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With purchases of any kind, there will usually be a certain amount of support that would go alongside it. This may be anything from as simple as you having a spall subscription service where someone has not been promoted, up to you selling hundreds of items a day and having product support for these. In any case, you would need support. Commerce accounts for this by giving you a ticket based support system. Support system The support system in commerce allows you to have tickets created by your customer, in an organised environment. These tickets can come in via multiple methods such as email or via a client area. Support List In the following steps, we will be discussing how this system works. Setting Up Departments

Managing invoices, is an important part of any e-Commerce platform. In IPS4 we give you the tools to manage these within your admin CP. Invoices and Settings You can manage invoices from the following area in your admin CP. Commerce>Payments>Invoices. When entering this screen you will see the following: It is important to note the statuses and what these represent on the system. Pending - This is the initial invoice status. By selecting the tick icon, you can mark these items as paid which will move these to the paid status. Paid - These invoices are paid. Expired - These are invoices which have expired based on your invoice settings (discussed further down) Cancelled - These are invoiced which have been cancelled by the user, or set as cancelled by an administrator You can view or print any of these invoices using the icons provided for this purpose. Where an invoice is expired or cancelled, you can reissue these using the refresh icon, or seleting from the dropdown menu. Seleting invoice setting at the top of the page will allow you to set up headers and footers for your invoices, along with set up key period such as renewal expiry dates and payment terms. You can sse an example of this page in the image below. Transactions It is important to note that a transaction on the system is not an invoice. A transaction is simply something which would affect the value of an invoice. So for example this may be a credit, or it could be an payment from paypal or 2checkout. So you may have more than 1 transaction for a given invoice and the transaction may be successful, or not. You can access the transactions screen from the following area within your admin cp. Commerce>Payments>Transactions. There is an example of this in the screenshot below. You can see from the screenshot above there are various statuses that a transaction can be in. So you could have any of the following: Approved - These are transaction which have come through and are also approved. You would see these as that payment has been recieved. Failed - These are failed transactions, so the payment/credit has not gone through for this transaction Held for approval - These require approval. You can approve these via the tick icon in the list Refunded - These are items which you have refunded on the system. Within this area you can also view the transaction using the magnifying glass icon or delete them. You will also see there is a "left arrow" icon which can be used to refund an individual transaction. Creating invoices manually Customers on the system will be automatically invoiced upon making a purchase on the system. This however does not mean that there will not be times where you need to manually invoice someone for a product, or even something ad-hoc. You can create a new invoice for a customer from Commerce>Payments>Invoices by selecting the "Create invoice" button. Once selecting this you will be asked to select a customer. You can do this by starting to type into the box, which will suggest people who you can invoice based on your customer list. Next you will be asked to enter the basic details of the invoice. Note here that you can add the title of the invoice, however you do not need to do so. If you do not add this manually it will be automatically created. You can also add these in whichever state you wish (This can be useful if someone has already paid you for something for example). You will then be shown the invoice detail screen itself. You will need to add items to this using the "Add" button in the top right as shown in the image below. From this menu you can select various different types of item you can add to the invoice. You can add as many lines as you need to a single invoice. I have added descriptions to each of these below. Account Credit Increment - This is a charge for increasing a members credit balance. Custom - This will allow you to build a custom item using the product creation menus Dedicated Server - This will allow you to create a charge for a dedicated server payment Domain - Allows for invoicing a charge for a domain purchase Gift Card - Charges for gift cards on the system which allows you to enter the gift card details Miscellaneous Charge - Allows you to set up a charge for anything you like not covered in other areas. Product - A charge for a product which is already set up on the system Renewal - A renewal charge for an item on the system. useful if someone would like to pay for more than one renewal at a time

Within commerce you will often need to take a look at a member from a 'customer' point of view. You can do this within the commerce system from a customer view which is separate from that of the community member profile in the ACP. This can provide you with information such as what purchases a customer has made, how much they have purchased, status of any subscriptions, support ticket status and more. Customer Records You can view a list of customer records from the following location within your ACP Commerce -> Customers -> Customers Click any item in the listing to visit that customers customer record Customer List Customer records will give you an overall view of your customers current standing within the commerce system as you can see in the image below. From here you can add invoices, create support requests on behalf of your customer, add notes and more. Customer Record You will note here, that this is simply another tab on the member record page. This means you can access a customers record directly from the member, rather than going through the customer list section of commerce. Alternative Contacts On important area of this section is the management of alternative contacts. Alternative Contacts On selection of "Manage Contacts" you will be shown a list of members on your site who can also manage this customer account. Note the first member can access invoices and support requests, whereas the second can only access support. Alternative Contact List These can not only be added to from here in the admin CP, but also can be added by the customer within their client area (discussed in another guide). You can create a new alternative contact for the customer by selecting the "Create New" button in the top right, or edit/delete current ones using the buttons provided at the side of each record. When adding a new alternative contact, you will be asked to add the members name (auto filled upon typing) and optionally can associate the contact with a specific product. You can then set the options you would like the alternative contact to be able to access. Alternative Contact Create

You can set up gift cards on the system, which will allow your customers to purchase gift cards for people to use on your site. To set these up, you would visit the following area within your admin cp. Commerce>Store>Settings>Gift Cards Setting up When visiting this area, you can then set up various set amounts that your members can purchase along with optionally allow their own amounts if you wish to do so, as you can see I have set up below. Setup Page Purchasing Your members can then buy gift card from thegift cards menu option Menu Link When selecting to buy a gift card, you can then select a colour, a message for the person who is to receive this. You can then either print or email these to the person they are for. Buying Gift Cards Using Gift Cards Your members can use gift cards using the redeem button shown in the image above (next to the buy button). They will then be asked for the gift card code which can be seen on the gift card itself. Gift Card Print Upon entering this, the credit will be added to the account for purchasing items in your store with.

