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Miss_B

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  1. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Ehren for a blog entry, Invision Community 5: Badge creation and icon customization   
    Invision Community offers fantastic ways of customizing the user experience for your members, and today, we’re excited to introduce some new and really simple ways of customizing Invision Community 5 even further using our new icon tools.
     
    Icon Picker
    Lets begin with our brand new icon picker. Containing both Font Awesome icons and emojis, the new picker allows you to easily search and assign icons to specific areas throughout your site. Lets take a look at some examples!
    icon-picker.mp4  
    Navigation icons
    Adding icons to the navigation list has been a highly requested feature, so we're happy to announce that you can now use this new picker to do exactly that, for both the horizontal and vertical navigation panels, without needing to modify your theme.

     
    Forum icons
    Uploading forum icons is a great way to personalize individual areas of your community. In the past, these icons have typically been images, uploaded via the admin panel. In addition to the upload form, the icon picker now makes it a breeze to assign icons to forums - and if a Font Awesome icon is chosen, it'll even inherit the featured forum color.

     
    Forum Feature Color
    We have brought the existing forum feature color to feed view allowing for a flash of color and personalization that helps associate a color with a specific forum. The feature color pairs really well with the card image to lift the forum display.

     
    Icon creator for badges, ranks and reactions
    Creating unique badges, ranks and reactions is a great way to boost activity within your community by encouraging members to share more engaging and frequent content - but designing these icons from scratch using a graphics program often comes with hurdles of its own.
    With our new icon creator, you can now design your own custom icons for badges, ranks and reactions straight from your Admin panel, using a combination of colors, icons and shapes.
    icon-creator.mp4  
     
    We think this new icon creator will make the rank, badges and reactions features even more accessible for everyone, allowing you to create a user experience that is uniquely yours. With Invision Community 5, bringing in customization and personalization moves beyond adding new themes.
    We're excited to see how you can take advantage of these new tools, and we look forward hearing your feedback in the comments below!
     

  2. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Invision Community 5: Quickly find the most helpful answers   
    Forum platforms have a wide range of uses, from helping with support to sharing knowledge, ideation and social interaction.
    Topics can span years, and once the initial explosion of replies has passed, the topic lives on in local search and search engines for future viewers to discover and get value from.
    However, it's not always easy to get the best content from a very long topic.
    You may have noticed that when you come to a topic seeking an answer, some replies are less than helpful.

    How do I fix my Apple Watch? Like this!
    It's common to find a lot of social content mixed in with useful replies. Jokes, GIFs and off-topic musings are all great while the topic develops organically in real-time. Having fun is critical to feeling a sense of belonging in a community. However, those coming to the topic a little later, say from a link Google has suggested, just want to get the useful content in the fastest way possible.
    That's where 'helpful' voting comes in.

    A very helpful reply
    Invision Community can already mark a single post as the best solution for that topic. Still, not every topic gets a definitive answer, and some community strategies resist quickly marking a post as the best answer to encourage more discussion rather than effectively ending it.
    Even when you have a definitive answer, there is often value in other highly rated posts offering more context, alternative solutions and more thorough explanations.
    With Helpful voting, your members are encouraged to flag which posts they find helpful in the topic. When enough votes are added to a single post, they are suggested as a possible answer. You can also tune out the noise and view the most helpful replies only.
    This is a powerful way to get the very best content from a topic in a short space of time.

    Want to just view the most helpful replies? No problem.
    If you eventually choose to mark a post as the definitive answer, the suggested post will be replaced with the answer you choose, but you can still see the posts voted as helpful to gain further context.
    The helpful voting works independently from reactions, which tend to cluster around social content. Social media conditions us to add a like or funny reaction to content that gets an emotional response. Indeed, a lot of the most highly reacted content is funny content. Social reactions are valuable when building connections between community members but often don't reflect what is the most useful content.

    The suggested most helpful post threshold is configuration via the Admin Control Panel.
    Helping your members find the best content within topics helps them do more in your community with less time.
    Forums continue to evolve, and while social content helps develop the community, content that solves problems and helps others is the rocket fuel you need to keep members and attract new audiences.
    Helpful voting also feeds into picking Community Experts, a new feature for Invision Community 5, but we'll talk about that in a future blog.

    A sneak peak at the new Community Expert badge
    I hope you found this update ✨helpful✨, and if you have any questions or comments, let me know in the comments!
  3. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Ehren for a blog entry, Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    Welcome to the second video of our sneak peak series! Today we'll be taking a closer look at the new Invision Community interface, including dark mode, accessibility improvements, performance improvements and the mobile layout! Before we begin, I should mention that this is a pre-alpha version of Invision Community 5, so some areas of the design may change before the official release.
     
    New traditional header design
    In our previous video, we showcased our new, optional side panel which formats your navigation into a vertical list. For those who prefer a traditional, horizontal header, here it is!

    A much more compact header compared to version 4, the new design condenses the navigation bar into a single row, moving all sub-navigation items into dropdown menus. A new, optional area below the text logo allows you to add your website slogan or announce events such as anniversaries or holidays, and our new search modal provides convenient access to the advanced search filters from any page on your community.

     
    Accessible interface
    The main content area has been designed with accessibility as a priority. High contrast text colours and larger font-sizes help to make reading more comfortable and clickable table rows (which can be enabled or disabled via the Theme Editor) allow you to navigate between pages more easily. A visible focus ring significantly improves navigation for visitors who find it more comfortable to browse with their keyboard TAB key, instead of using their mouse (ie. visitors with conditions such as Parkinson's disease, or those who have temporarily lost function due to a broken arm).
     
    Focus.mp4
    Elements are highlighted while navigating with the keyboard
     
    Dark mode
    Dark mode has become increasingly popular over the past few years - so it's no surprise that Version 5 has been designed from scratch with both light and dark mode in mind. With version 4, it was necessary to manage two themes in order to provide a light and dark colour scheme. In version 5 though, all of that is handled by a single theme.
    By default, your members will be able to choose their own color scheme preference: either light, dark, or system. System assigns a color scheme based on your system preferences - so if your device automatically switches to dark mode at night, your community will too! With that said, as an administrator, you also have the option to restrict your site to a single color scheme - so if you ONLY want to offer a dark theme, that's easily achieved.

     
     
    Performance
    Despite all of these new inclusions, the version 5 UI has been coded with significant reductions in both CSS and Javascript. We'll dive deeper into code reductions in a future blog entry, however two great examples are:
    - Grids: which have had a 100% removal of Javascript and are powered by only a few lines of CSS, resulting in a faster rendering time, especially for users on slow connections.
    - And carousels: which have had a 95% reduction in Javascript and now rely on native browser scrolling, for a much smoother experience on both desktop and mobile!
    Additionally we've removed a number of helper libraries that are no longer needed with modern browsers saving even more.
     
    Mobile UI
    With an incredible amount of mobile visitors accessing the web, we’ve placed a huge priority on redesigning the interface to ensure it lives up to todays standards.
    A new navigation bar at the bottom of the page provides convenient access to your activity feed, notifications, messages, a search panel, and navigation links. A conscious effort was made to ensure that this information was available within a single tap, and we found that a bottom bar like this was easier to interact with compared to icons in the header.

