find in many areas of the suite, and can be helpful if you have categories with Calendar Copy That is now all three of your new calendars created, and ready to use by your members Rearranging Items Once you have done, you may wish to rearrange some of the items to better suit your needs. This can be easily done by clicking and holding your mouse button over the anchors on the left, then dragging to the position you wish. Drag/Drop to Rearrange Summary If you now go to the front end of the site, and select calendar you will see you now have the forum we set out to create. I have added some items here to show you what the finished product would look like, once people start to add items. Ready to Go! You will see more guides available under Suite Applications>Calendar on the left, for this application. These contain more detailed guides on specific settings, along with some more site specific examples and tips. As with all areas of our suite, if you are unsure where to find something, and cannot find how to do this in our guides, please feel free to submit a ticket to our support team. We are always happy to advise you on how to get the best from your Invision Community Suite.

Introduction In this guide, we aim to give you a jump start on using the blogs application, within your invision commuinity suite. We will go through the basics of how blogs work, and just how easy it can be to tweak settings for you and your members. First Open On first installing blogs, the blog tab is empty of any blogs/content. By default, all members of the site have the ability to create basic blogs. Therefore they can create their own blog, and create their own blog entries within them. Empty Blogs Area One or more blogs can be set up by a user, for adding entries into. For example, someone may have a blog for their chosen sports team, and a blog for their training in that sport, and another for their physical fitness. Each of these can then have entries on a periodic basis, relating to those items. Creating a blog Members create a blog, simply by selecting the "Create a blog" button. They will then be asked for to select a category, a name, description, and whether or not they wish for people to be able to use an RSS feed reader from your blog. Creating a blog Adding Entries Once you have created a new blog, you can add entries into it, using the button provided in the top right of that blog Inside a blog When creating a new entry, you can choose a feature photo for that entry, polls, and even link the blog entry to an album within your gallery if you have the gallery application installed. Blog Entry Screen Adding more categories If you wish to add more categories, you can do this from your adminCP, by visiting the following location Community -> Blogs -> Blogs Select "Create New Category" to add Blog Categories Our example blog Our Aims As we have just installed our community suite, we have the blog application installed and our members can use this. For our example blog however, we would like to change some setting, and make this more suitable for our site. Our aim here is to do 2 things. Create a blog in which all staff can post. This will serve as a site blog related to things happening in and around the site. Any member of staff may want to make an entry here We would like for people within our members group to be able to create blogs just for select friends to view. So we are going to allow them to create private blogs for this purpose. Group Blogs As a group blog is a blog that does not belong to any individual, we will create this from the admin CP. To do this, log into your admin CP and visit the following location Community -> Blogs ->Blogs Once we are here, we will click the "Add Blog" button in the top right Add Blog Now we are in the creation screen, we want to click on "Group" rather than "Single author" and select all of our staff groups to post in. Hold cmd/ctrl on your keyboard, and select each of the groups whos members will be allowed to post within it. You can then give the blog a name and description. Add Group Blog Once you have saved this, all members of staff will be able to add entries into that blog. Private Blogs Now we have sorted out the staff blog, lets give our members group access to allow only certain members to see their blog. To do this, go to the following area and click on the pencil icon on the side of the "members" group. Members -> Members -> Groups Member Group Settings Once you are in here, select the blog tab, and you will see settings relating to that group of members. As we want to allow the member group to create blogs only their friends can see, we are going to allow them to set up private blogs. Private Blogs Now we have set this, our members will have an extra setting when creating blogs, where they can select who can view the blog entries. Choosing who can see Summary As you can see, blogs are easy for your members to use, and can be handy for a great number of things within your site. Example Blogs You will see more guides available under Suite Applications>Blogs on the left, for this application. These contain more detailed guides on specific settings, along with some more site specific examples and tips. As with all areas of our suite, if you are unsure where to find something, and cannot find how to do this in our guides, please feel free to submit a ticket to our support team. We are always happy to advise you on how to get the best from your Invision Community Suite.