Within commerce you can add 3 different types of product into the system. In this step we will be showing you how to add a "Normal" product. A normal product would be one which is a digital product such as a download or payment for something intangible, or a physical item. Adding a Product You can add a new product by visiting Commerce>Store>Products within the admin CP and selecting the + next to one of the groups (Note you can add new groups using the "Create new group" button if you wish to do so. First of all you will need to select from one of the three options you see under the "Type" section as shown in the screenshot below. We will be selecting "Normal Product" for this exercise. Product Types If you select a physical product on this tab, you will be given the option to select the items dimensions. This can be important when using shipping prices. You can also select shipping methods that are allowed to be used on this particular product. Physical Sizes & Shipping Association with other products At the bottom you will notice a section similar to the screenshot below for association of products. This will allow you to associate items with other items. For example, you may be selling different types of gift wrap which must be associated with another item (the item they want wrapping). You can do this easily by selecting one the results below. If for example you can associate it, or by the gift wrap on its own, you can set it as "can be associated" which will give the opportunity to associate with another product, but not force you to do so. Can Associate Alternatively, you may want to force the association with another item. For example, we actually do this on our own installation. If you purchase gallery you must associate it with a core license. You will also notice that there is a "Group with Parent" item. This will allow a renewable item to be grouped together as if it were one. Again if you think of how your renewals work on IPS, you get one renewal rather than one for each of the applications you own. We have achieved this by using this setting. Lastly in this section you will see the "Up-sell in store" setting which will allow you to try and up-sell to this product when another product is purchased. Must Associate Pricing Prices & Discounts Within the pricing tab, the first thing you would need to input would be the price itself. You can then select a tax setting which you have set up if you wish. Purchase Price You can also in this section set up discounts by filling in the items as appropriate within that section for usergroup dicounts, Previous purchase discounts, or sale discounts. You can add more than one level of each of these by selecting the "Add Another" button below the appropriate item. In my example here I have set a discount for my members of staff. Group Discounts Renewable Items When adding products, you may have some items which area renewable items. You will see these when purchasing some items within the marketplace, or even our own products (your support renewals). You can add your own renewals by selecting the "Renews?" option and adding in your renewal. These will then be invoiced the given amount at each given period. You will also note there is an "Initial Term" option. This is helpful in setting up an initial discounted or trial period. For example, you may set the initial purchase price to 0, and the initial term to 1 week. This would give the user this item free for a week, after which the renewal charge would be applicable Renewals Tip If you are setting up a year for a renewal period, you need to set it to 1 year rather than 365 days (as 365 may not be a year on leap years). You should also use weeks rather than 7 days. Stock & Price Adjustments In the Stock and Price Adjustments tab, you can select to adjust the price by a given value based on items within custom profile fields. In the example below, I have added a length field as I am selling dog leads. This will allow me to add on a monetary value to increasing lengths of lead, without creating a new product for each. Adjustments Stock & Purchase Settings Within this tab you will find various item settings you can apply to the product you have set up. These range from what payment methods to allow, who can see the product, the description and images for the item and more Store Settings Of particular interest here will be the purchase benefits section. From here you can give people generated license keys for digital items, and can move people to groups. Imagine, for example, setting up a premium group that people have to purchase. You can set up a purchasable product for this and have the system automatically move to the premium group. In addition it will also move them out of that group once it has expired. Client Area Settings This tab is where you will set what can be seen by the customer within their client area. You can set up upgrading and downgrading from a product in this area, along with adding any information you wish within the "Client Area Content" editor. This is where you would add a download, simply by attaching to the editor in the same way you would in a post. They would then have access to download the item from their client area upon purchase. As an example of how to use this, I have added in an ebook to this area, which the person would be able to download upon purchasing this item. You can also give the option for your users to generate their own renewals on renewable items, if they have expired, along with the ability to upgrade/downgrade to and from other products. Note, to do this they must be in the same product group. Client Area Options

Introduction When selling physical items in commerce, you may want to ensure that you pass shipment costs on to your customers. Invision Community Suite provides functionality to do this, both as a standalone item, and with integration through EasyPost if you wish to integrate with a 3rd party shipping provider. Setting Shipment Rates Shipment rates can be set up from within the commerce system in the following location of your ACP Commerce -> Payments -> Shipments When visiting this area, you will see any items awaiting to be shipped on the first page. Select the Shipping Rates button in order to add and edit shipping rates on the system. Shipping Rates In this page you will see all shipping rates which are currently set up. You can set up as many of these as you like within the system by selecting "Create new" in the top right. Shipment Rate Settings Shipping rates are added to products based on locations and either price, quantity, or weight. In the top half of the page you will enter a name and the relevant location in which this shipping rate can be used. Location Setup In the bottom half of the page you will see that you can add either by Invoice subtotal, Weight, or Number. Below are 3 examples showing the 3 different types you can choose. By Number of Items You will see that you can add as many lines as you like to make the shipping values that you wish, so for example below I have set 0 to 5 items, 5 to 10 items, and 11 onward (denoted by the any value flag) to be different values. By Weight When adding weights you can choose the measurement of weight that is used in lb or kg By Subtotal You will want to ensure that you have covered all scenarios, and there are no gaps within the shipment methods you set up