    The mobile navigation bar from Invision Community 5
     
    A goal of the mobile UI was to display elements that were previously only available on larger devices, while still maintaining a clean interface. For example, to improve navigation, we've added a scrollable breadcrumb list to the top and bottom of the page. To improve guest participation, we added Sign In and Sign Up links to the bottom navigation bar. These links were previously hidden within the hamburger menu, so we feel like this will really benefit those looking to improve registrations. And as demonstrated in last weeks video, profile information is now available within posts, comments and reviews on small devices.
    We’re really excited for you to literally have a hands on experience with the new mobile interface of Invision Community 5, and we're interested to hear your feedback in the comments!
  4. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Ehren for a blog entry, Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    Welcome to Invision Community 5!
    Over the coming weeks, we'll be exploring a bunch of new features and improvements coming to our user interface including our brand new theme editor, a new mobile UI, dark mode and performance improvements thanks to a reduction in both JavaScript and CSS. To kick off this series, let’s take a closer look at the new sidebar layout and new view modes for the forum index and topic pages.
    Sidebar Layout
    Traditionally, Invision Community has shipped with a horizontal header and navigation bar at the top of the page, which is still available in version 5. We're introducing a brand new (and optional) sidebar layout, which can be enabled or disabled easily from within your theme settings. The sidebar not only provides convenient access to your applications, activity streams and search bar, but you can now add links to nodes for even easier access to popular or commonly used areas of your community. For example - a category from your forum, an album from the Gallery, or a product group from Commerce.
    Sidebar-zoom.mp4
    Forum Index: Feed view
    One of our goals for version 5 was to re-imagine new ways for your visitors to consume content, and the sidebar layout is just one of our solutions. Table view has been the typical way of displaying forums, providing visitors with a simple summary of the most recently active topic. Grid mode introduced cover photos to forums and is a great way to make your page more visually engaging, while fluid view allows visitors to filter through a list of topics to easily focus on multiple areas of the community.
    Joining these view modes in version 5 is our new Feed view. Optional cover photos and featured forum colours allow you to personalise each forum, and a list of recently active topics with snippets of the most recent reply allow you to easily see what each forum is focusing on at a glance. The topic list drops below the cover photo and converts to a scrollable list on small devices. It's our fresh take on content display, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!

     
    Topic pages: Compact view
    In addition, Invision Community 5 also introduces a new, compact layout option for topics. We wanted to create a layout which placed focus on your content while still keeping all of the authors profile information easily accessible within a mini profile. Stats, rank, badges, reputation points and more can be found by tapping the icon at the top of every post. The mini profile strip has also been added to other areas of the software too, such as comments and reviews in applications like Gallery and Blogs, and will appear on the mobile layout when the traditional "table view" is used in topics.
    Switching between the new compact view and the author sidebar view takes just seconds giving you complete control over your community.
    Mini profile.mp4
     
    As part of this view, you also have the choice to feature/pin the original post to the top of every page, making it a breeze for your visitors to easily understand the context of replies without navigating back to page 1. Pinned posts have a slightly larger font-size to distinguish them from replies, and we've thoughtfully truncated them on pages beyond the first to keep scrolling to a minimum.

     
    The new sidebar layout and view modes offer a fresh and innovative approach to navigating and interacting with your community. We’re really keen to hear your thoughts on these new views and whether you’ll be unleashing them on your own sites! We appreciate that no two sites are the same, and those who are a fan of the classic header look will benefit from quick styling tools and a visual way to re-arrange the header elements which we’ll cover in a later blog.
    We’re looking forward to showcasing a whole bunch of new features over the coming weeks - so stay tuned, and we’ll see you then!
     
  5. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Stuart Silvester for a blog entry, Marketplace: The Next Steps   
    The Marketplace is closing on October 30th 2023. If you haven't already read the announcement, please read it first.
    As our Marketplace prepares to close its doors, we want to ensure a seamless transition for our customers. To facilitate this process, we're introducing a new 'license key' system to allow you to transfer your purchases to the third-party developer website in a privacy-conscious way.
    On the 'My Purchases' page, you'll find an improved layout displaying each resource you've purchased from the Marketplace. This includes the original purchase date, the expiry date (if applicable) and the current renewal term (if applicable).
    Additionally, we've added two new enhancements. First, you'll notice the purchase-specific license key (depicted as XXXX in the screenshot). This license key is accessible to the third party author and can be provided to them through their website or other means. It enables them to confirm your payment for the resource and check its activation status. Secondly, we've added a link to their profile in the Providers Directory (if applicable).

    You can find contact details and a link to the provider's website on their profile. We hope that these additions will help make the transition as smooth as possible.
     
    Third Party Developers
    Developers can now access the new 'My Sales' area, where you'll find a searchable list of resources that have had sales on the Marketplace. This list may include resources that were previously hidden.

    Clicking on any of these resources will display a list similar to the old 'my paid files.' Here, you'll find detailed information for each purchase, including purchase and expiry dates. Additionally, the list now includes the customer's current renewal term, which may differ from the initial purchase due to pricing changes.
    Furthermore, you'll notice the new license key, conveniently searchable in the top right corner. We've also made the list of purchases available in CSV format, allowing for easy integration into your own website or marketplace.

    Please let us know if you have any questions and we hope these new tools will ease the transition from the Marketplace.
  6. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Daniel F for a blog entry, Strengthening Community Trust with Privacy and PII Data Features   
    Our June release of Invision Community introduces several new improvements for your community to increase privacy controls and consent of personally identifiable information.
    In today's digital age, privacy and the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) have become increasingly important. By incorporating improved privacy and PII data features into Invision Community, we are creating a more secure and inclusive environment within your community. In this blog post, we will take a quick look at what PII is, and the new features Invision Community has to improve privacy within your community.
    What is PII?
    PII, or personally identifiable information, refers to any data that can be used to identify, contact, or locate an individual member. When users sign up and visit your community, they may provide various types of PII, either voluntarily or as required by the platform's registration process. For example, an email address is required to complete the registration, and in some cases and IP address may be logged to authenticate a session, or to provide some context to the person posting content. 
    Invision Community introduced new data control tools in a previous release, so let's take a look at the improvements coming in our June release that improves cookie management, IP address management, PII data requests, and the right to be forgotten.
    PII Data Request and Right to be Forgotten
    Your members now have the ability to request their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data directly from their account settings page. Upon submitting a request, administrators will receive a notification alerting them to the new inquiry, where they can choose to either approve or deny it.
    If approved, the member will be notified and provided information on how to download their requested data.

     
    Additionally, members now have the option to request account deletion. After submitting this request, they will receive a confirmation email to verify their intent. Once confirmed, the request is forwarded to administrators, who can then decide whether to approve or reject the account deletion.

    IP Address Management
    Invision Community has had tools to prune IP addresses within a timeframe for a while, but we have conducted a thorough evaluation of the data framework in Invision Community to ensure that all recorded IP addresses are systematically purged according to the designated timeframe.
    Cookie Management
    Empowering members to control which cookies are stored is an important aspect of fostering trust and security within an online community. By granting users the autonomy to manage cookie preferences, you demonstrate a commitment to respecting their privacy and protecting their personal data. This level of transparency not only helps build a strong sense of trust between the community and its members but also helps with compliance, ultimately contributing to a more engaging and responsible user experience.
    The Invision Community cookie consent page has been revamped and now displays a list of essential cookies. Visitors have the option to opt out of non-essential cookies for a more customized browsing experience.

    Additionally, we've introduced a new feature that allows for the inclusion of an optional third-party Cookie Description on the cookie consent page, further enhancing transparency and user control.

    We trust that these enhancements to privacy and data collection practices will simplify compliance with various regulations and, most importantly, ensure that your community members feel secure and well-protected while engaging with your platform.
    The features and changes presented here are available in the following packages:
    Beginner Creator Creator Pro Team Business Enterprise These features are also available in the Invision Community Classic (self-hosted) product.
    If you do not see your product or package listed, please contact us to talk about upgrading your Invision Community.
  7. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Gary for a blog entry, Keep it simple, silly!   
    Welcome to my first Invision Community blog post!
    For those that haven't yet seen me making my way around this community, I'm Gary, and I have just recently joined the Customer Service team at Invision Community. I want to take this moment to thank the staff for giving me such an amazing opportunity and welcoming me with open arms.
    My history goes way back to circa 2004-2005 (I was still in high school) where I first dug my hands into forums and forum software in the good old Invisionfree days. Through the years I have created too many communities to count, including my own free post-to-host hosting service (remember those days?). Some were successful and so many others were anything but. Little did I know these experiences would only get me more and more hooked into this virtual world!
    Forums have been more to me than just an invaluable source of information. They are communities of like-minded people sharing their knowledge, experiences, hobbies and most of all, coming together in a common place to just be themselves. I have experienced nearly every forum software out there, though I always made my way back to the Invision Community suite of products as I not only found it to be a very powerful and dynamic bit of kit, but it always provided the solutions I wanted and needed for my communities.
    I thought I would share some tips on things that have worked for me when creating my own community. This will make up part one of a set of planned blog entries relating to community tips in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