Introduction In this guide, we are going to show you just how easy it is to get up and running, with your own downloads section, using the downloads application on the IPS application. This guide is intentionally built to show you only the basics of how to get up and running. You will see further guides within the 'Suite Applications>Downloads', which show more in-depth detail. First Open On first installing the software, the downloads area will show with no categories, and look blank similar to the below image. The first thing we are going to want to do here, is to decide on what categories we need for our downloads area, and get them created ready for our users. First Install Our PSD Area Our Aims For our downloads area, we are going to set up the "Our PSD Area", as our site is related to digital artists. Our aim will be to add sections for the following items Funny Art Wallpapers Misc Art Creating Categories Now we know what we want to see, we can go ahead and get the 3 main downloads categories created. To do this, we need to first head over to the following location in our AdminCP Community -> Downloads -> Categories Click on the "Create New" button in the top right to create our first category Create New Add the name of the category, and a simple description, then click on save to create your category. New Category Screen Once you have done this, you can create the rest of the categories we discussed in the same manner. On clicking save of each category, we are shown the permissions that can be applied. We are happy with the defaults for now, but you can change these to suite your own needs. Category Permissions If you have changed any other settings, and don't wish to have to change those settings every time, you can copy the category you just created, to save duplicating work. To so this, you would select the copy option from the drop down, at the side of any existing category Copy Category Rearranging Items Once you have done, you may wish to rearrange some of the items to better suit your needs. This can be easily done by clicking and holding your mouse button over the anchors on the left, then dragging to the position you wish. Moving Categories Summary If you now go to the front end of the site, you will see you now have the downloads area we set out to create. Ready to Go! You will see more guides available under Suite Applications>Downloads on the left, for this application. These contain more detailed guides on specific settings, along with some more site specific examples and tips. As with all areas of our suite, if you are unsure where to find something, and cannot find how to do this in our guides, please feel free to submit a ticket to our support team. We are always happy to advise you on how to get the best from your Invision Community Suite.

Introduction In this guide, we are going to show you how to get started with using the gallery application. Unlike other guides, this is intentionally basic in nature, and gives you enough information to get you started in exploring the possibility for your own site. Further guides on specifics of gallery settings, can be found in the Suite Applications>Gallery section of the guides area. First Look As we have first installed the software, the gallery area will look something like the following image. Containing a single "Member Albums" category. The default category does not have to be kept. This is simply a demo category which can be replaced, or renamed if needed. Stock Install Gallery Deleting Content / Categories Before we begin, lets get rid of any existing content and categories. To do this, we need to visit the AdminCP, which is where we can start building our new site. To do this, sign in on the top right, then click on your name. You will see a link to the AdminCP here. Click this and log in. Now we are in the admin CP, we need to get to the gallery categories section. Point at the 'community' section on the left, which is the chat bubble icon, then select gallery>Categories, as shown. Gallery Section Here you will see a list of gallery categories. Of course at present, there is just one. The "Members Albums" category that we saw above. Lets go ahead and delete this. Do do so, we select the dropdown, at the side of that category, then hit delete Menu Options You will note there is also a "Move / Delete Content" option here. This can be helpful to mass move the content of these categories, from one category to another, or even delete them entirely. Our Computer Gallery Our Aims We advise first of all, you get together what categories you want to see on within your new gallery. For our first gallery, we are going to set up a gallery for computer related items. We will create a few new categories as follows Full Setups - We want people to create an album for their own setups here. Monitors Peripherals Other Tech Creating Categories Now we have organised what we would like to see, we can go ahead and start creating our categories. Click on the "Create New" button in the top right, to add your first category. Create New Category The first category we are setting up, is our "Full Setups" category. For this, we want to ensure our members create new albums, so we will add a name, but also change the "Albums" setting to "Require albums". This way our users will be forced to create a new album, or select an album they have already created. They cannot upload images directly to the category. Create Category with Albums Required It is worth a note here regarding the differences between categories and albums. Categories are a way of organizing areas for upload, that are set up by the administrators of the site. Albums are also a way of organizing, however belong within a category, and are set up by the users of the gallery themselves. Once you have done, click on save. The system will then ask you to choose permissions for that category. We are happy with the default permissions here, however you can see you could create categories only for specific groups of people, should you wish to do so. Gallery Permissions Now you have added your first category, go ahead and add the other categories discussed above. Unlike the one above item, we may choose that albums are optional in other areas, or indeed not allowed if needed. If creating categories with the same setup, you can actually copy a previously created item, by selecting copy in the menu at the side of any existing category. This can be helpful in ensuring you are not duplicating the work of setting up category settings. Copy a Category Once completed, you should see something like the below. Example Category List Allow groups to add albums In order to ensure our members can create albums, we need to add the permission for this within our members group. To do this, visit Members -> Groups within the admin CP, and then select the pencil icon at the side of the members group to edit. Edit Member Group Once here, we need to select the Gallery tab, and then add permission to create albums. You can see there area a few other options in here, but for now its only albums we need. Once done select save. Album Permission Rearranging Items Once you have done, you may wish to rearrange some of the items to better suit your needs. This can be easily done by clicking and holding your mouse button over the anchors on the left, then dragging to the position you wish. Rearranging Categories Summary As you can see, its quite easy to get a simple gallery set up. Your members can now submit images to your gallery in the categories you have set up Gallery Example You will see more guides available under Suite Applications>Gallery on the left, for this application. These contain more detailed guides on specific settings, along with some more site specific examples and tips. As with all areas of our suite, if you are unsure where to find something, and cannot find how to do this in our guides, please feel free to submit a ticket to our support team. We are always happy to advise you on how to get the best from your Invision Community Suite.

