Olivia Clark

@Dreadknux Discord has already been added and Twitch is on the list to be added soon. 
Here is the list of the integrations that are currently available. 🙂
Zoom YouTube EventBrite On24 Facebook Google Webex Slack Discord Microsoft Teams

It was great to see some familiar community ‘faces’ participating in our first, monthly release chat! ❤️
We are excited to share these questions and answers that were submitted to us both in advance of and during the webinar. Thank you for your participation! We are happy to dive into any of these questions and topics further - comment below!  🎉
 
Events Questions:
Question: What is the technology behind the map feature the shows the locations of the in person events?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.)You can use either Google Maps or Map box via API. Those settings can be found in your AdminCP.
 
Question: Can we disable location specific event promotion?  (We don't have many events that occur in person.)
A: (This was shown in the webinar.) You can populate in-person and/or online events, whatever your community uses. We are currently just promoting online events if you want to check out ours as an example: https://invisioncommunity.com/events/
 
Question: For communities without a large number of events, the weekly/monthly views come across as bare.  Any thoughts to keeping the event view (list of all upcoming events regardless of date)?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) You could choose to hide the weekly/monthly views and let your users just use the new events overview. If there are only a few events as you get started, that’s ok! Your users will appreciate you showcasing what is available to them.
 
Question: Can you add integrations with other services?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) Yes, we see your requests to add Twitch, SpotMe, and Vimeo so we are looking into bringing those to you. You are welcome to share request for others as well.
 
Question: Are the events displayed in order of distance to the user?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) Yes, it will attempt to locate the user but you can manipulate it too. If you change the location, perhaps you are traveling, you can manipulate the map to show a different location and the events that are near that new location will show.
 
General October Release Questions:
Question: How does IPS plan to rollout the changes for moving from display name to email address?  Is there a way we could possibly setup a system that warns a user and allows them to use a display name for XX amount of times while telling them to use their email address (and reminder them what it is) going forward?
A: We are still planning the deprecation of this feature. You can read the communication in advance of that change in the release notes and Feature Deprecation topic when that plan is posted.
 
Question: With Facebook promotion feature being removed, what ways does the IPS team recommend using to help promote communities?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) We suggest leaning into Zapier and web hooks for promotions. Zapier and others that specialize in these areas have partnerships with platform like Facebook so leverage those for access verses having to apply yourself.
 
Question: Now that the IPS team has had a good amount of time working through monthly release cycles, have you found it has helped the development process?  Should we expect to continue seeing this cadence through 2023?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) We have been doing monthly releases for over a year and are happy to continue those. This brings new features, enhancements and fixes to you more often.
 
Question:The October release added support for OpenSearch 2.1.  Is there any recommendations or preferences for using it versus ElasticSearch?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) These are actually the same, and often used interchangeably.

It was great to see some familiar community ‘faces’ participating in our first, monthly release chat! ❤️
We are excited to share these questions and answers that were submitted to us both in advance of and during the webinar. Thank you for your participation! We are happy to dive into any of these questions and topics further - comment below!  🎉
 
Events Questions:
Question: What is the technology behind the map feature the shows the locations of the in person events?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.)You can use either Google Maps or Map box via API. Those settings can be found in your AdminCP.
 
Question: Can we disable location specific event promotion?  (We don't have many events that occur in person.)
A: (This was shown in the webinar.) You can populate in-person and/or online events, whatever your community uses. We are currently just promoting online events if you want to check out ours as an example: https://invisioncommunity.com/events/
 
Question: For communities without a large number of events, the weekly/monthly views come across as bare.  Any thoughts to keeping the event view (list of all upcoming events regardless of date)?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) You could choose to hide the weekly/monthly views and let your users just use the new events overview. If there are only a few events as you get started, that’s ok! Your users will appreciate you showcasing what is available to them.
 
Question: Can you add integrations with other services?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) Yes, we see your requests to add Twitch, SpotMe, and Vimeo so we are looking into bringing those to you. You are welcome to share request for others as well.
 
Question: Are the events displayed in order of distance to the user?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) Yes, it will attempt to locate the user but you can manipulate it too. If you change the location, perhaps you are traveling, you can manipulate the map to show a different location and the events that are near that new location will show.
 
General October Release Questions:
Question: How does IPS plan to rollout the changes for moving from display name to email address?  Is there a way we could possibly setup a system that warns a user and allows them to use a display name for XX amount of times while telling them to use their email address (and reminder them what it is) going forward?
A: We are still planning the deprecation of this feature. You can read the communication in advance of that change in the release notes and Feature Deprecation topic when that plan is posted.
 
Question: With Facebook promotion feature being removed, what ways does the IPS team recommend using to help promote communities?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) We suggest leaning into Zapier and web hooks for promotions. Zapier and others that specialize in these areas have partnerships with platform like Facebook so leverage those for access verses having to apply yourself.
 