    Use the KISS principle.
    One thing I have found in order to engage guests and new and existing members of my community is to incorporate the 'Keep it simple, silly!' principle.
    When you visit a community and you're overwhelmed with categories, forums and unnecessary pinned topics, you are actually not doing yourself a favour. It mostly adds confusion to your community and does the complete opposite to having things organised. Too much clutter is never a good thing, and keeping things orderly and ensuring content is concise will provide your members with a more comfortable and easier overall experience. I did not incorporate this principle into my communities, and soon realised that was a huge contributor to the cause of their demise. 😅
    Keep some of these in mind:
    Can I combine forums that are similar in content? Do I need so many separately pinned topics? Can I write more concisely? Targeting this point on the more administrative side of things like 'how to use this forum' topics, forum descriptions, etc. Are there things that are already self-explanatory and do not require repeat descriptions or mentions? Can I use less jargon and target my writing to a wider audience? Am I using too many graphics? If the above is not a factor, can graphics assist in reducing large chunks of plain text? When is too much, in fact, too much? Quality over quantity as they say. How about, less is more?
    Whatever stance you take and whichever influential quote you can most relate to, you want your audience to feel welcomed, not overstimulated with irrelevant content you think they need to see. Let your audience guide your community. I will delve into this further in the next blog entry.
    I'll leave it there for this edition, otherwise I may just keep you here all day...
    I'm sure there are many of you who are doing this so well already, so please share your own useful and proven tips and tricks. What have you found works for you and your community? What is something you are doing differently or uniquely in an effort to keep it simple?
  8. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Finding solutions made easier   
    You’ve got questions, and you’ve got answers.
    One of the glorious benefits to running a thriving community is its ability to be self-sustainable. We’ve added new Solved features available on both standard and self-hosted plans. 
    While you’re working on growing the community’s presence (and the bottom line), your members are busy connecting and engaging with one another. In addition to you and your team answering questions, peer-to-peer networking is an efficient way to increase support and quickly attend to your members’/clients’/customers’ needs. 
    Invision Community’s previously existing Solutions feature allows a topic starter, as well as community moderators, to mark a reply inside a topic as the solution to the question. We’ve added a green block for the member who started the topic that encourages them to mark a response as the solution. This is only visible to them and not other members participating inside the topic. 


     
    Here is what the new Solutions button looks like:


     
    Not only did it receive a style update, but more importantly the topic starter can now receive periodic emails reminding them to revisit their topic and either re-engage until a solution is found, or mark a previously-posted answer as the solution. 
    Community leaders have the ability to turn this feature off, or set the number of days before an email is sent (the default is set to 14 days).
    Here is an example email:


     
    We also added a Solved report in the Statistics section of your Admin Control Panel.
    The report consists of daily snapshots taken within the community. The platform then records the percent of topics solved, as well as the average time it took to find a solution. This helps you understand pain points in your community, as well as what kinds of questions get answered and how long it took for a solution to come to light. 



    Benefits of your community using Solutions:
    Cuts support costs: Customers help one another so your team can focus elsewhere. Builds a library: Community answers are easily searchable & shareable for future customers. Gives props: Reward customers for answering questions with Achievements. Empowers members: Customers help themselves by asking questions and finding answers. The new Solutions features are available in an upcoming update to version 4.7 of our platform. 
    The Solutions option is located in: Admin Control Panel -> Community -> Forums -> Forums -> Select desired Forum -> Edit -> Display Settings -> "Enable Solved?" Toggle + "Allow the topic starter to mark solved?" Toggle
    Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments! 
  9. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, New community manager tool: schedule topics   
    Community managers and moderators have a simple but powerful new tool at their disposal: scheduling a topic's future publishing date.
    Previously, if a community manager wanted to draft a topic for a future release, they would have to craft the content elsewhere. It wasn’t the best experience. After listening to client feedback, we implemented a path for those with moderator privileges to create topics now, but have them go live in the future. 
    Set this new permissions setting in the Admin Control Panel -> Moderators -> Content -> Can set a future publishing date? 
    Notice the Publish date and time fields at the bottom:


     
    Here are a few examples of when this would be useful:
    Welcoming new members
    A community manager can compose a topic welcoming members from that week, but set it to go live the next week. It’s a powerful, engaging and visible way to acknowledge new sign-ups. Pair this with our new Alerts System.
    Anniversaries
    Big day coming up? Create content around it now, but set the topic's publish date on the actual day. 
    Content calendar
    If you are in charge of creating community content, budget a chunk of time towards creating engaging topics. Set their future publish dates apart so there’s space for members to engage accordingly. It also allows your team to visually see the content and weigh in with changes (or hoorays!) before members see it.
    Related:
     
    Announcements
    Scheduling an announcement inside a topic, in tandem with our Announcements workflow functionality located in the Moderator Control Panel, allows community moderators to create space for feedback from loyalists. 
    Promo campaign
    As a community manager, time is a commodity. Setting up a promotional campaign for a future product release sets you up for success. When planning intricate marketing projects, organization and editing are paramount. Setting a future release date creates space to ensure the messaging is clear and effective.
    This feature, available for all Invision Community clients, is available in 4.7.1 Beta 1 (out now). View our release notes.
    Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments (preferably now 😉).
  10. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Introducing The Alert System   
    Invision Community’s forthcoming release includes an exciting new feature available for all. 
    Announcing the Alert System! 🚨™
    The Alert System is a new tool for community managers to communicate with their members. There are times when a community manager needs to bring information to the attention of either a single user, or a group of users; when existing systems such as PMs or warning points are not suitable. So, we developed a happy medium to empower you. 
    The new alert system offers multiple ways to engage with single users or multiple member groups with a message that must be acknowledged and dismissed before further engagement with the community.
    Here are a few examples of when a community leader can use the Alert System for individual members:
    Moderator actions 
    A moderator moves a topic and wants to inform the topic starter that the topic has been moved and why. 
    Get ahead of warnings
    A member left a comment that doesn’t justify a warning point, nor should it warrant a private message. You want to kindly remind them of the community guidelines. 

    Community leaders may wish to send information to an entire member group. This may to warn them of new limits, or to notify support changes, etc. 
    Here are a few examples of when a community leader can use the Alert System for groups:
    Updates to community guidelines
    After reviewing and updating your community guidelines or terms of service, you can send an alert to all affected member groups outlining the changes, so they are aware. As the message needs to be dismissed before any further interaction with the community, you can be sure it has been read before any more posts are made.

    This example shows an alert with send anonymously switched on.
     
    Welcome message
    To strengthen your onboarding flow, you may like to send all new members a welcome message to introduce yourself and your team, along with some helpful information to help get them settled in.
    This example shows an alert with the option to reply, with send anonymously turned off.
    Heads up
    Remind a group of a permanent account-related change, like their subscription will be decreasing/increasing. 
    New forums added
    After consultation with your community, you want to add some new discussion areas for your VIP Members. You can now send an alert targeted to members in that group to let them know where the new forums are and what their purpose is.
    Let's chat
    You notice that a great community member is having a bad day. Instead of reaching for punitive tools, you can send them an alert that they have to reply to before being allowed to continue engaging in the community.

    These are just a few examples; of course, the alerts functionality has a lot of flexibility built in. 
    Alerts are managed from the Moderator's Control Panel.

     
    Let us take a look at the different areas that can be configured.

