Invitation

Recruiting members is not an easy thing and costs the administrator time and effort. A still effective and popular method of member recruiting is word of mouth, that is, already existing members recruit new members. Invitation simplifies this and also allows you to reward members for their successful effort.

Function

This plugin allows members to send invitations with or without an individual invitation code directly from the user panel via email or distribute them by other means. Whenever a new member registers, a check is made as to whether this is result of an invitation or not.

As an administrator, you determine how invitations are to be handled and how the invitations should be assigned to the inviting members. Basically there are the following possibilities:

• The new member must enter an invitation code when registering. The assignment takes place exclusively on the basis of the code.
• The new member can enter a code, but he doesn't have to. The successful invitation is assigned either by the code or by the email address used in the invitation. Optionally, you can specify that only the user name of the invitee can be used during registration.
• No invitation code can be created and entered. Invited are identified solely by their email address.

You can encourage your members to invite friends and acquaintances, and reward them for their invitations through separately configurable activity points.

Features

Invitation offers the following essential features:

• configurable display of the number of members' invitations at different locations in the community,
• extensive system integration by incorporating the invitations into the conditions for e.g. User search, group assignment, bulk processing of invitations as well as activity notes and points,
• boxes for listing the members with the most and most successful invitations,
• manipulation of the invitations by the admin in the ACP.

Expandability

With a optional packages, Invitation can be integrated into JCoins and Tracker. In addition, an import extension is available to import successful invitations from WCF versions of Invitation.

Configurability

The configuration includes:

• setting the modules for the plugin and the activity message,
• setting of the invitation / code options, the spam protection (email) as well as the visibility of the invitations in a separate tab,
• the configuration of the user group permissions.

Versions

• Versions 3.0.x are for WoltLab Suite 3.0
• Versions 3.1.x are for WoltLab Suite 3.1
• Versions 5.3.x are for WoltLab Suite 5.2 and 5.3

Notes on Data Protection

• This extension saves the user name and the user ID of the creator in the database when creating an invitation in the frontend (table wcf1_user_invite). In addition, it stores the e-mail addresses of the addressees used when sending the invitation in this table. Furthermore, the e-mail addresses used for invitations are stored in the database (table wcf1_user_invite_email) together with the user ID of the inviter. Deleting an invitation deletes that data.
• A successful invite (invitees sign up in the community) will save the user name and user ID of the invitee and inviter in the database (table wcf1_user_invite_success). Deleting an invitation deletes that data.
• If a user who has created an invitation or has registered by invitation is deleted, the user name remains in the database (wcf1_user_invite_success table).
• Uninstalling the extension will erase all stored data.