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July 29, 2009
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Labels, Filtered Search, Invitations Pending Status, Registration Troubleshooting, and Heartbeat
Our most recent product update features some very exciting applications and enhancements added to the IGLOO online community solution.
We're pleased to announce the following feature enhancements:
- Labels
- Filtered Search
- Invitations Pending Status
- Registration Troubleshooting
- Heartbeat
- Beta Program
Upgrade and Release Details
1. Labels
Labels are community tags that administrators can create to enable their members to relate and organize their information across the community. This kind of meta data is used to describe an item and allows it to be found by browsing and searching. Labels help users to find information more effectively and add relational value to content within context of the community.
How labels work:
- Labels and their 'groups' are created by administrators, however members with full access can select labels for their content
- Labels can be applied to IGLOO Blog Articles, Documents, Images, Forum Topics and Wiki Articles
- Users can click on a label to view a filtered list of items similarly labeled within a specific application (example: blogs)
- Users can toggle between "view by date" which sorts by most recent date and "view by name" which sorts alphabetically
- User can also choose to filter the results by type (Blogs, Documents, Forums, Albums, and Wiki)
- Administrators can use the label feature, to
- create, edit and delete labels
- organize their labels into label groupings
- Note: Because labels are community wide all associated actions are global (example: renaming a label while on an image will rename it everywhere else it is used in the community)
2. Filtered Search
Community searches can now be filtered by "Type" allowing users to refine their searches.
- Clicking on the Type on the right hand side will filter the results for the specified type (example: Blogs)
3. Invitation Pending Status
Administrators now have the ability to track the delivery status of sent community invitations within the Control Panel.
- Pending invitations now display icons beside the Name field; the icon hover state indicates the delivery status
- Delivery Stages:
- No information available - will be displayed for emails created prior to the new feature
- Delivery pending - will be displayed when the request is being processed
- Delivery in progress - will be displayed when the email is in the queue and waiting to be delivered
- Delivery attempt failed - will be displayed when the first (and second) delivery attempt(s) have failed
- Delivery failed - will be displayed when the third and final delivery attempt has failed
- Clicking on the icon will open the delivery details' modal box which contains:
- Delivery status information (example: the email has been queued for delivery)
- Attempt details (example: first attempt and status)
- Example of the email sent (example: invitation emails)
4. Registration Troubleshooting
Administrators now have the ability to track registering user status with the option to activate the account on the user's behalf.
- Upon registration, an email is sent to the user with a link to activate their account which verifies that the user is the real account holder. Often, incomplete registrations occur due to accounts not being activated. Here are some common reasons:
- Spam Filters: Occasionally, spam filters will redirect registration emails into a spam or junk-mail folder; ensure that the user has looked in these folders
- Typos: It is possible that the email address was incorrectly entered; ensure that the email account is spelled correctly
- Delivery Problems: Occasionally, a user's email provider will have trouble accepting email (example: if the inbox is full); ensure that the user is receiving emails in general
- The Pending table lists the users who have not yet activated their accounts
- Hovering over the email icon beside each name will provide the delivery status of the account activation email
- Clicking on the icon will supply more detailed information (example: time and date of delivery or reason for failed delivery)
- Clicking Activate manually activates the user's account
- Clicking Delete completely deletes the user's account
5. Heartbeat (a.k.a. Session Expiry):
- What is Heartbeat? Simplest answer is when a user is completely idle the system receives a continuous "heartbeat" for 3 hours which maintains the user's session. After 3 hours the heartbeat stops and the system prompts the user to keep their session open (which would allow them to save their data)
- This prompt stays open for another 30 minutes at which time the session will expire (and all unsaved data will be lost)
- The Heartbeat feature is not activated if a user clicks "Remember Me" when they sign-in
- Note: if the user simply scrolls the page or does anything that notifies the system that someone is alive at the other end, the heartbeat session resets!