Question: Now that the IPS team has had a good amount of time working through monthly release cycles, have you found it has helped the development process?  Should we expect to continue seeing this cadence through 2023?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) We have been doing monthly releases for over a year and are happy to continue those. This brings new features, enhancements and fixes to you more often.
 
Question:The October release added support for OpenSearch 2.1.  Is there any recommendations or preferences for using it versus ElasticSearch?
A: (This was discussed in the webinar.) These are actually the same, and often used interchangeably.

We are hosting our first live video stream to chat about our October release.
This is a trial we are doing to see if everyone likes it and may start doing them with each release. 
Since it's a trial, please forgive us if we mess up or are otherwise awkward 🙂 
Feel free to post questions in the comments on the Event entry and we will try to cover some in the video.
 
 
 

Invision Community 4.7.2 now features a third party application and plug-ins PHP 8 compatibility scanner.
Please read this post as you may find applications of plugins disabled after upgrading.
Why do we need this?
The underlying programming language that Invision Community uses is PHP. The latest version, PHP 8 was released in November 2020 and features many breaking changes and incompatibilities that are not backwards compatible. Some of these changes mean that what was a harmless silent notice, is now a fatal error which would mean that if you upgrade with incompatible code, your community would throw a fatal error which results in either a white screen, or a server level error message in your browser.
These fatal errors cannot be captured by Invision Community and managed. The fatal errors are deeper in the execution chain.
PHP 8 has been out for close to two years, and PHP 7.4 is 'end of life' and security updates will cease from November which means that it becomes insecure, so everyone will have to move to PHP 8 very shortly.
What is it
The compatibility checker examines all third party applications and plugins that you have added from the Marketplace.
We encourage our Marketplace authors to test with PHP 8 but not all do, and as such applications and plugins that work fine with PHP 7.4 will fail with PHP 8.
The compatibility checker scans all third party code for issues that could cause fatal errors, and if it finds them it will disable the application or plugin on upgrade.
The only way to re-enable the application or upgrade is to update it to a 4.7.2 compatible version from the marketplace.
Can I re-enable disabled third party plugins and applications?
Yes, if you are confident the plugins and applications are fine to run with your current PHP version then you can re-enable them until our November release which will then enforce the disabling of applications.

It's worth reaching out to the authors of key plugins and applications to see if they have a PHP8 compatible version available, or plan to have one by November so you can prepare for the November upgrade.
Is this really needed?
Unfortunately yes. PHP are making bold changes that are not backwards compatible. Invision Community is fortunate to have so many third party developers releasing apps and plugins to further enhance the feature-set, but we do not have direct control over this code. Our priority is to ensure that your site upgrades smoothly and remains online.
Why now?
We finally ran out of road. We have been working towards PHP 8 compatibility for a while, and we have encouraged our third party authors to do so too, and to test with PHP 8. We also informed the developers in August about the scanner and what it may do to their applications. We also have been releasing Invision Community 4.7 betas since May of this year to give them as much time as possible to update their applications. Enforcing this change is painful in the short term but benefits everyone in the longer term.
What else can I do?
Your self-hosting license allows you a test install which you should use as a staging site and test any upgrades on that staging site before performing the upgrade on your production site. This will enable you to capture any issues that may arise before you run it on your production site.

As always, we recommend that a back-up snapshot is taken before any upgrade so that you can easily rollback if you encounter any issues.
I'm using PHP 7, does this affect me?
Yes, the compatibility scanner will still run on the upgrade and check for PHP 8 issues so that when you do upgrade to PHP 8 you won't find that your community is no longer working.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Hump Day, fam! 
I'm bringing this very special Hump Day post from our headquarters in Lynchburg, Virginia.
@Ryan Ashbrook, @Matt Finger, @Marshall Slemp and myself flew in from all over the U.S. to join forces with @Charles, @Olivia Clark and @Rikki to A.) meet in person and B.) dream up some exciting new projects!
Spoiler alert: we have some pretty exciting things in the works! Olivia is helping us channel our creative energies into effective workflows. Seeee?
 

Speaking of projects, have you had a chance to check out our website refresh? I'd love to point you in the right direction 😏  namely our Innovate section. It's beautiful 🥲 . Curious, what are your thoughts? 
Content Discovery Visitor Engagement Community Management Integration Achievements Mobile Customize
Next up is 4.6.7 Beta 1... it's available now! It includes our new Activity Streams subscription feature, extended Closed Clubs functionality and Stock Replies!
 
