everzel

Thanks, was too excited to read the topic fully.

See my post above. Badging is a separate API not yet supported on our end.

And they are working!
Only thing is, you don't have badges on the app icon, even though they are enabled?

This is unbelievably cool. Thank you Matt and IPS Team for this new feature (and thanks Apple In a way I guess).
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really sure what all the options in the Icons & Logos / Manifest were all about (and I don’t touch Android so it’s benefits would have been wasted on me) so I just left it all alone. This has given me an opportunity to look into this more and offer a way for our community to stay more connected. Having a Home Screen app definitely helps lessen the pressure when dealing with competition via other platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Thanks again!

I'd say the majority of users still don't even know it exists though which doesn't help

Yes, that is correct for now. We're planning support for more streaming platforms (including Vimeo Live) coming up soon.

Hi,

Very good news, thank you.

So, only Youtube currently for live streaming, right ?
Vimeo Live not possible (yet) ?
Thanks for the confirmation

Thanks, it's some of my best work 😂 
Not really though, I'm happy to take the credit but this one was @Matt Finger and  @Matt

Wow, shout out to Randy for being such an expert enthusiast before we even release! I've said this before but this was lots of work over the past months and I am so excited for everyone to use it and provide valuable feedback to prioritize next features.

@Andy Millne one thing to consider later...  Let us control the UI a little bit more similar to how the next release offers some customization in Gallery.
For example:
Ability to disable Main Questions.  (Just have chat only and hide that part of the UI.)  The idea here is there can be events such as viewing parties or addresses where questions are not taken live, but instead is a chance to gather members to talk about an issue.   For example, watching Apple keynotes.   Ability to flip flop the Main Question/Chat areas.  (Users tend to look left to right.  Put the chat right in front of them and let them look to the side for questions!) Ability to make the video full width (or nothing to the side of the video) I'm really excited by what this has the potential to be as it develops further!  Ya'll have done some great work with figuring out some complex stuff on the backend to pull all of these complex things together!  

Yes. As the event progresses, it just feels like a live chat room.  (There is the chat side and the “questions” side.)  People can come and go as they want. 

Once it’s done, it automatically makes the forum topic and converts all the chat messages into replies in that topic. 

Thanks Charles. I did read that but wondered if it was customizable at all. 

I am assuming the "chat" is scrollable while it is live(?).
 
Thanks

One more noobish question from me I guess...
Is there the ability to have it post as a thread simultaneously and update as it goes?
 

Great! Thank you for the clarification. Looking forward to trying it out.

Am I to understand that this only works with utilizing a video? Can it be worked so as it is a live topic without video?

I am excited to officially announce the first release of Live Topics coming in our April release of Invision Community for selected cloud plans!
Live Topics is a hosted live chat and question-and-answer event that is converted into a forum topic upon completion. It combines the fun and togetherness of a live event with the permanence of a forum topic allowing you to continue the conversation long after the event has ended.
Recap: The first look at Live Topics including a video showing the main features.
I know many of you on our community have already had sneak peeks and have been patiently waiting, so without further ado, let's get into it.
Who is Live Topics for?
Live Topics is a great way to bring people together for a live chat event. We have been using Live Topics for our monthly release chat webinars. In the past we have used Zoom to host the live stream and take some questions. This approach is fine, however once the Zoom finishes, the chat history isn't available on our community. We upload a video for those who missed the event, but it doesn't feel interactive.
Live Topics automatically converts the questions and answers to a regular forum topic which allows the discussion to continue. Furthermore, the questions are separated from the general chat during the event making it easier for hosts to find and answer questions raised during the event.
Live Topics is perfect for anything from product release events to monthly bookclub discussions and everything in between.
How does it work?
Live Topics are live virtual events within a community. The process to creating a live topic is simple:
Schedule your Live Topic from the ModeratorCP. When it's time to start, a host starts the live session. This is the bread and butter of the system; attendees can answer your questions and post chat messages all in realtime. All done? End the topic. It will be converted to a regular forum topic for further discussion and reference.  
Scheduling and Managing Live Topics
Live topics are managed from the ModeratorCP.

When scheduling a live topic, you can configure the following options:
Duration - This is the scheduled duration that attendees will see before the event. This sets expectations of time for your community. Add To Events - This option creates a new Calendar Event in your Community. This allows the live topic to be searched, viewed, and promoted like other event within your community. Live Video URL - This is the url of a YouTube embed. You can also add this after starting the live session. (Support for platforms other than YouTube coming soon 🙂). We stream Zoom straight to a live Youtube video currently. Attendees - This option specifies who can attend the live topic. Leaving as "Recommended" allows any registered member to join. Staff - The staff are responsible for moderating user generated content as it comes in. The default setting will add all groups that are allowed to moderate live topics. You can adjust this default in the AdminCP. Additional Hosts - The hosts have the highest level of permission in the live topic. They create questions, update the video url, and guide the discussion. By scheduling the Live Topic, you are automatically a host but you can add more hands to help. All hosts get a reminder notification close to when the event is due to start. Require Approval for question replies/chat messages - During the live session, you will likely want to control the rate of incoming content (especially questions). Chat Message creation can be locked during the live session.  
Hosting the Live Topic
To start a live topic, you need to click into it from the ModeratorCP. Alternatively, if it was added to an Event you can click into it from there. Then just click start, it's as simple as that. Your attendees will see a waiting page with a count down.