In addition to the Payment methods discussed in the previous guide, there are various other setup options relating to payments within the commerce application. These can all be found within the Commerce>payments>Settings section of the Admin CP. Each of the tabs in this section are discussed below. Currencies From this tab you can set up various currencies that you plan to use within the commerce system. This will mean you can then add a price for more than one currency. You can add a new currency by selecting the "Add" button in the top right as shown in the image below, and then entering the relevant currency code in the list. You will also note than you can select one default. This is the currency that will first be shown to the user. Currencies Tax Rates Tax is one of the things that Im sure many of us hate doing, however these days is a necessary and sometimes legal requirement. In the tax rates tab you will see a list of all tax rates which are currently set up on the system. You can create a new tax rate using the "Create New" button. Tax Rates Once adding a new tax rate, you will be presented with a couple of tabs which you can fill in with the relevant detail. The first tab (Settings) will allow you to enter a name for the tab, along with a default tax rate which will be used if none of the rates in the second (Rates) tab apply. Adding New Rates (standard You can also, if you choose, select to use different rates for business, and indeed EU style business rates for VAT registered companies Adding New Rates (standard The Rates tab will allow you to set up tax rates for different locations around the globe. You will see I have set up rates for the UK and Armenia below. You can add more using the "Add" button in the top right. Country Rates Checkout Settings Within the Checkout tab you will be able to set many setting relating to the customer checking out after a purchase. You can set from here whether or not guests can check out on the site, set up terms and conditions, set up a secure checkout connection and more Checkout Settings Anti-fraud Rules The Anti-Fraud Rules tab will allow you to set up certain conditions whereby you would want to review a payment, or even refuse it altogether. You will see them in a list here and can add a new one with the "Create New" button. Anti-fraud Rule List Once adding a new fraud rule, the first tab (Rule Settings) is where you will set the name of your rule, along with the type of rule this is, or "Action to take" when that rule is hit. This may be to automatically approve the transaction, hold it so you can review it, or even refuse it altogether. Rule Settings The latter 2 tabs are where you will then set the criteria that will trigger this rule. From the Transaction tab you can set the trigger by value, payment method, whether a coupon is used, or even a mixture of these. Transaction Rules The custom tab will then allow you to set rules relating to the customer location, email address or based on previous purchases of fraud rules. Customer Rules Transaction Review From the transaction review tab you can set up the system to automatically create a support ticket when an Anti Fraud trigger is hit. This will allow you to communicate with the customer on a 1 to 1 bases regarding the outcome. You may also use one of the stock actions in the support area to send a message to the user instantly. You can see more on the support area within the "Support Requests in Commerce" guide. Transaction Review Email copies The email copies tab will allow you to set up email addresses that will receive copies of the selected documentation from commerce when a customer receives them. Email Copies

Commerce provides integration with several different providers for taking payment. Details on each of the available payment methods are below. Most communities find that setting up two methods works best: one which accepts credit cards, and PayPal for customers who prefer to use that. Once you have decided which provider(s) to use and created accounts with them, go to Commerce > Payments > Settings > Payment Methods in your AdminCP to set them up. Stripe Accept all major credit cards directly on your community. Recurring Payments Users can store their card details and will be charged recurring payments automatically. Fees* 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. No set up or or monthly fees. Learn more Supported Countries and Currencies Available for businesses in 25 countries and can accept payments from anywhere in the world in more than 130 currencies. Important Information - Stripe enforces a minimum amount per transaction, as per their currencies documentation shown above. Using the checkout for an amount lower than the amount shown, will cause the stripe payment method not to show. PayPal Either accept card payments directly, or redirect the user to the PayPal site. Recurring Payments If redirecting user's to the PayPal site, Billing Agreements can be used. Learn about the limitations of Billing Agreements Fees* 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. No set up or or monthly fees for redirecting to the PayPal site, $30 monthly fee for accepting card payments directly. Learn more Supported Countries and Currencies Available in over 200 countries and 25 currencies. 2checkout Redirects the user to the 2CheckOut website. Recurring Payments Not supported. Fees* 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. No set up or or monthly fees. Learn more Supported Countries and Currencies Available in most countries and 87 currencies. Braintree Accept all major credit cards directly on your community, along with apple pay, android pay, Venmo and paypal. Recurring Payments Users can store their card details and will be charged recurring payments automatically. Fees* 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. No set up or or monthly fees, and no minimum transaction processing amouny Learn more Supported Countries and Currencies Available in the US, Canada and most European countries, along with corresponding currencies IMPORTANT: Braintree has stringent qualification requirements and is intended exclusively for established businesses who can furnish appropriate documentation required by Braintree. In many cases, a personal credit check will be performed for any individual holding greater than a 25% stake. * Fees shown for businesses in the United States. The fee may not be up to date, and there may be other charges. Check with the provider for details and for fees in other currencies. You can also set up a "Manual" payment method to accept payments by bank transfer, cheque, or any other method where you will provide the customer with instructions and then manually mark when the payment has been received.

Introduction Commerce is a multi functional tool which allows you to sell products, both physical and digital to your members. This can be a useful way in which to generate revenue on your community, whether it be a member subscription you wish to encourage, or a physical item in which you wish to sell directly on your site Commerce Store Features The commerce platforms has many features available to you, in order to ensure you can sell your items in the manner that suites your particular community. These include the following and more, each of which will be discussed in the following guides. Multiple payment methods Invoicing Anti Fraud integration Shipping Customer profiles Categorization and Filtering Custom fields Subscription selling Automatic group promotion on purchases Full support system Gift cards Coupon codes Donation system, with donation goals Product Screen Throughout these guides you will be shown how to utilize these features, how to build your own store from scratch, and even add support for your customers with the built in support area.