     
    Dates
    Each alert has a start date, and this date can be in the future. This is especially useful if you have an event coming up you want to showcase. You can optionally set an expiration date to only serve the alert for members that visit between the start and end date. You can also leave it running indefinitely for uses such as the welcome message.
    Send to
    This section allows you to choose to send to a single user or to a single or multiple groups. If you are sending to groups, you can further fine-tune the deliverability by choosing to send to everyone currently registered and to new members when they register, or you can target just new members (to be precise, this will target members who register after the alert date), this option is ideal for the welcome message alert.
    Send as yourself or anonymously 
    You can choose to send the alert anonymously or from yourself. There are times when you want a personal touch and times when you need more of a system style alert, perhaps when notifying of guideline updates. Or, if the message is general, or you want to protect members of your team, send the alert anonymously. 
    Replies
    If you choose to send the alert personally, then you can allow the member to reply, force the member to respond to dismiss the alert or remove the ability to reply. For a welcome message, you'd likely want to allow replies which then will create a new personal message between you and the member. 
    We have built the system to be very flexible to cover a wide range of uses where you want to directly engage with a member or group of members and be confident that they have seen the alert before any further engagement in the community. Alerts can be used to strengthen onboarding, notify sections of your community about exciting new features and changes or even create an open dialogue after a punitive measure such as having a posting time-out.
    This feature is coming to Invision Community 4.7, across all platforms.
    Thoughts on our new Alert System?! Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think.
  11. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Improved spam defense in 4.7 with hCaptcha   
    As the Invision Community platform continues to evolve, so do the precarious ploys of pesky bots. 
    Oftentimes spammers, whether they are bots or actual humans, spam your community with links in an effort to boost their website’s SEO. 
    There are already a number of ways in the Invision Community platform to fight against spam, including…
     
    Our native Spam Defense built into the platform that scores a newly-registered member Placing new registrations into a moderator queue Adding word filters that, when triggered, put the member in a moderation queue
    We also integrate with various CAPTCHAs. You might be unfamiliar with the term, but you’ve definitely participated with one. It’s a digital gatekeeper in the form of an interactive puzzle that asks you to find patterns or similar images in order to evade malicious bots from taking action, whether that’s submitting a spam email, comment or registering an account. 
    Our existing CAPTCHA defenses include:
     
    Invisible reCAPTCHA where the system intelligently detects if the user is human in the background reCAPTCHA V2 where the user simply clicks an "I'm not a robot" checkbox keyCAPTCHA where the user must complete a jigsaw puzzle
      In our latest update, version 4.7, we’ve included yet another defense to block spam from seeing the light of day: hCaptcha
    hCaptcha is one of the world's most widely used independent Captcha services. 
    We’re incorporating it in a few places where spammers can prepare their attacks.

    Registering:
    Prevent spammers from joining your community. If enabled, the hCaptcha will stop spammers in their tracks before even creating an account in your community.



    Guest posts:
    Community leaders have the option to allow guests to reply to topics. This could potentially open up the floodgates for spammers, but the hCaptcha effectively mitigates this by asking the entity (hopefully an actual person) to problem solve. If the sequence is not successfully completed, the guest post won't be published.



    hCaptcha is available in the new 4.7 Beta 1 release.
    Give it a shot and let us know what you think in the comments… just be sure to successfully select all the traffic lights if you’re a guest! 😉 
     
  12. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Interview with the founders of Invision Community (VIDEO)   
    To celebrate Invision Community turning 20-years-old (an eternity in Internet years), I interviewed the company's founding fathers.
    Ahh the good ol' days. Remember simpler times?
    This new video interview touches on Invision Community's past, present and future thanks to the invaluable insight from  @Charles, @Matt and @Lindy. 
     
    In our chat together, these gentlemen...
     
    Take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and reflect on the company's origins Explain the power of community amidst the social media boom Offer advice for new community leaders on how to grow Share some of the biggest changes to the platform Recant fond memories from the earlier days Reveal a teaser of what's next for Invision Community  
    Noteworthy quotes:
    Charles:
     
    Lindy:
     
    Matt:
     
    Thoughts on the interview? We'd love to hear from you in the comments! 🎂 
  13. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Twenty years of Invision Community   
    Twenty years ago today, Invision Community was founded and within months the first version of Invision Community was released. Little did we know, this would be the start of a remarkable journey spanning several decades.
    Our first version appeared shortly after we founded the company. It might be hard to imagine a time before social media and YouTube, but when we started out, the web looked very different.

    The first version of Invision Community was called Invision Board, reflecting the popular term for forums back in the early 2000s. It was full featured and you may recognise some elements that persist today.
    Like today, it even had a separate control panel where you could create new areas of discussion and customise the theme.

    Twenty years is a long time and we've continued to adapt with the ever-changing needs of community managers. We've seen the rise of social media impact how people consume content and found ways to compliment Twitter and Facebook by offering a place for long-form permanent discussion.
    Several elements remain from those early days but the concepts behind the theme have change significantly. New workflows, UI elements and views have helped the platform stay fresh and we've certainly innovated a few features that have since become industry standard over that time.
    I can't express how proud I am of what we've built together. From those humble beginnings working until 2am to growing a creative and talented team around our passion for community.
    I'm still as excited today as I was back in 2002. This year will see us build and release new tools to help guide and inform community managers. Our community platform continues to go from strength to strength.
    Of course, the platform is only one part of Invision Community. Over the last twenty years I've been grateful to get to know many of you and watch your lives unfold.
    This is as pure as community can get and I'm privileged to be part of it.

    We have a few other surprises to celebrate our twentieth anniversary. We can't wait to share them!

    I'd love to hear your memories of Invision Community! When did you first use our products and what was your community for? Please let me know in the comments below.
  14. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, The importance of branded communities   
    Branded communities mobilize your impassioned fans and customers. 
    If you’re even a little familiar with community building, you’ve probably seen marketing jargon about why owning your own community (and not exclusively relying on social media) is absolutely imperative for growth. 
    Relying on social media is a gamble. 
    At any given time the social media giants can take away your platform and following you had spent years building.  Meaningful ongoing conversations aren’t really a thing. No customization; your social account won’t have different functionality than everyone else (there’s a few exceptions with Instagram, but it’s based on follower count). With a community, you can grant your members far more flexibility and power.  Companies that thrive know of social media’s limitations. They opt to also include a community component to their brand because it’s a serious advantage. They use social media as a tool to drive traffic to their community and get to know their clients/customers on a deeper level. 
    Owning your own branded community... 
    Strengthens brand identity. Duh, but not really. I’d say most companies fail to establish a real look and feel. This is done by evoking an emotion in the customer through an intentional balance of visuals (colors, logos, fonts) alongside experiences the company, along with the community, creates together.  Builds trust with the consumer. Getting digital face time with your customers, sharing content and offering value on a consistent basis are the building blocks of trust between company and consumer. Gain this, and become an authority in your industry.  Provides a deeper understanding of customers' needs. Save money on market research. Tap into your audience's needs free of charge.  Encourages an open dialogue. Customers want to feel heard! Create an environment that's a two-way street so their thoughts and feelings don't fall into the Internet abyss. Creates visibility. At the heart of any business are the customers. Show them your true colors.
      Your brand’s look & feel matters
    Now that we’ve nailed down the ‘why,’ let’s touch on the nuts and bolts, err… colors and fonts. 
    Don’t underestimate the power of a cohesive and imaginative visual associated with your brand. 
    When you think of McDonald’s, does your brain fire off a pair of golden arches and a ketchup red color combo? When thinking about Coca Cola, maybe a cursive font bubbles up. Apple is internationally admired for their visuals and product presentation.
    These aren’t accidents.
    Companies spend millions of dollars on marketing to perfect the brand’s look and feel. 
    Your community should aim to feel as immersive as possible through its branding. 
    Your community, powered by Invision Community, was designed with that in mind. In the admin control panel, community leaders can design their own theme, including colors, fonts, headers, footers and logo. 
    Take a look at how some of our clients transformed their communities into something extra special:
     

    Squarespace
     

    Fiverr
     

    Corsair
     
    Those communities enlist our enterprise services. However, if you don’t have the marketing budget just yet to create a totally custom look and feel, we have a new option at your disposal starting today.
    We just launched a theme service available for all Invision Community clients on our standard plans. We’ll create you a theme based on certain criteria and keep it updated throughout future platform updates. 
    If that’s something of interest, please visit this new page on our website and reach out to us to get started.
    Design your new theme today.
    Owning a branded community doesn’t need to be complicated. If your idea is solid, and your intentions are to unite and connect like-minded people, then you’re golden. 
    Are you  interested in a branded community? Do you have a community that could use some extra attention? Are you ready to launch a new community but don’t know where to start? Drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond to you.
     