6. Beta Program
A private beta release showcases new functionality that has gained enough stability through alpha and formal quality assurance testing to be released on production to a controlled group. These features are now in private beta and are being reviewed before they are released to the public during the upcoming months:
- NEW! BlackBerry® Client Application - extends IGLOO's current mobile strategy for the BlackBerry, taking it beyond simple web browser and email application support. In this first release, members are able to read blog articles, browse recent discussions, see and post comments, search blog articles and access member profiles.
- NEW! Desktop Client Application - will allow users to share files from their personal computers quickly and easily with other members in their online community. This new feature marries the flexibility of web-based social software with the power of the desktop, allowing users to seamlessly and securely save and download documents right from the desktop directly to their IGLOO online community. View the Desktop Client in action.
- Widgets - will give community administrators the ability to create pages using a set of pre-configured, drag and drop widgets. Widgets are the fastest way to create page layouts with dynamic community content! For a sneak peak click here.
- Email Enabled Forums - community members will be able to read, respond and even create forum posts and comments via their favorite email client and from their handheld device.
We hope you found this update helpful; for more information, please visit our Tools and Resources section.
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7 Comments
Great stuff, thanks for these adds. One question aboutRegistration Troublshooting: At what point do invites show up onthis list? Once delivery has failed?
Hi Scot,
There are two new distinct features:
- Invitation delivery status
- Registration troubleshooting
Control Panel: Invitations -
For this feature, pending invites are listed in a table atthe bottom of the page. You can hover over or click on the‘email' icon to find out if the community invitation you sentto "Bob" has been delivered to his mail servers or the reason whythe delivery failed. You can track the progress of the invitationemail from processing the request to delivery.
Control Panel: Registration -
For this feature, users who have started the registrationprocess but have not yet completed the process by activating theiraccount are listed in the Registration Troubleshooting table (the link tothis section is on the main Registration page). Similar toinvitations, you can hover over or click on the ‘email' iconin order to see the status of the Activation Email that was sent to the user afterthey registered on your community. Activation Emails are sent toregistering users to verify that the user is the real accountholder. From the Registration Troubleshooting section you canchoose to circumvent the email verification process and manuallyactivate the user's account. Registration can be enabled on publiccommunities.
Hope this helps,
Tanya
Thanks, got it. The reason I'm asking is that I have one invitedelivery that has failed with a "Server unreachable. SOCKET READERROR" and we can't figure out why. Regular communication with thisperson works fine using same email address.
Hey Scott,
The issue seems related to the length of time their servertakes to respond to unrecognized emails. (related to their server'sspam protection system). We will adjust our mail servers tocompensate for this sort of thing. A fix should be releasedsometime in the next few days.
Try re-sending the invitation next week and it should work.
On the registration troubleshooting, an invitation was sent butthey did not receive it and it said it was delivered ... Since Ihave forced the acceptance of this person, what will thier passwordbe? They did not register themselves, so they did not enter apassword. Thanks!
Hello Menai,
An invitation's status is 'delivered' when it is acceptedby the recipient's mail server. This does not necessarily mean theperson has received it in their inbox. Often there will beadditional spam filters that can catch a message before it gets tothe inbox.
The registration process begins when someone clicks the 'JoinNow' button in the registration. They then enter theirname, email address and set a password. When this has beendone the system gets them to confirm their email address by sendingan activation email . Ideally they would receive this email, click the link andthen either enter the site, or be told that an administrator willneed to approve their application.
Sometimes the activation email will not be recieved by theapplicant for the same reasons an invitation has trouble. In thiscase the administrator has the option of activating their accountfor them. The potential problem with this is that if the user didnot receive the activation email they likely won't receive passwordreset emails (if needed) or any notifications or broadcasts.
In brief: Sometimes emails are caught at a stage that is beyondour monitoring. If this is the case they can try registering andyou can activate their account for them. Either way, somewhere inthe process the applicant has to enter their email address and seta password for themselves.
Just a note that the images within this post are broken links. You can see the placeholders, but not the actual images.