Within each forum in the AdminCP, there are settings you can set up specific to that forum. These are in terms of what the forum is, how the forum looks, and how the forum can be used. Forum Settings These are the most basic settings for a forum. Here is where you will set up the name and description of your forum, along with the basic characteristics of the forum itself. In addition to the name and description, there are the following sections that can be used Forum Settings Display Settings In the display settings section, you can set up how your forum will look. Items such as whether or not to show rules, sharing options, and ratings can all be set up within this section. Display Settings Posting Settings Finally, we have posting settings. Here you can find important items relating to how people can post within this forum. You can set up whether or not items need to be approved, allow people to post anonymously, set tag preferences and more in this area Posting Settings

Introduction If you're here, this means you want to know how to build your own forums, right? Well, you have come to the right place! In this guide, we aim to jump right in, show you how, and get you started. We will go through the basics of creating your own working forum, and show you just how easy these are to create (no, honestly!). First Open When you first install the software, the first thing you will notice is something that looks like the following image. By default, there is already one forum added named "A Test Forum" and a welcome topic. Don't worry, you don't have to keep these. We just added them in there to show you something more than just a blank page. Stock Install Deleting Content /Forums First of all, lets get rid of the content within this forum. We first need to log into the AdminCP, where we can start building. To do this, sign in on the top right, then click on your name. You will see a link to the AdminCP here. Click this and log in. Now we are in the admin CP, we need to get to the forums section. Point at the 'community' section on the left, which is the chat bubble icon, then select forums as shown. Getting to Forums Now you are in here, you will see the test category, which is added on a default install. Click on the menu on the right, and select "Move / Delete Content". Delete It is important to note, this is not deleting the forum or category itself, but deleting the content from within it, such as posts and topics. You will be shown a popup when you select this option. Here you can choose to delete the forums/topics, or delete them. By default, delete is selected. Move Options As we are looking to get an empty installation here, we will go ahead and delete. This will leave us with a completely empty forums application, ready to create our new set of forums. The Fun Forum Our Aims As we all know, creating communities is fun! So for the purpose of this demonstration, we will create "The Fun Forum" (feel free to copy this awesome idea, or create your own!). We advise first of all, you get together what categories and forums you want to see on your site. To give a very brief explanation of these, a category is a container for forums. A forum is where topics are created by your members. So, here is our plan for our fun forum. Categories are shown in Purple, then forums in blue under each category. Lets jump right in, and get started! General -Introductions -Chat -Site News Hobbies -Sport -TV and Movies - Tech Chat Staff Area -Moderator Chat -Admin Chat Creating Categories Now we know what we want to see, we can go ahead and get our 3 main categories of General, Hobbies, and Staff Area created. To do this, click on the "Create New" button in the top right Create New By default, this will be creating a new category. We are happy with this as this is what we would like to do. Add the name of your first category, then save at the bottom New Category When we click on save, we are asked to set permissions. On the left you see each user group. Select the checkbox for "See forum" on each group you wish to be able to see that section. In our case, this will be all of them. Category Permissions Now we have created our first category, we can create the other 2. Rather than clicking create new, we will this time click on the copy button. This is helpful if you have made changes on settings that you wish to be the same on multiple items. Click the dropdown at the side of the General Category you created, and click on copy. Then type in the name of the next category. Do this again till you have all 3 categories. Category Copy We should now have all three categories created, ready to add forums to. Categories Adding Forums Now we have our categories, lets go ahead and add some forums. To do this, click the + button next to the General category that we created, to create a new forum. Click + to add forums You will notice this is the same screen as when we created our categories. Only this time, discussions is selected for the 'Type'. Add the name of the introductions forum, and a description for this. Once done, leave everything else as default and click save Discussion Create Screen When saving a discussion forum, you will see there are more permissions, such as who can create new topics, reply to them, or download attachments. You will want to bear these in mind when it comes to creating your moderator chat, and admin chat forums. Forum Permissions When you create your first forum, you will notice that you are put within the category. You can click the category name if you want to go back to the full list. Click Back to Full List Use the copy feature or click on the + at the side of categories to create all the forums mentioned in the "Our Aims" section. Pay special attention to the permissions when you create your staff areas. You only want your staff to be able to see these. Rearranging Items Once you have done, you may wish to rearrange some of the items to better suit your needs. This can be easily done by clicking and holding your mouse button over the anchors on the left, then dragging to the position you wish. Drag/Drop to Rearrange Summary If you now go to the front end of the site, you will see you now have the forum we set out to create. Ready to Go! You will see more guides available under Suite Applications>Forums on the left, for this application. These contain more detailed guides on specific settings, along with some more site specific examples and tips. As with all areas of our suite, if you are unsure where to find something, and cannot find how to do this in our guides, please feel free to submit a ticket to our support team. We are always happy to advise you on how to get the best from your Invision Community Suite.