  15. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, The numbers don’t lie: Invision Community in 2021   
    2021 was a big year for Invision Community. 🎉 
    We launched no-code automation with our Zapier integration, added web push notifications, offline support, stock replies and new reporting metrics.
    We also improved spam management, SEO crawl efficiency, Clubs, Activity Streams and introduced a native gamification system named Achievements.
    Not to mention the team grew! 👋  @Matt Finger @Marshall Slemp (and me 🙋🏼‍♂️).
    We have lots to look forward to in the new year, but before we reveal more let's take a trip down memory lane. 
    2021 was one of our best-performing years ever! Here are some highlights:
     
    Community Activity 2021
    We saw an influx of members contributing to our community support forum. 3,832 members submitted new content, followed something, or reacted to something in the community.
     

     
     
    Points earned:
    Thanks to the introduction of the Achievements system, members had the opportunity to earn points for contributing to the support community. In total, the community racked up 361,363 points. 📈




     
    Topics created:
    Members fired off more than 4000 topics, including questions, feature suggestions and community management tips. 😳 



     
    New posts:
    Inside those topics included an array of replies. 31,488 posts to be exact. 😱 


     
     

    Top 10 members with the most amount of Reactions given:
    Members also engaged with the community using our Reputation system (think of it as our "likes" 👍 system). Here are the top 10 members who gave the most Reactions. 


    @sobrenome @Jordan Miller @SeNioR- @Linux-Is-Best @OptimusBain @Matt @Adriano Faria @Davyc @Marc Stridgen @Unienc
     
    Top 10 members with the most amount of Reactions received:
    If a member's topic or reply is well received, it earns Reputation using our Reactions system. Here are the top 10 members who received the most love. ❤️ 



    @Matt @Adriano Faria @Nathan Explosion @CoffeeCake @opentype @Marc Stridgen @Daniel F @Davyc @Jimi Wikman 
     
    Members who earned the most badges:  
    Participating in the community also earns members special badges. You get a badge and you get a badge! ✅ 
     

    @CoffeeCake @TAMAN @opentype @PPlanet @SUBRTX @Sonya* @Afrodude
     
    Top Marketplace contributors:
    Shout-out to our crazy talented third-party developers who take time out of their busy schedules to innovate and create downloads for other Invision Community clients to use! Here are the top Marketplace contributes: 
     

    @Nathan Explosion @Michael.J @Miss_B @IBTheme @Kirill Gromov @ReyDev @Adriano Faria @shahed 
     
     
     
    Most active forum:
    You have questions and we have answers. Our support system shifted to our help & support forum and it paid off big time! 
     

     
     
    Thanks to everyone who contributed to making Invision Community a better place. Whether you're an active poster in our community support forums, or a customer who lives to learn and absorb, we greatly appreciate you. Cheers to the exciting ventures on the way in 2022! 🎉 
     
  16. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Improve your client relationships by offering a public support community   
    Front-facing support creates visible opportunities for clients to find answers to both frequently asked and uncommon questions. 
    Earlier this year, Invision Community lifted the veil off support, shifting from a private, 1-on-1, email-driven medium to open topics in our community support forum. 
    We found ourselves answering the same questions because we hadn’t fully leaned into community support, which also gives our existing clients opportunities to weigh in with solutions. 
    While we still do convert a chunk of community support questions to a private ticket, most issues are resolved for all to see. This is important to note because it's created an invaluable resource for others who may be searching for similar answers. 
    We have:
    Improved support staff time management Improved retention Improved support response times for clients Built a resource library and knowledge base Forged stronger connections
    A few key stats in our support areas: 
    71% solved (+80%) in 3 months 9 hours is our average time to find a solution (50% faster) in 3 months 14% of topics became a ticket
      Feel free to mirror what we do for your own community! This is done through four key steps: 
     
    1) Identify, 2) Assess, 3) Execute, 4) Follow up
     


    1) Identify:
    The first step is to identify the client’s problem or concerns. Our team keeps an eye on the support forums and anticipate new topics are incoming. 
    We are equipped with any stored access details, and cloud access details, to login to a client’s community and take a look if needed (with their consent). This can aid us in identifying the issue.

    2) Assess:
    After assessing the issue and gathering information, we put on our critical thinking caps. One of several things may happen:
    A solution is provided More information may be requested A ticket can be created if needed for more sensitive issues, or items needing more detailed review Sometimes our support team needs to investigate an issue further. That requires us to take things off the community and open a specialized ticket for our tier two support team to take a closer look. 

    3) Execute
    Now that we’ve created a path towards finding a solution, we get to work. 
    Each ticket can result in one of three outcomes: 
    It's resolved It needs to be further investigated Or, it’s a bug
    Bugs
    Hey, they happen. If an item is determined to be a bug, that bug is also added as a follow up item and the topic is marked as a known issue.

    When we follow up on a bug item, we go through a few processes. 
    Our developers will work through these bugs to get them resolved, in order of priority/severity. Once done, they are reviewed and added to a new release.
    Fun fact: Every week, we list out all of the platform updates and fixes in our Community Manager's Lounge!
    As items are fixed, our support staff will pick up on this through the followup process. The ticket will be changed from “known issue” to “in future release” to show its status. The follow up item status is also changed to show it being in the next release.
    Upon release of a new version, the above items are gone through to mark them as solved, then we inform the client that the issue is resolved.
    We also have weekly development meetings to discuss items with developers, as well as weekly support staff meetings to discuss issues with any support processes for that week.

    4) Followup
    Following up with a client after we found a solution helps us stay connected to our community and improves retention.
    We like to check back in a few days, a week, or even more depending on what the nature of the issue was. The aim is to provide a working solution to the client then ensure that, well… it worked! 
    If an item is escalated, we have an internal follow up system that allows us to keep an eye on your ticket.
     
    Shifting the way you handle support, from behind-the-scenes to center stage, has been one of the most profound and rewarding changes to Invision Community. Not only is our support community a wealth of knowledge and saves our clients time, but it also creates trust with our clients because we’re held accountable. 
    How do you handle support in your community? Drop us a line in the comments; we’d love to hear from (and see) you!
  17. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Achievements just became even more powerful   
    Earlier this year, Invision Community launched a native gamification system called Achievements. We added significant improvements to Achievements in our new release, 4.6.8, out now!  🎉 
    Achievements allows community leaders to reward members with points, badges and ranks for their outstanding contributions. We listened to your feedback and implemented some very exciting changes.
    In this post, you'll get a crash course on the new updates included in your Admin Control Panel (ACP) upon updating your community to 4.6.8. Once you're familiar with these concepts, you can take action to elevate your community.
     
    New! Married group promotions with Achievements. 
    New! Added metrics to better understand how Achievements functions within your community. 
    New! Implemented additional rules to further empower your members. 
    New! Updated email notifications to let your members know when they've earned a badge.
    New! Download member lists based on Achievements criteria.
     
    Before we expand on the new features, here's a recap of Achievements to refresh your memory:
     
    Related: Want to know more about Achievements? Read our original blog post.

    Now that you’re up to speed, let’s take a look at the new metrics and rules.
     
    Group promotions


     
    Group promotions lay out various user journeys.
    Based on actions a member takes in a community, for example  commenting 100 times, having a high reputation score or having joined a community a year ago, the platform will automatically place them in a group (based on the rules you previously set up). This is useful when creating a hierarchy in your community. The more your members are engaged, the more access / privileges they receive.
     Now, community leaders can automatically place members in specific groups based on what badges they've earned in the community.  
    Couple examples:
    A moderator manually awards a member the 'Helpful Superstar' badge. In this scenario, that badge can only be earned if a moderator chooses to give it. Once someone earns that badge, they're automatically placed in the 'Helpful Superstars' group. This group may have the ability to create clubs (whereas the other groups can't).  A member earns the 'Engaged' badge. 'Engaged' badges are earned when a member has replied 100 times since joining. Once they've posted 100 replies, the system automatically places them in a new group with other contributing members.   
    Related: Learn more about Group Promotions
     
    Metrics
    Metrics reports are essential for understanding what's working in your community, and what needs improving. 