It is worth mentioning that the live topic cannot
Run without any hosts in attendance. When hosts abandon a live session, it will automatically end within a few minutes Run longer than 6 hours. The aim of Live Topics is to accompany a live event and to be short term compared to regular forum topics. The live session will also end automatically in this case  
Once it's started, the UI is divided into have 2 main areas: One for Main Questions and another for Chat. Any video streams you embed are show in the top right and automatically started.

Main Questions (and Replies)
Main Questions and their replies are what will be preserved when the topic is converted into a forum topic. Only staff can create main questions in order to ensure smooth topic flow.  For each question, you can also configure if the replies are "locked". A main question can be unlocked, locked to all members, or locked to non-staff. When a question is locked, new replies cannot be created.  
Chat Channels
For each Live Topic, there is a General Chat and a Staff Chat Channel. If a member is non-staff, instead of the Channel selector tabs, they will see only "Chat". When a non-staff attendee creates a chat message, it can be marked as a "question". This lets the host know that the question was intended for others to respond to. Optionally, the host can even convert the message into a question so it's integrated into the standard topic post-conversion  
Live Stream Tools
Hosts can select a time in the live feed a main question was answered. The video embed can also optionally be changed mid session. This is useful if you don't know the live stream URL before hand.  
Moderation Tools
Staff can hide or delete questions, chat messages and replies. The reply and chat feeds can also be set to automatically hide new items on creation. Non-staff attendees can report content. Reports show in the staff chat channel. Last but not least, staff members can silence attendees. This takes away their privileges to reply and create chat messages.  
The Converted Topic
When the live session completes, our Cloud platform gets to work converting all that data into a regular forum topic. Converted Live Topics feature a questions box which allows you to drill down to specific questions within the topic.

The questions can be browsed individually, or even split into separate topics!
Lastly, new replies come with the option to select an originating question.

 
That's a wrap (for now)
We look forward to seeing all of you use live topics on your communities. As we've hinted elsewhere there are many more features coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled!
The features discussed in this announcement are not available for Invision Community Classic. Click here to learn more about switching to our platform to get this and other benefits.

View full blog entry

Are courses not available to self-hosted communities? I might have missed it.

🌷 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🌷 
Thank you for checking out this weekly round up post. I hope you have had a lovely week! 😉 In the comments below, I'd love to hear what is happening with you and your community. Are you trying any new features or functionality for your members or maybe you want to and don't know where to start? We'd love to hear.
 
From the Invision Community team, this week ...
 
Current Happenings
New Version
Our May release is out and ready for you to upgrade your community. As you know, we recommend that you keep your community up to date each month to keep it running smoothly and so you can enjoy the latest updates.
Review the release notes to see what is included in the May release, version 4.7.10.
Key changes include:
Introducing Courses Giving you control with Email Bounce Management  
@Charles and I talked about the release in our May Release Chat last week.
You can watch the video and participate in that discussion in the converted live topic.
 
Courses is here as part of the May release! 🎉
What a powerful feature! Want to create a short onboarding experience for your members? This could be a Welcome note, Did you know? bullets to help members know where to start, and then a mandatory acknowledgement piece if that is required for your community. This is all possible with the new Courses application. How are you hoping to use this feature? Check out our latest blog post for the details:
 
 
Email Bounce Management in the May release. 🎉
For Cloud customers, we are adding the ability for you to view reports on bounced/complaint emails, take action on member accounts (purge them or mark them as no notifications), and unblock emails that our platform may be refusing to email. Check out our latest blog post: 
 
On Deck
New Privacy and PII Data features will be included in our June release. 
 
Statistics and Reporting will be included in a release in the coming months. 
 
Finally, for those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the week for version 4. Changes are limited for now as we focus attention on version 5. More information will be shared about version 5 at a future date. 
Changelog
 

Courses is available on the following packages:
Creator Pro Team Business Enterprise Courses is not available on:
Beginner Creator Classic (self-hosted) Feel free to reach out about upgrading your services. You can PM me or contact sales 😀

What languages do you use for this application that led to the decision not to publish as well for self-hosts? I don't think it uses NodeJS or AWS stuff with your modules....

At present, this is a value add item for our cloud customers on Creator Pro and above. It has been stated that we may, at some point in the future, consider this on the classic platform. However there is nothing set it stone as of yet

When I see the buttons at the end of a course, I feel like I'm missing some options that would make the visitor move forward. Most people don't want to return to the course they just took or retake the same quizz again either? Most people want to either go to the next course, next module, or back to that course's list of modules, or to the library of courses.

😍
 
 😍 
 
 😍 
 
This whole app is super cool and a really big deal! Congrats! Excited to see it in action. 

Looking great! I can't wait to get started building my first course. 🙂 

Looking forward to testing this out!