Stripe support on your product can be set up quite easily, for your customers to purchase items within commerce. This can be used either for one-off payments or for recurring payments via card. Stripe supports various items such as card payments, apple/android pay, alipay and more. You would set up any payment method, including the Stripe payment method, from the following location in your AdminCP Commerce > Payments > Settings > Payment Methods Stripe API Key We recommend when setting up stripe, you have 2 tabs open in your browser, so that you can copy and paste the relevant details from your Stripe setup, directly to the payment method setup screen within your admin CP. First of all, go to the payment methods section in your Admin CP, and select "Create New". Selecting the Stripe method, as shown in the image below, then click Save. In another browser tab, log into the API section of your stripe account . If you havent created an account already, you will need to create yourself a stripe account using the register button. On first login, you may see the following screen. If so, click on "Use the Stripe API" If you have just set up your account, you will need to activate this before you can create an API key. Select the "Activate your account" link shown below. Here you will be asked to enter details about what you intend to use the stripe payment method for, along with bank and other details relevant for your payments to be received. Once activated successfully, click to get your API keys, using the link provided. Click to show the Secret Key, as shown in the image below. You now have the 2 API keys you need to copy into your payment method in the admin CP (Leave the tab for stripe open. You will need this again) Copy these 2 keys into the area provided in the ACP, enter a name for your payment method, and select any restrictions to countries, if required. Payment types In the next section of your payment method, you will see the methods that can be chosen for payment on stripe. Select the method you wish to use here for this setup. It is important to note, you can set up this stripe payment method more than once if you wish to use more than one of these items. For example, you may wish to provide your users with the facility to pay with apple/android pay, and also set up the facility to use cards. You can choose here also whether or not you wish to use the 3D secure option provided by card issuers if available, and whether or not to store the card details. If you do not choose to store card details, then the card method would only be able to be used for one of payments, and not automated billing of items such as subscriptions. Stripe Webhook In order for Stripe to be able to tell the system when a user has paid, a webhook must also be set up. Back on your Stripe API page, select the "Webhooks" option from the menu Select to create a new Endpoint for the webhook, in the top right of the page Go back to your adminCP tab, and copy the endpoint URL, which is provided for you at the bottom of the payment method setup page Copy this into the box provided, and then select "receive all events". Once you have done this, select "Add Endpoint" Once this has been added click to reveal the Signing Secret, and enter this within your payment method, into the box provided. You can now click save on the payment method in your admin CP, and this will be available for use within commerce purchases.

PayPal support on your product can be set up quite easily, for your customers to purchase items within commerce. This can be used either for one-off payments or for billing agreements that allow for recurring payments such as for a monthly subscription. You would set up any payment method, including the PayPal payment method, from the following location in your AdminCP Commerce > Payments > Settings > Payment Methods PayPal Application Before we can set up the PayPal payment method within the AdminCP, we must first create a PayPal REST API App within the paypal developer page. Once on the page, log into the dashboard using the button in the top right. This will be the details for the paypal account you will have people paying in to. If you do not already have a paypal account for this, you would need to create one first of all. Log In If you have used this area before, you may see other items as we see in the screnshot below. Don't worry however if you have not. In either case, you need to click "Create App" to start creating a new REST API Application. Create an Application First os all enter an application name. This is simply a name to identify this in your developer dashboard, so it can be anything you like here. You will also note it asks for a sandbox business account. This can be left as it is on its default setting. Click on "Create App" to create your new application. Application Name Once we have done this, it is important that you select the "Live" tab, as this will have the details you need to enter into your Invision Community AdminCP Ensure you select 'Live' Once on the live page, click on "Show" in order to show the 'Secret' key, which you will need for your Invision Community AdminCP. Show the 'Secret' key Now that your application is created, you need to copy the Client ID, and Secret shown below. These will be used in the next stages to set up within commerce. Copy the Details Required Creating the Payment Method Now that we have the application set up in PayPal, and have the Client ID and Secret, its time to set this up within your AdminCP. Go to the following location and select to create a new payment method Commerce > Payments > Settings > Payment Methods Select the PayPal method, and then click next Create a New PayPal Method You can choose any name you wish for your payment method, including a name for each language pack you have on your system. This is the name that will be shown to the user on the front end, and would usually simply be named PayPal. You can however choose anything you like if needed. Your Client ID and Secret are then added to the locations provided. Enter Your App Details You will note also on this screen you can restrict the payment method to be available only to certain countries, should you wish to do so. The billing agreements section here. You can switch these off entirely, have them as optional, or set them as required. This enables a billing agreement (previously known as recurring payments) to be set up between yourself and the customer, for items such as subscriptions. If a billing agreement is set up, then after the first payment, any renewals would be automatically requested from the customers paypal account. Billing Agreement Selection It is important to note, that if you disable Billing Agreements on this page, you can still use subscriptions if you wish to do so. What would happen in this scenario, is that the invoice would be created, and would be available for your customer to manually go ahead an pay. Failure to pay this after the given period would then result in the invoice expiring. Once you have added all the details needed, simply select "Save" which will then make the method available for use.

