Released: Feb 26, 2010
Time to install: 1 minute
Difficulty: easy

Author: Anton Kanevsky (ankan925@gmail.com) - aka @kan

Looking to expand your vBulletin community? Invites System is an ultimate expansion for your vBulletin 4.0.x board that features an interface for your members to easily send our registration invitations to their friends. The system can either be configured to provide a simple means for expansion or to establish a private community where registration is only allowed by referrals. Highly recommended for any serious administrator who seeks creating a truly large community.

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File Uploads: 1
Products to Install: 1

Extensive Features:

• The system can be turned on and off globally.
• Configurable invite expiration period.
• History of issued invites, with color highlights and options to purge pending, expired or rejected invites.
• Daily invite reminders and expiration notifications, can be turned off if desired.
• Ability to define how often reminders can be sent.
• Ability to reject received invitations.
• Ability to permanently opt out of receiving future invitations, with automatic marking of invite as rejected and with an admincp database management interface.
• Automatic prevention of invites from being sent out to already registered e-mails.
• Automatic prevention of invites from being sent out to the same e-mail multiple times.
• It is possible to either keep registration process open or to restrict it to invited registrants only.
• Ability to define users as "First Friends". Such users become mutual buddies with all new registrants, whether invited or not.
• If registration is open, the number of invites each member owns is unlimited.
• If registration is private, invites are allocated automatically at the end of each week based on activity. That can be turned off from admincp.
• If registration is private, expired and rejected invitations return invite credit to the issuer's account.
• As an alternative to automatic allocation (which can be turned off), there is an "Allocate Invites" tool, which gives you an ability to give out X invites to members that match a certain criteria.
• Amount of invites owned by a user is directly editable via admincp user management interface.
• In addition, a configurable number of invites is given out on reputation change.
• If applicable based on user's permissions, an "Issue New Invite" prompt is displayed in usercp for that user.
• When an invitee signs up, invite issuer is automatically set as a referrer for the invitee, and there is no way to go around that.
• When an invitee signs up, invite issuer and the invitee are automatically set up as buddies. Can be turned off from vBulletin Options -> Invites System
• When an invitee signs up, the invitee can be automatically put directly into a special usergroup, if such specified in the issuer's usergroup settings.
• Human verification to prevent multiple submissions.
• Usergroups can be either allowed or disallowed to issue new invites.
• Members can be configured to either go along with or override the member's usergroup setting.
• Inactive users gradually lose their invites. How many invites are lost for each week of inactivity is up to you - the number is configurable from vBulletin Options -> Invites System.

3.0.0
[+] The hack has been ported to vBulletin 4.

2.0.0
[+] Starting from this version, vS-Invites System is no longer encrypted with ioncube.
[+] All template edits have been eliminated.
[+] Added support for human verification capabilities of vBulletin 3.7.x / 3.8.x.
[+] Backwards compatible with vBulletin 3.5.x / 3.6.x.
[-] Removed support for all contact grabbers (there are no plans to resume it).

1.7.6
Same as version 1.7.5, except it's no longer encrypted with ioncube. There were no changes or corrections.

1.7.5
[+] Corrected a bug that caused the invite form to crash on send.

1.7.4
[+] It is now possible to turn the manual and cron-based allocation notifications on and off.
[F] Corrected a bug in cron phrase.
[F] Corrected a minor template bug.

1.7.3
[+] When invited users are deleted, any invitations associated with those users are deleted and credited back to their respective issuers. Notifications are sent out. It is also possible to delete the invitations directly from usercp, for people who were running an older version of the software.
[F] Invitations are now sent from webmaster's email, or a configurable vS-Invites System email, if specified in the new vBulletin option.
[F] Fixed an image verification bug that occured on vBulletin 3.6 series.

1.7.2
[F] Fixed a couple of bugs related to the allocation tool.

1.7.1
[F] Fixed a bug that prevented allocation tool from working correctly.
[F] Fixed a minor phrasing bug.

1.7.0
[+] MSN Messenger Grabber now also grabs friendly names as stored on the server.
[+] It is now possible to specify custom invitation names for each of the grabbed contacts.

1.6.6
[+] Invitation e-mails now contain a link that allows one to permanently opt out of any future invitations, with admincp-based management of opt-out database. This is required for compliance with can-spam act.
[+] Members are now notified of invites allocated to them via user.php.
[+] Corrected a bug, which prevented allocation tool from working properly with custom userfields.
[+] Corrected vBulletin 3.6.4 compatibility issue.

1.6.5
[+] Added an option to notify users when they are manually allocated invites.
[+] When invited user signs up, e-mail field is now filled automatically.
[+] Added link to member profile in invitation e-mail.
[+] Ability to cancel pending invites (can be restricted via vbulletin options).
[+] Ability to cancel invites one by one (instead of mass purging from the dropdown).
[+] Ability to turn msn grabber on and off.
[+] Verification image now works in vBulletin 3.6.