Uploading to the new IPS4 gallery is done in a simple step by step wizard. You can access this by clicking the "Add Images" link on any of the gallery pages as shown below. Add Images Choosing/Creating Albums Once clicked, you will be asked for a Category (provided you are not already inside a category). If album selection is allowed by your usergroup and within that category, you will then be asked to either select an album or to choose an existing album Choose Album You will see from the above that you can select ownership and album features. The ownership setting will allow you to set who owns the album. People with the relevant permissions can easily create an album on behalf of another member. Album features will allow you to select the sort order and whether or not to allow ratings on the images. You may also have another option here of Privacy which you can see below. Create New Album This can be allowed on a member group basis, and will allow members to select who can see the contents of the album you are creating. Uploading Images On the next step you will be able to either drag/drop directly onto the page to upload, or choose files to upload if you wish. These may be images or videos if permissions allow. You will also note (highlighted below) you can edit the default options for images that you have uploaded, such as copyrights, tags and more. Add Images Adding Images Once you have uploaded your images, you can then edit the information associated with the images you have uploaded. You will see a screen similar to the below. Adding Information You will see you can add copyright to an image using the buttons either below the individual images, or for all images as appropriate. This will allow you to enter a line of copyright text when clicked. You can also do similar for credit if you are giving credit to another copyright holder or another site for example. Giving Credit Clicking on to the next stage will then create the album (if you created one) and add the images as appropriate to your gallery.

It is important that you have control over the gallery at a member group level, in order to be able to restrict how much a user do in the gallery. In Invision Community 4, there are settings within each of your member groups for this purpose in Members>Members>Groups Group Settings Group Settings Tab From here you will see that you can add or remove limitations from member groups for things such as the ability to create albums or upload movies, in addition to restricting the amount they can upload. When switching on some of these settings, you will have other options that will appear, giving you yet more control over what your members can and cannot do within your gallery. In the example below I have checked the "Can create albums?" option which has now given me more granular settings in this area. Expanded Group Setting Member Gallery Info When gallery is installed, when editing a member in the admin CP, you will also be able to see statistics related to what that user has contributed to the gallery. Gallery Stats

Within the IPS4 gallery you can change various settings which affect the way in which your gallery works. You will find these settings within the admin cp area shown below. From here you can change the various sizes of images, change logging and RSS settings, and protect your images against copying by implementing a watermark of your own choice within your images. Settings Overview Main Gallery Settings Watermarking There may be occasions where you wish for all your gallery images to be watermarked. You can achieve this by switching on the 'Watermark images' setting. Watermark upload From here you can upload an image which will be used as the watermark image, which must have a transparent background. You can choose if you wish to show these on both the large and thumbnailed images. Note that when selecting this, your gallery content will be rebuilt.

Many people will want to add their own gallery categories with the gallery, in order to correctly structure your website in the you wish. Categorisation within the gallery system is simple to achieve directly from your administration panel in IPS 4. Creating Categories If you visit the following area within your admin CP you will see a list of the present categories. Community>Gallery>Categories Category Listing Selecting the dropdown at the side of any category will give you more options including the ability to customise permissions for access and uploading to that category. Dropdown Showing Options Clicking on the + at the side of any existing category will allow you to add a sub category. To add a new main category you can click on the "Create New" button provided. Category Options On creation of a category, you will then be provided with a variety of options you can set up, including the setup of comments, ratings, allowing albums and more. New Category Creation The rules tab allows you to set rules which will be visible to the user when uploading images. Category Specific Rules You can also customize the error message that is received when a user cannot view images within that category. This can be handy if you have other user groups who can access the system in which people need to gain access. For example when using subscriptions. Category Specific Errors Permissions Once you have created the categories that you wish to have in your gallery, you will want to set up permissions for these. If you select the dropdown at the side of any category, you will see a permissions button which will take you to the permissions screen for that category. Select Dropdown to Access Permissions Once selected, you will be able to select the required permissions for each one of your groups, for that category. Category Permissions

In any community there will always be information you want to capture about your members which is not provided within the core product. These may be information needed for administration purposes, or items which you wish to have displayed within profile, or content items. In the IPS Community Suite, we provide the ability to set up many of these, grouping in a way in which is appropriate to your site. Setting Up Profile fields can be set up within the following location within your ACP Members -> Member Settings -> Profiles -> Profile Fields Profile field list Clicking on the Create New button in the top right will allow you to set up a new grouping for profile fields, similar to what you see above with the Personal Information section. To add a new field to a group, select the + at the side of the relevant group. Clicking to add a new field will show you the following screen. You will see I have selected text as the field type on this occasion which will let a user enter information into a text box. New profile field entry You can see settings here you can use to set up a maximum length and even using Regular Expressions to validate the data that is entered. You will note that there is no "Required" element shown here. This is because we have profile completion set up. If you do not have quick registration set up to use profile completion, you will also see a "Required" checkbox which can be selected. In addition you can set up where the information is shown, how it is shown, and its behavior with regards to being filled in. Do you want this to be edited once it is filled in? No? Not a problem, just de-select the "Member can edit value" and it will only allow this to be entered once. New profile entry What is important to note on the screenshot above, is the "Display Format for..." sections. These will appear only if you have the corresponding settings to make these viewable, and were introduced in version 4.4 of the Invision Community platform. So for example, above we have "Show to staff" set for the "Show with members content submissions". If we switched this not to show, then you would not see the "Display format for topics" option. Display Formatting The display formatting sections by default will display just the field contents. However you can display the item stored in the field in any way you wish, by selecting "Use Custom Formatting". You will then be shown the following field for adding your own formatting code Display Formatting This is where you can enter HTML along with the placeholders provided to display the information in any manor that you choose. This is how they will then be displayed in that area (Profile or topic). Note: Prior to the 4.4 version, this is a single field named "Display Format" and applies to both areas. {title} and {content} should be used instead of the ones below. If you add the following code to the example field we set up, the placeholders {$title} and {$content} will be replaced with the title of the custom field, and the content that is entered by the user <strong>{$title}:</strong> {$content} User Side You will see once you have set up your profile fields the members can then add the information from within their profiles. Profile Field Completion Depending on if you have setup of your profile fields to be searchable, these can also be searched using the member search form on your site Profile Field Search And of course, they will show up in various areas of the site, using the formatting in which you have set to your own liking. Formatting on Posts