There are various other settings for member profiles within the suite, which can be set up by the administrator, to better suite the needs of any particular site. These settings can be found within the following location of the ACP. Members -> Member Settings -> Profiles -> Profile Settings Profile settings From this location, you can switch on/off various items, and set defaults relating to peoples profiles upon registration. Profile Settings Page Photo Settings In this section, you can various options related to profile photos, their defaults, and what you would like to allow the user do do in relation to being able to add them Photo Settings Display Names This is where you would set what is allowable as a display name on sign up. You can set the length requirements, along with what chars you wish for the users to be able to use. For example, you may wish to restrict to only the A-Z in the alphabet, along with 0-9, hyphens and underscores. You can easily select these from the list provided. Of course, if you have more complex requirements, you can select the "Use regex" function and enter regex for the display name requirements. If you wish to stop people using a specific name or term within their display name, you can restrict this from the ban settings page, discussed in the following guide Display Name Settings Signatures These are a signature that would be placed under your members items of content, when posting in the forum areas. You can choose whether or not to use these on your site. Along with who to show them to Signature Settings Status Updates Here you can set whether or not status updates can be used by your members, along with the default settings. These are small statuses, that you members can use within their profile. Status Update Settings Birthdays While a date of birth is entered on registration, you can choose whether you wish for people to be able to see them on the users profile or not, by default. Settings so this is visible in profiles, will allow it not only in profiles, but also within the calendar and birthday widgets, if set up. Birthday Settings Member History These settings allow for the automatic pruning of member information such as displayname history or IP Addresses Member History Prune Settings Ignoring By default the system allows users to ignore other members. This can be ignoring the user altogether, or simply ignoring something like a signature. You can disallow this from the profile settings page here. Note, however, that if you wish to just stop certain members from being ignored, you can do this from the group settings. Ignoring Members Display Settings Group formatting which is set within each group, will be shown only on the group name by default. For example, if you have an 'Administrators' group, which is colored red, then the word 'Administrators' will be colored. If however, you switch to 'Global' then the username itself will be colored, in all areas where the group name is not shown. You can also set what happens when a member clicks an item on your site, as shown in the image below. Display Settings

