One of the key ways people can join a community is via invites, as described by this article.
The following topics cover the various aspects of the invitation process from an end-user, member and administrator point of view, taking in to account the effects of the different enrolment models.
Inviting someone
Here's what happens when someone tries to send an invite:
The UI should not allow people to send invites if they are not permitted to do so. For example, in network only space/site admins can invite people so normal members should not see the invite options. The back-end should still validate input in case someone tries to hack or an API is incorrectly used.
The UI should show a pre-defined, but editable, message that will be sent to the end-user if and when the invite is sent to them. The default message would be:
%sender% has invited you to join the %community% %type%.
You can use the links below to accept or reject the invitation.
The "Accept Invitation" and "Decline Invitation" links are always be appended to the email, clicking them will perform the associated task.
The tokens are:
- %sender% - full name of the person who sent the invite, hyperlinked to their user profile
- %community% - the title of the community space, linked to the space
- %type% - either "community" for open, moderated and closed communities, or "network" for network communities.
Moderating invites
For invites that need admin approval, the following process takes place:
NB: The %sender% in the email that gets sent to the invitee should be the person who requested the invite, not the administrator who approved the invite.
A rejected invite will generate the following email to the person who requested the invite:
Your request to send an invitation to %receipient% was rejected by %administrator%.
Cancelling invites
Space/site admins can cancel an invite request - eg. if they realise they just invited the wrong person, or if an invite was sent ages ago but hasn't yet dealt been accepted or declined by the end-user.
The invite is silently cancelled - no email sent.
Receiving invites
When a user receives an invite, they will get an email (see above) which allows them to accept or decline the invitation by clicking the links in the email. They will also be able to accept or decline the invitation online via an action or macro.
The process for accepting or declining an invite is shown below:
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