Reputation & Reactions are an important part of communities across the internet. IPS Community Suite gives you the flexibility to set these up in a way which is suites your own community needs. Basic Settings Reputation settings can be managed in the following location in your ACP Members -> Member Settings -> Reputation & Reactions From the basic settings screen, you can set up various overall settings, related to how reputation and reactions work on your site. You can switch the system on and off, as well as assign which groups are allowed to use this, and how to display the reputation items. Example Reputation Settings One important item to note here, is the "Highlight content with positive reputation. When this is set, topics will be highlighted when they reach the set reputation level, along with being given a reputation symbol in the top right to highlight the post has high reputation. Denotes High Reputation Post Reactions Reactions settings can be managed in the following location in your ACP Members -> Member Settings -> Reputation & Reactions -> Reactions On the reactions tab you will see a list of all the reactions that a user can give on your site. Each of these is given either a positive, a negative, or a neutral value. These are the reputation points in which a user will receive for a particular reaction. You can reorder these using the anchors on the left of each item. You can create new reaction items using the button in the top right of the screen. Default Reaction Set You will note that the 'like' item has no ability to delete. This is the default reaction, and is what is shown at in the reaction placement area on posts. Your users point at this icon in order to show other reactions, or click to give this reaction. Of course you can use the pencil icon to edit this to be anything you wish. Pointing at the like icon shows other reactions Leaderboard The new Leaderboard is designed to better highlight your most active members and content based on reputation and other metrics. The Leaderboard will greatly enhance both member and content discovery on your community. Winners being highlighted within the profile when 'winning the day', and being added to the past members list. In turn, this can improve member participation on your site. IPS Community Leaderboard Leaderboard settings can be managed in the following location in your ACP Members -> Member Settings -> Reputation & Reactions -> Leaderboard From here, you can change various settings to determine what and how the leaderboard will display, or indeed if it will display at all. This can be helpful if, for example, you wish to exclude staff, or specific items, from being counted. Leaderboard Settings Reputation Levels Reputation levels can be managed in the following location in your ACP Members -> Member Settings -> Reputation & Reactions -> Reactions Here you will see levels that can be gained upon reaching a set number of reputation/reaction points on your site. These can be given a reputation name and optionally an image. Reputation Levels Clicking on "Create new" will give you the opportunity to add a new reputation level. The one I have created below as an example will give people the superstar reputation level with a star image upon hitting 1000 reputation points. Example Reputation Level Note: Within each member group, you can also set whether that group can see who has given reputation and the amount of reputation they can give in any one day.

The warning system allows you a system in which to warn your members of unwanted actions on your site, and act upon those warnings automatically via the system, or by moderator action. Setting Up Warning Setting up warning system on your site has 3 sections. Reasons, actions, and settings. Each of these will be discussed below. This section can be access from Members>Content Moderation>Warnings within your admin area. Reasons When you first enter the area above, the first tab you will see are reasons. In here you will see a list of all the reasons for warning a member which are currently set up. This will look similar to the below. Warning Reasons You can add to these reasons by selecting the create new button in the top right, or edit existing reasons by using the pencil icon at the side of any existing reason that is set up the name, number of points, expiry and other options related to warning actions. Tip You can also copy or delete reasons using the other 2 icons next to the description Adding/Editing a reason will give you the following screen where you can Reason Creation Actions Actions compliment the warning reasons, by allowing you to process an action such as restricting a user from posting after a set amount of points. You can see the list of actions from within the actions tab. Action List By editing or adding new actions, you can set up what happens to the users on x points. So in the example below, I have chosen to moderate the users content for 1 day upon reaching 10 warning points. As you can see below, you can easily restrict posting and ban using the warning system should you wish to do so. In addition you can choose whether or not the moderator giving these warnings can override the automatic action. Action Creation Settings The settings tab will allow you to enable/disable the warning system completely, along with set up who cannot be warned and various other items. The "User must acknowledge" setting will be discussed in further detail below. Warning Settings Using Warnings You can warn an area from both their profile. either in the mini-profile or in the full profile on the left. Warning From the Member Card You will notice you can also see any warnings a user has already been given within the full profile as you can see in the image below Warning From Profile When clicking to add a warning to a member, you will be presented with a popup dialog which will allow you to choose one of the set reasons, or set your own if permissions allow. You can leave notes for both your members, and indeed other moderators. These will only be viewable to the relevant people, so moderators can see these in the warnings and a member will be shown the detail added the 'Note for Member' section only. Warning Options Once you have given a warning you will be shown the details of the warning in which you have given the member. From here (as well as by selecting the warning in their profile) you can also revoke the warning should the need arise. Warning View If a member has been given a warning, and your settings are set so that the member has to acknowledge that warning before they continue, they will be presented with a red bar at the top of the site, which will allow them to click and accept the warning in question. Member To Accept the Warning Clicking Shows The Warning Content Warning is Applied To the Member Manual Actions While we would hope these to be a last resort, there will be times where it becomes necessary to manually apply restrictions to an individual users account, or in some cases ban members from the site altogether. This can be done from the users account in the ACP Members -> Members Restrictions While within a members account in the ACP, you will see a section for 'Warnings & Restrictions'. Here you will see any items which have already been applied to the account, along with the warning level, and more options that can be used such as flagging as spam, or banning the user. Restrictions on the Member Account Selecting edit in the top right of this section, will allow you to add and remove items of restriction from the users account. There are various items you can apply from restricting posting, to the restriction on adding statuses. Restriction Editing Banning & Ban filters A last resort to situations on your site, be it through spam, member misbehaviour etc, would be to ban offending accounts, IP addresses, or emails from your site. You can ban a member using the ban button within the restrictions section of a member account (See above section on restrictions. On using the ban button, you will be given the option to also ban the IP address if you wish, move the member to another group, and set the length of time to ban the account for. Member Banning Options When opting to add the IP to the ban, this adds the IP to your ban filters. These can be found in the following location in your ACP Members -> Member Settings -> Ban Settings In this section, you can restrict access to your site from IP addresses, as well as restricting the email addresses and names that can be used on your site. This can be helpful if for example you wished to block registration by temporary email hosts, or stop people using the words 'mod' in their username. To add to this, simply use the 'Add Ban Filter' button in the top right. Ban Settings and Filters You will note from the above screenshot that there are wildcard(*) characters that have been used in some places. Where there are used, they will be match anything in that location. So for example, in the above you have *admin* . So if someone tried to register with I_am_admin_user then it would not be allowed when registering, as we are disallowing admin with anything prefixing or suffixing this. Adding a Ban Setting