When creating new database template, there will be times where you want to add custom fields in specific locations with them. This guide covers how custom fields are used within your own custom database templates, examples on how to enter these, and a brief explaination of each field display type. The Basics In order to understand how custom fields are used within templates, it is important to understand the items in which will be used within your template code. When creating a custom field with a view to displaying in your own templates, the following items will be of note when you are creating these Display Methods Template Key - This is how you will reference your field within your template. When creating fields, try to stick to a convention of naming which is relevant to what the field contains, and the database if you have more than one. So for example I may have 'bugs_area_text' which would be clear to me in my instance, that it's the bugs database, the field which shows the area where the bug is, and it's a text field. Sticking to some sort of convention may help make your templates easier to read as you are developing them. Listing View Format - This is the format used when referencing the listing view, which will be discussed below. Display View Format - This is the format used when referencing the display view, which will be discussed below. Note also that display is the default view to be used if no other is specified. Display - In addition to the Display View Format, there is also a specifier for where this should be placed. You can reference each of these options specifically in your template code. Template Syntax Any field you have created can be used within your database templates. This can be done using the following code {$record->customFieldDisplayByKey('your_template_key', 'viewtype')|raw} The template key parameter would be whatever you have entered in the 'Template Key' field, in the display tab of your custom field. The view type parameter is what you would use in order to specify what format you are using, which would depend on which of the options from your display tab in your custom field you wish to show. The view types that can be used are as follows listing - This will show the value as per any listing badge preferences as set up on your custom field. This is usually used within a record list. display/display_top/display_bottom - Each of these show the value as per any display value set up in your custom field. Display on its own will just show the format, however you can use display top and bottom to display based on which of these items is selected within that field for the display section. thumbs - returns an array of \IPS\File objects . Returned only with image types, where thumbnail creation is selected. upload- returns an array of \IPS\File objects . Returned only with upload field type. raw - this will show the value as store in the database, unless there are muliple upload (returned as an array of URLs) or they are a Reciprocal field type (returned as an array of record objects) processed - this will show the raw value as specified above, however is also passed through the form helper Adding |raw will mean that the value will not be escaped. For some items which specifically contain URLs this may be desirable. For example returning a thumbnail, or a youtube item. However if using for items such as plain text, please be aware that you are allowing raw unescaped text to be added to the page. An Example For this example, I have created a field named "Sub Title". First of all I have set my field up. For this item I am aiming to add a subtitle to the record, shown below. Template Key I'm happy with one of the preset display options, do have selected the one below Display View I now need to edit my record template, and add in the line where I require it to show up. In this case, just below the title Template Edit Note that the syntax used here includes the |raw at the end. This is because what will be returned will the the HTML from the standard display format I have chosen, and I dont wish for this to be escaped. {$record->customFieldDisplayByKey('sub_title', 'display')|raw} Result

Invision Community allows the ability for guests to create a response to a content item they wish to engage with, without barriers of first creating an account, by allowing the user to post and then register afterwards. This will be incredibly valuable when you consider how much traffic a forum receives from inbound Google searches. With Post Before Registering, you'll increase your chances of turning that inbound lead into a registered member contributing to your site. Switching on You can switch on posting before registration in the following location within your admin CP. System -> Settings -> Posting -> General Switch on guest posting Posting as a guest When a potential member posts a new content item, or responds to an existing content item, they will be asked nothing more than their email address when posting, as seen below New topic as guest Once they have posted, they are asked to simply complete their registration. They are more likely to do this now they have invested in your community. Asked to register Therefore guests will see the ability to submit content, but then will immediately be prompted to register an account before the content is actually submitted and viewable. This is useful for encouraging guests to register. Guest users will have up to one week to complete their registration before their content will be permanently removed. If the guest user does not complete their registration immediately, they will be sent a reminder email shortly after making the post.

The invision community system sets up emails via the email template system. This gives you the ability to amend the email structures from within your ACP, without the need to edit any core files. The following guide shows how the Email Template system works, and where you would be looking in order to change a particular email. Email Structure The email template structure is made up of 4 parts, in which you would need to be aware of to make changes to your emails. Email Wrapper Template - The email wrapper is the surrounding template for all emails. Each email type will be 'wrapped' by the email wrapper when building up the email, and so is where the basis for the look of your emails would be changed. Note there are some examples of templates which do not use the wrapper. These are specified in the template name, as shown in the example below. The wrapper can be previewed at any time. using the button provided at the top of the template list. Content Templates - All other templates are the body of specific emails, and would be the contents that sit within the email wrapper. For example, you may see an item such as 'Staff Reply', which is the email template for when staff respond to a ticket. This is the template for the content of that email, which would then be pushed into the Email Wrapper. Tags - These are items which are specific to an email type. You will see an available list of these in the side of the editor for each template. For example, the email wrapper has tags for subject, member, content, unsubscribe and more, which can be placed within the template. Language Strings - It is important to note that most text within an email which is not dynamic, will come from a language string. In most cases if you are editing simply the wording of an email, you will find these within the language editor Templates Templates for emails work in a similar manner to that of theme templates. Any tags available will be shown on the left, and can be clicked to add to the email template itself. Additionally, below is a highlighted example of where you would look at a language string to change content. In this case, the language string email_registration_validate is used, so you would visit that language string to change its contents.

What is EasyPost? Enabling integration with EasyPost provides direct API access to shipping and logistics, when a user purchases a physical item. This allows for items to be priced based on the current price to ship an item, direct from the supplier of that service. Creating a EasyPost Key In order to create a EasyPost API key, you will first need to create an EasyPost account on their website. Once logged in, click the API link shown in the left bar, as shown in the following image, by selecting your name, then API Keys. You need to copy the Production API key from this location. API Key Location Adding EasyPost to your site Now you have your API key, you can add EasyPost to your Invision Community site. To do this, visit the following area within your admin CP System -> Site Features -> Community Enhancements Once here, select the "Enable" button under EasyPost. You will then be shown the following where you need to enter the key you have just created and select 'Enable'. For EasyPost, you must have an address set up to set from, which can also be set either in this location, or it can use your settings from General Configuration if needed. API Setup Once you have set up your required settings, you can test the EasyPost API if you would like to do so. To do this, select the "Test Settings and View Rates" button in the top right of that screen. This will present you with the following Testing EasyPost Add a product, a member, and a destination address. You will then be shown the rates available for that chosen location.