     
    Badges Earned: Track what badges were earned during a defined period of time. This is especially useful to track both member engagement as well as identify how often your community moderators are awarding badges manually.
    Badges earned by member group: How many members in each group earned a badge. Track this when quantifying what groups are most engaged with your community. Understanding which group(s) earn the most badges helps you better tend to groups that might be less engaged. It might be a good idea to show them some extra attention. 
    Badges by member: Search a time-based list of all members with an earned badge total. Easily discover who your VIP members are and reward / thank them for being active contributors. 
     
    Related: Maximize community growth with our new reporting metrics
     
    Rules
    Set up rules based on various criteria. These rules will automatically take a specific action once the criteria has been met.
     


    Member downloads a file: Members may earn a badge for downloading a specific file. This could be useful if your company wanted to share new policies or an announcement; track which members took the time to download the information and publicly recognize them for staying on top of things. 
    Member purchases a package or product: Members may also earn a badge for purchasing either a package or a specific product. For example, you could create a rule for members to earn a coveted product badge for opting to purchase a physical product (like a t-shirt). Only members who've purchased an item from your community would receive this type of recognition. 
     
    Outreach
    Jump into your members' inboxes with tailor-made good news. 


     
    New Email notifications: New notification emails let your members know when they've received a coveted rank.  
     
    Segment
    Download a list of members based on a number of Achievements criteria, including points, ranks and badges.


     
    In theory, you can upload this list of members elsewhere to target this specific audience (like sending an exclusive email drip campaign in Mail Chimp).
    Several examples include downloading a list of members who've:
    Earned 500 or more points Earned a specific badge Reached a specific rank  
    Achievements is a robust feature to engage your VIP members and spark the fuse of inspiration for newcomers. There’s a lot of power at your fingertips.
    Unsure where to start with implementing Achievements? Check out our original post and determine what behaviors you want to reward within your community. Sometimes just logging in is a good place to start. Reward them for that. 🙂
    Ready to take Achievements to the next level? Check out the new Group Promotions and Achievements Metrics now available in 4.6.8.

    Where are you in your journey with Achievements? Drop us a line in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!
  18. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Matt for a blog entry, SEO: Improving crawling efficiency   
    No matter how good your content is, how accurate your keywords are or how precise your microdata is, inefficient crawling reduces the number of pages Google will read and store from your site.
    Search engines need to look at and store as many pages that exist on the internet as possible. There are currently an estimated 4.5 billion web pages active today. That's a lot of work for Google.
    It cannot look and store every page, so it needs to decide what to keep and how long it will spend on your site indexing pages.
    Right now, Invision Community is not very good at helping Google understand what is important and how to get there quickly. This blog article runs through the changes we've made to improve crawling efficiency dramatically, starting with Invision Community 4.6.8, our November release.

    The short version
    This entry will get a little technical. The short version is that we remove a lot of pages from Google's view, including user profiles and filters that create faceted pages and remove a lot of redirect links to reduce the crawl depth and reduce the volume of thin content of little value. Instead, we want Google to focus wholly on topics, posts and other key user-generated content.
    Let's now take a deep dive into what crawl budget is, the current problem, the solution and finally look at a before and after analysis. Note, I use the terms "Google" and "search engines" interchangeably. I know that there are many wonderful search engines available but most understand what Google is and does.
    Crawl depth and budget
    In terms of crawl efficiency, there are two metrics to think about: crawl depth and crawl budget. The crawl budget is the number of links Google (and other search engines) will spider per day. The time spent on your site and the number of links examined depend on multiple factors, including site age, site freshness and more. For example, Google may choose to look at fewer than 100 links per day from your site, whereas Twitter may see hundreds of thousands of links indexed per day.
    Crawl depth is essentially how many links Google has to follow to index the page. The fewer links to get to a page, is better. Generally speaking, Google will reduce indexing links more than 5 to 6 clicks deep.
    The current problem #1: Crawl depth
    A community generates a lot of linked content. Many of these links, such as permalinks to specific posts and redirects to scroll to new posts in a topic, are very useful for logged in members but less so to spiders. These links are easy to spot; just look for "&do=getNewComment" or "&do=getLastComment" in the URL. Indeed, even guests would struggle to use these convenience links given the lack of unread tracking until logged in.  Although they offer no clear advantage to guests and search engines, they are prolific, and following the links results in a redirect which increases the crawl depth for content such as topics.
    The current problem #2: Crawl budget and faceted content
    A single user profile page can have around 150 redirect links to existing content. User profiles are linked from many pages. A single page of a topic will have around 25 links to user profiles. That's potentially 3,750 links Google has to crawl before deciding if any of it should be stored. Even sites with a healthy crawl budget will see a lot of their budget eaten up by links that add nothing new to the search index. These links are also very deep into the site, adding to the overall average crawl depth, which can signal search engines to reduce your crawl budget.
    Filters are a valuable tool to sort lists of data in particular ways. For example, when viewing a list of topics, you can filter by the number of replies or when the topic was created. Unfortunately, these filters are a problem for search engines as they create faceted navigation, which creates duplicate pages.

    The solution
    There is a straightforward solution to solve all of the problems outlined above.  We can ask that Google avoids indexing certain pages. We can help by using a mix of hints and directives to ensure pages without valuable content are ignored and by reducing the number of links to get to the content. We have used "noindex" in the past, but this still eats up the crawl budget as Google has to crawl the page to learn we do not want it stored in the index.
    Fortunately, Google has a hint directive called "nofollow", which you can apply in the <a href> code that wraps a link. This sends a strong hint that this link should not be read at all. However, Google may wish to follow it anyway, which means that we need to use a special file that contains firm instructions for Google on what to follow and index.
    This file is called robots.txt. We can use this file to write rules to ensure search engines don't waste their valuable time looking at links that do not have valuable content; that create faceted navigational issues and links that lead to a redirect.
    Invision Community will now create a dynamic robots.txt file with rules optimised for your community, or you can create custom rules if you prefer.

    The new robots.txt generator in Invision Community
    Analysis: Before and after
    I took a benchmark crawl using a popular SEO site audit tool of my test community with 50 members and around 20,000 posts, most of which were populated from RSS feeds, so they have actual content, including links, etc. There are approximately 5,000 topics visible to guests.
    Once I had implemented the "nofollow" changes, removed a lot of the redirect links for guests and added an optimised robots.txt file, I completed another crawl.
    Let's compare the data from the before and after.
    First up, the raw numbers show a stark difference.

    Before our changes, the audit tool crawled 176,175 links, of which nearly 23% were redirect links. After, just 6,389 links were crawled, with only 0.4% being redirection links. This is a dramatic reduction in both crawl budget and crawl depth. Simply by guiding Google away from thin content like profiles, leaderboards, online lists and redirect links, we can ask it to focus on content such as topics and posts.

    Note: You may notice a large drop in "Blocked by Robots.txt" in the 'after' crawl despite using a robots.txt for the first time. The calculation here also includes sharer images and other external links which are blocked by those sites robots.txt files. I added nofollow to the external links for the 'after' crawl so they were not fetched and then blocked externally.

    As we can see in this before, the crawl depth has a low peak between 5 and 7 levels deep, with a strong peak at 10+.

    After, the peak crawl depth is just 3. This will send a strong signal to Google that your site is optimised and worth crawling more often.
    Let's look at a crawl visualisation before we made these changes. It's easy to see how most content was found via table filters, which led to a redirect (the red dots), dramatically increasing crawl depth and reducing crawl efficiency.

    Compare that with the after, which shows a much more ordered crawl, with all content discoverable as expected without any red dots indicating redirects.