The moderator CP can be accessed by clicking on your name and selecting ModeratorCP on the front end of your site. This is a central place for the moderators on your site to manage items which need attention, along with other useful moderation tools. Reported Content The reported content section will show you any content that has been reported by your members on the site. You can click into any of these to view the content of the report or select them for mass processing. Reported content The approval queue The approval queue gives your moderators a workable queue of content that needs to be actioned and approved by a member of your site staff. You can then step through each item and action as appropriate. You can start the approval queue by selecting the button provided. Click start to start the approval queue Each item in the queue will show you the content and give you the option to quickly delete, skip or approve the item. Once an item is actioned you are automatically moved to the next item in the queue. Select what to do with each item Deleted Content When you delete an item on the system, this will by default be 'soft' deleted. These deleted items will show up within your Moderator CP in the deleted content section for 30 days. You can change the number of days these are kept for at the following location in your ACP System -> Settings -> Posting Item that was deleted and can be restored From here you can select to restore items, should you or one of your staff make a mistake in deleting an item. IP Address Tools The IP Address tools will allow you to look to site related information on a specific IP address. To use this, enter an IP address into the box provided as below, and select continue. Alternatively you can check all IP addresses by a member on the site. IPs or members can be searched In the example below I have entered by own local IP. As you can see there is various information related to how that IP has been used on the site, along with location information if it is available. Information related to an IP Tip This tool can be handy if you see an IP address of a user who is causing issues on your site and you would like to see if there are any other related members of related content with the same IP address. Member Management You can quickly manage members from within the moderator CP from the Member Management section. Entering members name will then allow you to edit the member (subject to permissions). You will also see some useful lists of information below this on members who are banned, restricted, queued, or banned from chat for quick access to these. If the moderator searching can see email addresses, they will also be able to search by email in this section. Searches show Banned, Restricted and Queued information for a user Alerts Alerts allow you to quickly bring information to the attention of users on your site. Whether this be an individual member, or an entire group when a simply PM or a warning may not be appropriate. For example, quick information to be given to new members, getting information to a member of staff straight away, or even sending out a promotional message to a specific group. Searches show Banned, Restricted and Queued information for a user Clicking on the alerts area will show you a list of alerts that are already set up on the system. Alerts list Select "Create Alert" to create a new alert on the system, adding your criteria for who to show the alert to, as shown below. Alerts setup Recent Warnings Clicking on the recent warnings area will give you a list of all the recent warnings on the site, so you can quickly get a view of who has recently been warned. Warnings list Selecting any of the warnings will show you more information and give you the opportunity to revoke these warnings should you need to do this. Warning information Announcements This section of the moderator CP will allow your moderators to set up and manage announcements attached to different areas of the site. You can see which area active at a glance with the active flags which are set here. To set up a new announcement on the site, simply click on the Add Announcement button. Announcement list Announcements can be shown in any of the following locations Top of the page Above the page content In the sidebar Announcement locations Each location has some slightly different features; the page top banner is dismissible by the member if they no longer want to see it, whereas the banner above the content and the sidebar announcements cannot be dismissed. Each application has the ability to select which applications and pages you wish to show announcements, along with which member groups will see these. You can also select a color in which to use for your announcement Announcement set up Announcements can be either Title Only - This just shows the line of text and is not clickable Content - This is clickable, and will show the content you add into the editor when this option is selected Link to URL - This is clickable, and will visit the URL you have entered when clicked. When an announcement is tapped to open, and the content type is select, it will show a modal window with any further details you have entered. Announcements clickable to show further information Hidden Content Finally in the moderator CP, you can view a list of hidden content on the site. You can view all of these at once or you can limit this by area of the site. This gives you a one click location to view all hidden content, rather than clicking into individual sections to find these. All hidden content can be seen within the moderator CP

Within the IPS4 Community suite, you will be adding attachments within posts, blogs, and many more areas. These items are stored within your own attachment area, and can be reused throughout the site. My Attachments By clicking on your name and selecting "My Attachments" you can view a list of these. This will let you know where these documents are attached if you need to find then and you can also download these direct from the page. My Attachments Your users can also see their current attachment quota, if you have set up any limitations for their group. Reusing Attachments Attachments, and other items such as gallery images, calendar entries and more, can be reused when posting. To do this, select the 'Other Media>Insert Existing Attachment' button at the bottom of the editor Insert Existing Button Selecting this option will show you all the items you have inserted on the site, so you can select any you wish to use in the current post or topic Insert Existing Attachment Administrating Files Within the admin CP, you also have a similar area for all files that have been attached throughout the site. You can access this by visiting the following area: system->Overview->Files From here you can do the same as you can on the front end of the site, but for all files. You can also remove these from the system completely if you need to do so. Admin Files