What is Giphy Integration? Giphy integration will allow your users to click and select GIF images, directly from the editor. This will pull and search gifs on the popular Giphy platform, allowing for ease of use, and expression through short media videos The Invision Community platform allows you to set up giphy integration, by simply adding your giphy API key into the platform, requiring no coding knowledge to add. Adding Giphy to your site You can switch on Giphy integration by visiting the following location within your adminCP. System -> Site Features -> Community Enhancements Select "Enable" under the giphy option, and optionally select the ratings of GIFs you wish your users to see. If you do not wish to use the preinstalled default key provided for your use, you can enter your own API key using the option provided API Key Entry Using Giphy Once you have completed the above steps, you will see a new button on your toolbar which you can click to search an add gifs to the page, as shown below. If you do not see the button, you may need to add this. Please see the following guide on how to add buttons to your toolbar

What is Mapbox used for? Enabling integration with Mapbox provides autocomplete functionality when a user enters an address (which is particularly useful if you are using the Commerce application) and can display maps when looking at IP addresses and elsewhere. This is an alternative to the preferred googlemaps enhancement, where google maps may not be an option. Creating a Mapbox Key In order to create a Mapbox API key, you will first need to create a Mapbox account on their website. Once logged in, you will see you are automatically given a public token (this is your API Key) for use on your site. Copy this token which will be used in the next step Get your key Adding Mapbox to your site Now you have your API key, you can add mapbox to your Invision Community site. To do this, visit the following area within your admin CP System -> Site Features -> Community Enhancements Once here, select the "Enable" button under Mapbox. You will then be shown the following where you need to enter the key you have just created and select 'Enable'. Enter your API key in the ACP Once done, this will enable the integration in various areas of your site where locations and addresses are shown. For example the location shown here in the admin CP on a members profile Map example

What is Facebook pixel? The Facebook pixel is an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website. You can use pixel data to: Make sure your ads are being shown to the right people Build advertising audiences Unlock additional Facebook advertising tools The Invision Community platform allows you to set up facebook pixel, by simply adding your pixel ID into the platform. Pixel Stats Getting your Pixel ID In order to integrate your facebook pixel, you must first create one on the facebook business site. Once logged in, you can create a pixel by selecting "Get Started" as shown in the image below Getting Started You will then be asked to create a name for your Pixel, along with giving your sites URL Add your name and URL here As you are using the Invision Community platform, the next step in creation is not needed. We have added the integration to the software already, so you need only your pixel ID in order to continue here. Therefore we will simply close this screen. Integration is already done You will now see that you have a pixel ID in the top left of your screen, you will need to copy this, as this is what you will need to get started on setting up in the Invision Community platform. Copy your pixel ID Adding Pixel to your site Now you have your Pixel ID, you can add facebook pixel to your Invision Community site. To do this, visit the following area within your admin CP System -> Site Features -> Community Enhancements Once here, select the "Enable" button under Facebook Pixel. You will then be shown the following where you need to enter your pixel ID and select 'Enable. You can also set a delay if needed, which can avoid re-targeting bouncing users, by adding a delay before the pixel loads. Integrating your pixel

Often there will be resources you wish to use within pages, pages templates, or theme templates, such as images, fonts and more. While you could upload these via ftp to somewhere on your server, or another server, with the pages application Invision Community 4 provides a way in which you can upload these directly from your admin CP. Media Manager The Media Manager can be found in the following location within your ACP Pages->Page Management->Media Page Management->Media From here you can upload new items using the button provided. This can be files of any type that you wish to use within your templates or pages. In addition, you will notice in the top left you can create folders for these, in order to categories as needed. Using Media Tags Once you have your media uploaded, if you click on any of your resources you will see the info panel open on the left. This shows the media tag for that resource, which can be used to point to that resource in any location of your templates or pages. Info Panel You can use these in any way that you need. For example here I have added an image to the top of the Category Index within the default database templates as follows <img src="{media="1"}" /> Example