1.6.4
[+] The first version officially compatible with vBulletin 3.6.0.
[+] "From" field in the invitation e-mail now shows the name of the person who sends the invitation.
[+] "Login" for the field and "Login" for the button are now two separate phrases, for easier translation.

1.6.3
[+] The system now prevents invites from being sent out multiple times to the same e-mail address.
[+] Added reminder period (e.g. how many days between reminders), with default value of 7.
[+] If an invited person signs up without specifying invite code, the invite for that e-mail gets marked as accepted.
[+] Added per-user setting to specify any user as "First Friend". Such users automatically become mutual buddies with new registrants, whether invited or not.
[+] Added maintance tools to the maintance suite.
[F] The system now sends out reminders even if expiration period is disabled.
[F] Corrected tab indexes for greater accessibility.
[F] Corrected an issue where a "no recipients" error popped up in single line mode when the only recipients specified were msn recipients.
[F] Corrected a couple of minor typos.

1.6.2
[+] Invite history is now collapsable.
[+] Invite history now has invite status highlights.
[+] Added an option to reject an invitation, provided as a link in each e-mail.
[+] Added an option to purge expired or rejected invites.
[+] When invites expire or are rejected, they are credited back to the issuer's account, only if the system running in private registration mode.

1.6.1
[+] [BUGID #008] New Configuration Option: "Turn On Invite Notifications".
[+] [BUGID #006] Added ability to seek based on profile fields in allocate invites tool.
[F] [BUGID #004] Added missing table prefix in allocate invites tool.
[F] [BUGID #005] Corrected invalid product code in cpnav xml.
[F] [BUGID #007] Corrected invalid cron run time.
[F] [BUGID #009] Corrected a problem with blank e-mails that were sent out on occasion.

1.6.0
[+] New Configuration Options: "Automatically Give Out Invites", "Invite Loss" and "Allow to Specify Custom Subject".
[+] Usergroup Permission to use the system has been moved to usergroup options.
[+] Initial Invitee Usergroup setting has been moved to usergroup options.
[+] Invites System options were split into two categories: "Invites System :: General" and "Invites System :: Cron".
[+] Added "Allocate Invites" tool. It is accessible from under "Users" in AdminCP.
[+] Added daily reminder e-mail and expiration notification e-mail.
[+] Addressee name and e-mail are now stored in the invites table and displayed in the invites history.
[+] Invitation link now points to forum homepage, not to registration page.
[+] Invitation hash is now stored in a cookie and is not lost between pages.

1.5.2
[F] Corrected a licensing issue.

1.5.1
[+] Added master tickerbox for msn grabber module.

1.5.0
[+] Added support for msn contact list retrieval (hot!)
[+] It is no more possible to send out invitations to already registered people.
[+] If this is your first installation of the product, the crons are now added automatically, unlike in previous versions.
[+] Removed a bug that caused invites to be added/subtracted on reputation change even with "Registration by Invites Only" turned off.
[A] In the admincp "add user" screen, the "can invite" field is now set to "on" by default.
[A] Initial number of invites is now changed to 0.
[A] A couple of amendments to the configuration field comments.

1.4.0
[+] Image verification to avoid multiple submits.

1.3.0
[+] New Config Option: Single-Field / Multiple-Field Address Line (Default: Multiple-Field)
[+] New Config Option: Number of fields to show if multiple option is chosen.
[+] User Option, which lets an administrator restrict invite system usage for that single user.
[F] Fixed Bug, which prevented a user from registration if COPPA was enabled.
[F] Fixed Bug, which prevented a user from sending out an invite if he had zero invites and dependency on registration was turned off.
[F] Fixed Bug, which continued to show the invite form after it was submitted, even if there were no more invites left.

1.2.0
[+] New Config Option: Usergroups that May Use Invite Manager (Optional Override).
[+] New Config Option: Initial Registration Usergroup (only pertaining to registration by invites).

1.0.2
[+] Ability to send unlimited simultaneous invites, within the bounds of invite count owned.
[+] Improved invite interface (see screenshot).
[F] A couple of hard-coded forgotten phrases have been moved into the phrase system.

1.0.1
[+] Amount of posts required to get one invite is now configurable
[+] When a user can issue invites, he/she has a link on usercp (which says "Click here to Invite a New User!")
[+] When invites are required to register, there is no direct "Register" link in the navbar
[+] When invites are not required to register, there is no limitation on invites, and therefore the number of invites left is not shown
[+] Administrator can now edit invite counts manually using Admin Manager
[+] Administrator can now specify which usergroups cannot use Invite Manager
[+] More descriptive AdminCP Hack Options
[F] Added TABLE_PREFIX to the Install Code
[F] Fixed a Typo in Registration Code
[F] In the Invite History, invites are now lister in a descending order, rather than ascending. In other words, the latest invites are now on the top.

1.0.0
Initial Release

To find out how to install products, refer to vBulletin's manual.

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