With all the content that you can follow in the IPS community suite, it is important that you can manage this easily and in one place. You can manage your followed content in this way by selecting your name in the top right, then selecting "Manage Followed Content" Manage Followed Content When clicking on this option, you will be presented with the following screen. You will notice that you can filter through different types of content using the menu on the left of the page Followed Content List To change the way in which you follow (or indeed remove completely) you can select the Change Preference button provided next to a given item. This will then present you with the various options you can change. Change Notification Type In addition to this method, you can also do this with multiple items at once. To do this, you select the checkboxes next to each item that you want to change. On clicking one or more of these checkboxes, you will be shown a menu at the bottom of the screen to change the options as you wish. This is shown in the screenshot below. Multiple Selection Change

Sending messages between members in IPS4 is a simple but powerful tool you can use to communicate with your members (or they can communicate with each other) away from your community. When receiving a message, you will see a number appear next to your inbox icon showing the number of unread messages that you have. This would be similar to the image below. Message Notification Sending/Receiving Clicking on the notification icon will show you the messages you have received. You can click on these to view any of the message or visit your inbox. You will see that you can also compose a new message from the same dropdown menu if you wish to do so. Message Box In addition to being able to sent messages from the "Compose new" button, you can also send a message to a user from anywhere on the site, direct from the users name. You would do this by hovering over the username and selecting the message button Send Message Composing a message is very similar to composing a topic on the site. You can send messages to multiple recipients by typing their names within the "To" box. This field will suggest names by filtering through the member list as you type. Compose Message Managing Your Messages When entering your inbox you will be presented with a screen similar to the below. From here you can search you messages, click on them to view, reply to your messages, filter and more. Manage Messages Clicking on the button in the top right will allow you to add folders to organise your messages. Clicking on this button will present you with a text box in which to enter a new folder name. You can move messages to another folder using the button in the top right of any message. Move folders or Add Recipients Add Folder

By selecting your name and then notification settings on the front end of your site, your users will be presented with a screen similar to the below where they can change various settings related to their account as seen and illustrated in the image below. Account Settings Overview On the overview page you will see the accounts you are connected to such as facebook, google+ and more, along with links to the other settings in which you can access from this page. You will also notice various tabs where you can change your email address, password, display name and any linked accounts. Linked Accounts When clicking to link an account on any of the available you will be given the relevant options that you can select relating to this. For example, below you will see the Facebook settings which allow you to syncronise various elements of your site and facebook. Linked Accounts Notification Settings Selecting notification settings on in the "Other Settings" section of the overview page will present you with all the options for how notifications are create for you by default when creating or replying to content, along with other events on the site. Notification Settings Clicking any of these options will show you the notification options that can be selected for that type. For example here, I have opened the options for profile related items. Expanded Notification Settings Ignored Users You can get to the Ignored users list by clicking this item in the "Other Settings" section of the overview page. Ignored users is a facility on your site where you can (depending on permissions) set a member to ignored in order to not see any content from that member. So if they post within a topic and you are ignoring them, you will not see that ignored content. This can be useful for filtering out people who you have no interest in reading the content of. To do this you would simply add their name into the box provided and add them to the list. Ignored Users

Profiles can form a key part of your community. Each member of your site will have one that can be viewed by other members (should they have permission to do so) and can be customised to the members liking. A members content and other important information relating a member can be found in this area. Editing your profile information To get to your profile you can select your name at the top of the page and select "Profile" as seen in the image below. Profile Link Once you have entered your profile, you will see a screen similar to the below. At present you will see there is only activity showing, however if you have gallery albums, blogs and more, you will also see tabs for these with each having your own albums, blogs etc. To edit your profile information, select the "Edit Profile" button in the top right. Profile Page Once clicked you will be presented with the edit profile screen. From here you will be able edit your Birthday, Enable and disable status updates on your profile, and change your "About me" information. In addition to this information, you may see custom profile fields that have been added within the admin CP. Edit Profile Changing your cover photo On IPS 4 you can change your own cover photo (subject to permissions) by selecting the "Cover Photo" option in the top right. Change Cover Photo Changing your profile photo Profile photos are shown on your profile, and throughout the site as your 'avatar' within posts and other community content. You can add a photo by upload or from another URL on the internet, then resize and position this as appropriate. Change Profile Photo Viewing content From any members profile, you can see all the activity of that member by selecting the "See My Activity" button in the top right of the profile. This will then present you with a filterable list of content that the member has posted on the community. Viewing Content Profile Privacy You can choose not to show your recent profile visitors on the page by disabling that block from being shown to other users by clicking the link provided for that purpost within the "Recent Profile Visitors" block on the left of your profile. Profile Privacy You may also choose to disable the ability for users to be able to follow you. This can be achieved by changing the options within the followers block, as per image below. Allowing Follows