 
And if that wasn't enough Invision Community magic, check out a list of updates/fixes we've knocked out since we last spoke:
- Fixed an issue where converted mentions may contain a static URL (breaking them if you change your domain).
- Fixed an error that could occur if the Converter tried to delete a content link.
- Fixed an issue with tag statistics immediately after a conversion.
- Fixed a niche issue where an error could occur if a PayPal Subscription notification arrives after the Subscription is cancelled.
- Fixed an issue where it wasn't possible to edit a subscription expiry date.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a slow query to run when sending email if a large number of emails have previously failed.
- Fixed an issue with the Frontend Theme Editor occurring with PHP8.  
- Added Stream Subscriptions.
- Fixed the broken "Buy" link inside file embeds.
- Fixed an issue with some topics not being hidden (but their posts were) after converting from vB5.
- Fixed a potential issue adding tags to content when using PHP 8.
- Added the ability to quickly navigate between Node permissions and Group permissions in the AdminCP
- Made Profile Completion steps non-copyable.
- Fixed members REST endpoint responsible to award a badge. 
 
Alright folks, that does it for now. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, drop us a line in the comments. We're here for you!! 

Turns out @Charles and I have the same shirt...

I wasn't expecting Charles to be so young looking.  I had this impression in my mind that Charles was in his early 50's, grey hair, tall with a stern look about him.  He looks like a really nice chap that I could easily have a beer with 🙂
 

Just wanted to chime in and give a big shout out to @Stuart Silvester. With his help I was able to successfully do a transfer. (Give this man a raise 😄). Also thanks to @Charles. It's customer service like this that a lot of forum software companies are missing these days. Glad to be back and be part of the IPS family once again. 

 
 

Olivia,
Thank you, I had to downgrade from 7.4 to 5.4 to get my backup running, so I thought it might not work again if I upgraded to 7.4.  I was wrong, just upgraded to 7.4 and my forum still runs.  Will perform a manual update now. 

Thank you for your time.
 

Happy Hump Day, team! 
In case you missed it, we have a bumpin' topic asking for feedback/ideas regarding Achievements - we'd like to implement a few "quick wins" based off of your suggestions, so if you haven't already please check out that topic and submit a reply. It'd be greatly appreciated!
We also have a topic on the way regarding Spam Improvements - ideas you think would benefit the platform. Hold off on sharing those in this topic please - for now just think about it - that topic will drop on Friday so get ready 
Because it's a new month, I wanted to focus this post on goal-setting. I know, I know, it's corny, but setting goals is imperative for community growth. It's hard to know what direction your community is headed in without them. You wouldn't hop in your car without a destination in mind first would you? (Unless you want to drive aimlessly, which is a goal anyway.)
What is one goal you'd like to have your community achieve by the end of the year? Drop it in the comments! It'll hold yourself accountable and will be fun to look back on in a few months. It doesn't need to be crazy - keep it simple! Looking forward to seeing them (don't be shy!). 
 As always, here are this week's roundup of changes/fixes/updates:
- Fixed an issue where anonymous users may be cached in Who's Online blocks.
- Fixed an issue where a reserved keyword is used (specific to MySQL 8.0.17/18)
- Fixed an issue where a large file description may not save if it is larger than 64kb.
- Made a minor change to ensure the registration page is not cached by a web browser.
- Fixed an issue where legacy deleted posts are not removed correctly when upgrading from Invision Community 3.x.
- Fixed an issue where the notifications page could throw an exception while trying to return notification data from plugins or not existing notification extensions.
- Fixed an issue where the Billing Agreements synchronisation task wouldn't check payments via PayPal Subscriptions API.
- Fixed incorrect timezone detection for users in Argentina.
- Removed few occurrences from the in 4.6 removed notification sounds setting.
- Fixed an issue where weekly recurring events with no end date could display one day off
- Removed few occurrences from the in 4.6 removed notification sounds setting.
- Fixed an issue where weekly recurring events with no end date could display one day off (Calendar)
- Fixed an issue with the SQL toolbox pagination when a table prefix was being used.
- Fixed an issue where long group username styles in Xenforo could cause a database error.
- When building applications on Windows, Javascript/Themes imports will use \n line endings.
- Fixed an issue where weekly recurring events with no end date could display one day off.
- Fixed birthdays not showing on the initial Calendar view when only one calendar is present.
- Fixed an issue where the CVC/Address/ZIP checks were unavailable on Stripe payment intents in the AdminCP.
- Fixed an issue where following a member can send a notification if you choose to follow anonymously.
- Fixed an error when a restricted admin attempted to add moderators.
- Fixed an issue where some admin control panel profile blocks could show if the features were disabled. 
- Fixed an issue where a large file description may not save if it is larger than 64kb.
Sending you all good vibes! 
I'll go first btw: I would love for my community to reach 80,000 members. It's at ~76K currently. 

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!

I’m excited to come out from behind the scenes to say, Hello! 👋
The IPS team has been incredibly welcoming to me in so many ways! The willingness to try and adopt new processes is passing along better results to you guys! I’m happy to be part of such a driven, hardworking group! Dedicated leadership, a well-rounded team and eager clients have made this year with IPS a great one for me!
Thank you for your feedback, @DesignzShop. Keep it coming!