    Conclusion
    SEO is a multi-faceted discipline. In the past, we have focused on ensuring we send the correct headers, use the correct microdata such as JSON-LD and optimise meta tags. These are all vital parts of ensuring your site is optimised for crawling. However, as we can see in this blog that without focusing on the crawl budget and crawl efficiency, even the most accurately presented content is wasted if it is not discovered and added into the search index.
    These simple changes will offer considerable advantages to how Google and other search engines spider your site.
    The features and changes outlined in this blog will be available in our November release, which will be Invision Community 4.6.8.
  19. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Announcing new updates to Clubs and Activity Streams (plus a sneak peek at our website refresh)!   
    It’s been a minute since our last blog post, but we have cooked up several epic projects in the interim.
    To refresh your memory, we recently launched a new platform update, 4.6. It includes *takes a deep breath* Achievements, Zapier integration, web app and push notifications, anonymous posting, solved content, the ability to show when a team member has replied, a new health dashboard, spam improvements and more.
    In the time since, we prepared a few special treats for you. Before we dive into the feature feast, sample our forthcoming website refresh. In the very near future, our entire website will slip into something a little more comfortable. Not only will the look and feel change, but we’re implementing new sections to explain how and why Invision Community is any business’ go-to- solution for community building. More on that to come, but for now take a bite out of this:



    Onto the feature updates; hope you’re hungry!
    Extended closed Club functionality
    Clubs with ‘closed’ permissions have more flexibility than ever. 
    Now, the owner of a closed club can opt to have the club’s forums, calendar, pages, gallery and downloads be visible for all to see (despite the club being set to closed). Previously, members could not access any part of a closed club unless they joined.
    For example, a closed club leader could create a special landing page that’s viewable by members who have not yet joined the club, but the rest of the club is closed. This might be useful as a means to encourage someone to join, share information that’s pertinent to those in and out of the club or as a sales tool. 
    Another example could be keeping the club-associated forums visible for all, but keep the club’s calendar and image gallery exclusive to the club’s members as an incentive to join. 
    Gobble up this screengrab below:
     

     
    Subscribe to Activity Streams
    Never skip a beat! Members of a community can now subscribe to any default or custom activity stream (minus the All Activity Stream) and receive either daily or weekly email notifications with a roundup of content they may have missed. 
    This is especially useful for die-hard community members and moderators who frequently consume content. By subscribing to an activity stream, members have important, need-to-know items they’re interested in delivered straight to their inbox. 
     


    Community administrators have the option to limit how many activity streams a member can subscribe to. 
    Because email notifications are inherently intimate, we have also implemented something called stream decay. If the user hasn't visited the site for a predefined amount of time, the activity stream email notifications they previously subscribed to will automatically stop until the member re-engages with the community by visiting. Pretty nifty, right?
     

     

    Health Club
    Since you’ve made it to the bottom of this blog post, sink your teeth into dessert. Sugar free, of course! 
    We recently launched a new Health Club. It’s free to join and available for all Invision Community clients. This is a great opportunity for you to connect with other community leaders in the industry, as well as our own team, through the important modality of physical and mental health. The world is in a weird spot right now; please utilize this club to lean on one another for support, give advice, ask questions and share your health wins and missteps. As cheesy as it sounds, upping your general well-being will make you a better community leader and ultimately elevate your community as a whole. Just some food for thought!
     

    The new Club and Activity Stream features will be made available in September.
    Questions? Comments? Feedback? Drop us a crumb in the comments - we’d love to hear from you!
    Header photo: Unsplash
  20. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, In Case You Missed It: Watch our 4.6 Live Event   
    Invision Community's latest update, 4.6, is officially out! 
    To celebrate, we hosted a live event on Zoom.
    I, alongside two of the three Invision Community co-founders @Charles and @Matt (shout-out to @Lindy) sat down for a roundtable talk to chat about some of the slickest features 4.6 has to offer.
    If you'd like to refresh your memory with exactly what features we implemented in 4.6, check out our detailed blog post (after you're done watching our live event above, of course). 
    It includes:
    Achievements Spam Improvements Health dashboard Web app and push notifications Anonymous posting Solved content Show when a team member has replied
    Did you catch the low-key Smart Community announcement? 🙃

    We also wanted to take the time to answer a few questions we received during the live event that we couldn't get to in the moment.
    Question: regarding the anonymous posting... is it completely anonymous (like no record is stored of who posted it) or is just a pseudo thing, like it shows "anonymous" but admins/mods can see who posted it?

    Answer: The community owner can choose whether moderators can see the true identity of the user. This uses the built in moderator permissions so they can have it so all moderators, just specific moderators or nobody can see this info.
    ---
    Question: Is the translation service be hosted by IPS or do we need to use Google or Bing services on our community?
    Answer: It will be a turnkey service provided by Invision Community.
    ---
    Question: Does Achievements show how many x Points are left to the next level?
    Answer: Yup!

     
    ---
    Question: When will Smart Community be available?
    Unsatisfying Answer: We are excited to share more details on Smart Community soon!
    ---
    We appreciate you participating / watching our first-ever live event. We're planning on doing more, so keep an eye out for the next one.
    Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Concerns? Drop us a line in the comments!
  21. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Proud to Present: An interview with Invision Community President Charles Warner   
    Nearly two decades ago, Invision Community President, @Charles , set out to make a leading online community platform. 
    Around that time, Charles also met his now-husband of 18-years and hasn't looked back since. Until now. 
    Behind the code, product updates and newsletters are a group of people who share a passion for community building. Considering how volatile and toxic the Internet can be, we want to become more visible, transparent and vulnerable.  To help you familiarize yourself with the masterminds behind Invision Community, starting with Charles, we're kicking off a new series that'll highlight our team.
    I interviewed Charles for the first installment. In it, he commented on the state of the Internet: "I do think some times, for or better or for worse, people forget there are real people on the other end," he said.
    Mr. Warner also touched on Invision Community's evolution over the years. 
    "People don't like change. No one likes change," Charles said, adding "sometimes you say, 'we really need to change something' either in the software, or how you do things, and people push back. It might be we change a feature or maybe internally we change the way we do something. Sometimes you have to move forward. Sometimes it's irritating at first. 'Why did you change that?!' And also you have to recognize that sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes you might change something [and think], 'no, it's not better...' I really find that that's a big thing – to constantly be looking at all those other options and try stuff out. It doesn't harm [anything] to try things."
    And in the spirit of Pride Month, Charles opened up about being part of the LGBTQ community and also President of a successful company. He hopes it'll inspire others.
     

    The full interview is available to watch up top. 
    After watching, please drop us a line in the comments and let us know your thoughts! 🌈 
  22. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Matt for a blog entry, What's new in 4.6.0?   
    Well, friends, what a journey we've been on since we started work on Invision Community 4.6.0.
    With 11 developers accumulating 934 commits over 3,157 files changing 120,281 lines of code, we're ready to show it to the world.
    Along with over 260 bug fixes, this new release contains some great new functionality. Let's take a look at what's new.
    Achievements
    Achievements, badges, ranks, rules, gamification, whatever you want to call it, this is the most significant feature for Invision Community 4.6.0. This brings a whole new level of earning and showing trust to other members while gently nudging more quality contributions to your community.
     
    Zapier integration
    Do you want new member registrations to magically appear in a Google spreadsheet? Perhaps you want members who opt-in for newsletters to be added to Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign. Cloud and Enterprise customers can do all this and more without writing a single line of code, thanks to Zapier.
     
    Web app and push notifications
    We took the time to round out our PWA (progressive web application) framework for 4.6.0 to include service workers, push notifications and more. I barely understand it, but Rikki takes you through the changes in our blog entry.
     
    Anonymous posting
    For some types of community, where discussion topics are particularly sensitive, community owners want to make sure that members register with their real details but are given the option to post anonymously where appropriate. For example, organisations dealing with abuse or sensitive topics might want the member to feel safe and disinhibited to post info without fear of being identified by the rest of the community.
     
    Solved content
    In Invision Community 4.6.0, we have rounded out our "solved" feature by allowing the feature to be enabled on a regular forum, along with notifications, statistics and more.
     
    Show when a team member has replied
    When you're scanning a list of topics, it's helpful to know when a community team member has replied, as these replies tend to have more authority and are more likely to resolve an issue. 4.6.0 adds a feature to show when a member of the team has replied.
     