Creating a staff directory for you community can be useful for all sorts of reason. Maybe just so that your members can see the staff just at a glance, or maybe you run a gaming community where the Staff may actually be staff within your game. Whatever the reason, you can create a staff directory with ease in the IPS4 Admin CP. Creating a Directory To add a staff directory, visit Members>Staff>Staff Directory, from within your admin CP. By default you will first see this (if you expand the 2 groups) with the administrator and moderators groups already added. Directory List You can add either groups or individual members to a category within this page by clicking on the plus icon at the side of any group. To add a new category click on Create Category. Once you have clicked the plus to add a member or group to a category. You will be presented with one of 2 sets of information to enter. If it is a group then you would simply select the group. If a member then there are also other items you can select here New Directory Entry You will note that you can change what you display for the member if you are entering an individual into the staff directory. This is handy if for example you wish to show someones real name or something different. So I may have a member called X2201 and want to show them as Dave (X2201) so its clear who the person is. This is the same with the user title, so they may have "Happy Guy" where I may want to put "Clan Leader" for example. Directory Display You can change the way in which the directory is displayed my changing the display of each category. You can change these by selecting the pencil icon at the right of any category in the list. Once selected you will be shown a screen similar to the below. Directory Display You can choose from any of the layouts provided, and can even create more layouts if you are a more advanced user. Using these options you can create some great layouts Staff Directory Example Advanced Layout Usage It is possible to create custom layouts for the Staff Directory page. You will need to write the templates using HTML, so to do this you will need to be familiar with HTML, as well as basic PHP logic. In the AdminCP, go to Customization -> Themes and click the "Edit HTML and CSS" button for your default theme. Then, from the "New" dropdown, choose "HTML Template". You can name the template whatever you like, and fill the rest of the form out with the following details: Variables: $users Location: Add to an existing location Existing Location: front Group: Add to an existing group Existing Group: staffdirectory Application: System You will then need to navigate to your newly created template within the many on the left (it will be under core -> front -> staffdirectory) and here is where you write the HTML code for your template. The template will be passed a $users variable which is an array of \IPS\core\StaffDirectory\User objects. Your code can include template logic and template tags You can use one of the existing templates as an example. After this you will also need to create another template with the same name (and settings above) but with "_preview" appended to the name (for example, if the template you just created is called "myCustomLayout" the template you create now will be "myCustomLayout_preview") which contains the HTML to display on the form when creating a Staff Directory group in the AdminCP. Since you know what the layout will look like, you can make this quite simple. You will need to repeat these steps for every theme you have installed (except child themes which will inherit the templates of their parents). Once this is done, when creating a Staff Directory group, you will see the template you have created as one of the available options.

Administrator and Moderator logs are an important part of your IPS Community Suite. These will allow you to check who was responsible for an action within your community, for example someone hiding a post or deleting a member. Where to find them You can find the moderator and administrator logs by visiting "Members>Staff" and either Moderators or Administrators within that section. Within each of these you will see a button for logs in the top left of the page.

On the front end of your community, moderators can moderate your site depending on the permissions that you have given them to do so. Moderation can be done at an item level, or the level of its container. For example you may moderate individual posts from the topic screen, or moderate topics from the forum screen. Content Moderation Whilst within a post or topic, if you hover over the topic or post you wish to moderate you will see a checkbox appear in the top right of that item. Selecting this will add this to the items that you are currently moderating. Once you have selected at least one item, you will see the moderation menu appear at the bottom where you can select the action you wish to perform. You can see this in action in the animation below. Moderator Bar In some of the other areas of the community, you may find moderator actions under a button, such as you can see here in a gallery image. Moderation Menu Items Tip Within each item of content you will see a moderator actions menu. You can perform similar actions from here, and also see the moderation history for that particular item. Depending on where you are within the system, the moderation menu will show different actions. Below is another example where posts in a topic are being hidden from the end user. Inline Selection Post Approval There may be times when you need to switch on approval for replies within an individual topic. You can select this option from the 'Moderation Actions' menu, which will then mean each reply will need to be approved before being seen Post Approval Automatic Moderation There comes a time when your community is so successful that it can be a little tough to keep up with all the content and reports. To help with this, you can make use of our automatic moderation feature, which performs actions when an item of content is reported by a user of your community. This feature leverages your member reports to automatically remove objectionable content from public view. You as the admin will define thresholds for the content. For example, you may say that to hide content, a post needs 5 reports. This reduces the workload for your moderators and enables you to crowd source moderation. Community Moderation When a member reports a piece of content, they now have the option to set a type, such as "Spam" or "Offensive". These options can count towards the threshold. Once the threshold has been passed the item is hidden. Options when a user reports This threshold can be set up by creating rules in the Admin CP as shown below Report Types Before you can create your own rules for automatic moderation, you must create 1 or more report types from the following location. Once you have done this, you can then continue to setting up rules for auto moderation. Members -> Content Moderation -> Automatic Moderation -> Manage Report Types Any report type can be added here Creating Rules At its heart of the system are the rules. You can create custom rules within the ACP from the following location Members -> Content Moderation -> Automatic Moderation Rules set within the ACP For example, you may decide that: A member with less than 10 posts only needs 5 reports to hide the content. But you may want to give more experienced members a higher threshold as there is more trust. You simply add a new rule: A member who joined over a year ago with over 500 posts needs 10 reports to hide content. You can do that easily with the rules system as it will scan them all and pick the one most suitable for this member. Notifications Once an item has received enough reports to match the threshold, it is automatically hidden from view. Meaning it can then be dealt with by a moderator at an appropriate time, without the reported post being an issue to your members. Post is hidden on auto moderation A notification is sent to all moderators who opt in for notifications. This notification shows inline in the notifications center. Inline notification It can also optionally be sent via email for those who want to know without checking the site. Notification sent via email Of course, a moderator may decide that the content is fine and un-hide it. Once a piece of content has been un-hidden, automatic moderation will not hide it again. Preventing Abuse The system will only count a unique member as one point towards the threshold. This is to prevent a single member can reporting an item 5 times, as they are only counted once towards the threshold. You can also set a time limit between reporting the same item. This will prevent a member reporting a single item multiple times in succession. These settings can be found within the following area Members -> Content Moderation -> Automatic Moderation -> Settings Set limits to prevent abuse of this feature Of course, the member can delete their report if it was in error. Clicking report again gives the option to delete