Note: Invision Community 4.6.8 changes the need for a manual robots.txt file Invision Community 4.6.8 onwards has a built-in way to create a robots.txt file. If you are using a version older than 4.6.8 or wish to learn about creating other verification files, then please use this guide. There are various reasons that you may wish to create a robots.txt file, or you may need an ads.txt file. For a robots.txt file this may be because you wish to block the indexing of certain pages by search engines, or even block a search engine altogether, amongst many other reasons. But did you know you can do this with the pages application? Creating a robots.txt or ads.txt file with the pages application can be helpful if you have no access to your server via ftp, such as on the cloud platform, and also gives you a quick location for you to edit these without the need to ever access the file directly. Creating the page In order to create you robots.txt file for the site, you need to create a new page within the following location in your ACP Pages -> Page Management -> Pages When creating a new page, choose the 'Manual HTML' option, which will allow you to manually create pages in code. When creating use 'robots.txt' or 'ads.txt' as the page and file name Robots.txt example It is important to note in the above that we have deselected the "Use suite HTML wrapper" option. This is done so that we are directly creating just text on the page for search engine use, rather than surrounding with the wrapper from the rest of the site. Also, ensure this is not placed within another folder, and is instead at the root of your pages application. Adding content Adding content to your robots.txt file is then as simple as adding whatever you need to the contents tab. Here I have added a simple entry to tell googlebot not to index my site. On an ads.txt file, paste in the code provided from your ad provider. robots.txt entry When saving, you must ensure you give permissions for guests to view that page, otherwise search engine bots will not be able to view the contents/rules you have in place. Upon saving you will see that the robots.txt file is available from yourSiteURLHere/index.php

With the advent of social media, this can provide great opportunity to promote your site to new potential members. Within the Invision Community application, we provide the tools you need to take advantage of the marketing opportunities that this can provide for you and your site. Setting up Social Media Promotion can be set up from the following location within your Admin CP System -> Site Promotion -> Social Media Promotion You can choose to set up multiple areas to promote to within this section, both internally and externally on social media. These include Twitter Feeds Our picks (internal promotion) Twitter Setup As with the facebook item, selecting the 'Twitter Promotion' tab will first of all prompt you to set up a twitter login, if you havent already. Please see the following guide for information on how to set up a twitter application. https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/how-to-use-ips-community-suite/social-sign-in/43-and-above/twitter-r303/ When promoting to twitter, you can set up as many hashtags to be sent alongside your promoted content as you wish. Due to the limitation on text you can use on a tweet, you can select what to do in the scenario that your limit is used. Twitter promotion setup Link Shortening To reduce space on your promotions, you can optionally make use of the external provider bitly, to shorten your links. In order to do this, you would need to set up a bitly account, and enter the access token for this. bitly setup Setting up this would give you shortened URLs on promotion. For example https://bit.ly/2IizDkN , which is a shortened link for our own site here. Scheduling When you are promoting content, you may not necessarily want content to be sent straight away, but instead always sent on schedules of your choosing. For example, many will send at times such as 13:10 as people will have just gone on lunch (so will be checking their social media). You can set up automatic schedule times from the Auto Schedule tab, which can then be used when promoting content. Scheduling Promotions Permissions Permissions for promoting content can be set up on a group by group basis, by checking the selection box within the groups you wish to allow to promote. You can read more about editing group settings within our group settings guide. However there will be times where you wish to add an individual to be able to promote. This can be done from the permissions tab within the promotion section, by adding the name of the person(s). Individuals able to promote Our Picks On the final tab, you can switch on the 'Our Pick' option. This is an internal promotion, that will promote to the 'Our Picks' page, as seen below. Our Picks Additionally, there is a block in which will show these, which you can select from the block manager, and place anywhere you wish on your site. Using Social Promotion Promoting an item Each item such as topic, gallery album, blog entry etc, has its own Promote button. You can see this in the top left of the page. Selecting this would allow you to promote to any of the items you have set up for social promotion, such as Twitter, or My Picks. Click to promote In addition to promoting content items, you may also wish to promote an individual comment or post. This can be done by selecting the 'Promote' button within the options menu Promoting an individual comment Once one of these buttons has been selected, you will be shown the promote page, where you will be given a preview of what is to be shared. Sharer Page From here you can customise the text that you are sharing if you wish to do so, along with upload new images for sharing with this. The system is smart enough to add images from the post automatically, so these can also be selected for use. Once you are done, you can either promote the item using the promote button, or can change the schedule for when this will be promoted. The auto schedule will use the times set up within your AdminCP in the Social Media Promotions setting. Scheduling Once promoted, you will then see this in the platforms you have chosen, as per below example. Managing Promoted Content The status of promoted content can be seen by selecting your name in the top right, and selecting "Manage Promoted Items". From here you can see an icon showing where items have already been promoted, along with delete the items from the queue if needed (also deleting from the 'My Picks' page) Managing Promoted Items