    Health dashboard
    As Invision Community is a top of the line community platform with excellent developers and an amazing QA team, it's unlikely ever to go wrong. On the infrequent occasions that you need to identify potential issues within your community, the new health dashboard makes it easier to diagnose problems and request support.
     
    Spam improvements
    Our Enterprise customers run very visible and very busy communities. One of the pain points they had was identifying and limiting the annoyance of spam within the community. We created a new round of improvements based on that feedback to mitigate spam, and these changes are available to all Invision Community owners with 4.6.0.
    Cloud and Enterprise customers will also benefit from multiple under-the-hood optimisations for our cloud platform, including better caching of resources for faster response times.
    Let me know in the comments which feature you're looking forward to the most!
  23. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Drum roll please… announcing Achievements!   
    One of the overarching goals for any community leader is to shine a bright light on your members. Their contributions should be publicly recognized. Now with Invision Community’s new Achievements system... you can!
    Achievements is Invision Community’s native gamification system baked into our latest update, 4.6. 
    We’ve dreamed up innovative actions for community leaders to publicly recognize members who show up and participate in meaningful ways.
    Award Points and badges based on conditional Rules!
    Here’s what you need to know...

     

    Points
    Our Achievements Points system keeps a running tally of Points. Members may earn Points in a multitude of ways. Essentially, it’s achieved by participating in the community. 
    Create a topic? Points! Post a reply? Points! Follow another member? Nothing. Just kidding… Points!!!
    This is done through creating Rules.

     

    Rules
    Rules are actionable processes set up in the admin panel. 
    Here are what members can earn Points for:
    When a...
    Member joins a club Reaction is given New poll is created User follows a content item Review is posted Member logs in for the first time that day New club is created Content item/comment is promoted or featured Comment/reply is posted User follows a forum, blog, gallery, category etc User votes on a poll User is followed New content item is posted Post is marked as best answer There are also corresponding When/Then Rules for each item listed above. 
    When this action happens, then this subsequent action happens.
    Example: when a member posts 10 times, then this Badge is awarded.
     

     
     

    Badges
    Community leaders can also create specific Rules when deciding what actions earn Badges. 
    For example, reward your members with a Badge for visiting your community for 20 days.
    Once a member reaches 20 visits or more over 20 days, the Achievements system will automatically award them a ‘20 Visits’ Badge you’ve previously created.
     

     
     
    Ranks
    In 4.6, we’ve completely revamped our Ranks system to communicate with Achievements. 
    Achievements’ Ranks system will replace our previous Ranks system*
    Set up different Ranks based on how many Points a member earns. Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence because the more they’ve participated. 
    Ranks are currently for prestige at the moment. 
    Here's our example for a pretend Coconut community:
     
     

     

    There’s a lot of information to absorb here, but if there’s anything to take away from this blog post it’s this: empower your contributing members with Achievements and watch your community grow. It creates an immersive and elevated experience for your die-hards. And hey, who doesn’t love to earn? 
    When 4.6 and Achievements is officially released for all, we’ll hold a live Q&A event for you to join and ask any questions you may have.
    Props? Concerns? Comments? Questions? We’d love for you to sound off in the comments! Not only because we want to hear from you, but because it’ll earn you some sweet, sweet Points, too!
  24. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, The Importance of Moderation, err... Community Guidance (New Video!)   
    Moderation feels a bit like an outdated term created pre-social media, but it stuck. We’d like to re-frame your thinking in terms of guiding your community versus moderating it.
     

    Guidance is an essential component to any thriving community because it creates structure and boundaries for the community.
    Oftentimes, people think community guidance is about restriction, but in reality it allows your community to express itself in a healthy way. 
    All communities run into issues unless there are clear guidelines laid out for all members. It only takes a couple of toxic trolls to bring down an entire community of thousands of members.
    As a community leader, it's important to find the balance between allowing freedom of speech and restricting what people can and can't say. 
    An Internet troll tends to want to see what they can get away with and push the boundaries to the brink. They’ll claim that they are not allowed to speak their mind, but I want to stress the importance this:
    Freedom of speech has some limitations. 
    For instance, you can't just shout ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded room because you believe you have the right to freedom of speech (though some would argue you can, which is why guidance is imperative). There are certain rules that everyone needs to follow in order for an online community to function.


     
    The first thing you'll want to do when guiding your community is... to create community guidelines.
    These guidelines must be visible and easy to access. There, you can lay out all the nitty-gritty rules you want, but essentially it should boil down to this:
    Be kind. 
    Treat people with respect when posting and remember that there’s a person behind the user name. It's important not to hide behind anonymity just because you can. 
    Being a part of the community means that all members must abide by these guidelines.
    Now what happens if someone "breaks the rules” or ignores these guidelines? As your community’s leader how do you proceed?
    You do so by creating actionable rules that can adversely affect a member’s standing in your community if they break them. 
    I know that sounds kind of threatening, but it's important to establish to your community that you're there for them and that your priority is to hear them out, but at the same time you must take action to keep the peace. 
    Invision Community has automatic moderation tools and a warning system section baked into the software. Below is a snapshot of Invision Community's administration panel where community leaders may set up custom automatic moderation rules:
     


    Tap here for more specific information on how to implement community guidance/moderation to your community. 
    One important component to these rules is that you enforce them across-the-board to all members and do so consistently. 
    If you leave the door open for one member and not another, it's going to create an unwanted hierarchy and instigate chaos.
    One of the best ways to be consistent is by walking the walk. 
    Show your community how you want them to post by posting and contributing that way yourself. What that does is it sets a visible precedent.
    From there, you'll begin to notice other community members contributing in a way that is similar to you (lead by example).
    This is a great opportunity to consider them to join a new moderators team. Whether they are paid moderators or are volunteering their time, you still want them to be mini leaders inside your community. It's important that you are a positive role model for them. 
    Watch the video up top, then drop us a line in the comments! And hey, while I've got you... check out what our own community has to say about moderation (aka community guidance 😉).
     
    Remember, guiding your community starts from the top (a.k.a. you!). Now get out there and moder-... guide!
    Stay tuned for more Invision Community video content coming soon!
  25. Like
    Miss_B reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Wanted: PHP developer to join our growing team   
    Invision Community has an exciting opportunity for an experienced PHP developer to join our team.
    Invision Power Services, Inc. is behind the leading community software platform, Invision Community. Our tailored solutions serve clients of all sizes, from smaller communities to the world’s biggest brands.
    We have been on the forefront of independent and white label engagement communities since 2002.
    The Role
    As a back end PHP developer, you will be working closely within a tight nimble team. You are a clear thinking problem solver and are able to demonstrate skills in creativity and innovation with the ability to meet deadlines. You thrive when given a brief and create well structured efficient code.
    Your role will be varied and involve bug fixing, peer reviews, helping refine a technical specification and contribute code towards new functionality for Invision Community.
    The position is remote, but it will require significant overlap with the EST working day. We offer a friendly relaxed environment with an established team who have a passion for what they do. There is an opportunity to learn from others and progress into more senior roles.
    Key Responsibilities
    Write well designed testable efficient code by using sound development processes Cooperate with other team members to develop new features Gather and refine specifications are requirements based on technical needs Create and maintain software documentation The most important characteristic is a willingness to learn and to take on new challenges. The role is varied and you can be working on a launch with an enterprise customer or crafting code for our latest features depending on priorities.

    Skills & Experience
    Significant experience as a PHP developer in a commercial environment Experience with MySQL. Experience with github. Experience with various web services such as OAuth, SAML, REST, etc. Experience working within a team with a strong culture. Some experience with HTML, CSS and JS. Worked on large scale applications. Confident with modern OOP standards including traits, etc. The depth of experience can vary between developers. Please apply even if some of these areas are not your strongest points. We can offer training and mentoring for the right candidate and our team is very supportive.

    Location
    Remote but must be available for a significant portion of 9-5 EST working day.
    Salary
    Dependent on experience. Please submit your salary expectations on the application form.
    How To Apply
    Please complete the application form giving us as much information as possible.
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