We are building a community site based around private, invitation only groups. However, when an invitation is sent the owner of the group is contains no registration link with a unique token. This renders the whole invitation system useless for closed networks.

The only workaaround i can think of implies a multi step process.

Group Owner A sends inviation email to Invitee B.
Invitee B is lead to a page he cannot see and asked to login (because all groups are private).
Invitee B registers.
Group Owner A invites Invitee B by user name.

Really makes no sense

Hi Kyle,
We came up with a neat workaround for this flaw.
In any case, the standard email sent by GJ contains links to the user profile and the group, besides a warning stating that a user shall sign in before joining the group.

In the patch we coded, a link to the default CB reg form is sent.

When the invitation is triggered from GJ, the target email and a unique ID are stored in a spare table.
Once the invited user registers with the exact same email addressed the invitation is sent to, a query runs against the spare table to check if the email address / unique ID. That being the case, the user is automatically added to the group he has been invited to join.

Bear in mind that, unlike standard SN's, in this particular case everything works in "closed circuit", exclusive, private.

I think our enhancement simplifies the invitation / registration / group assignment process in a less irksome manner.

There are other changes we will enforce. For instance, we don't want invited users to be able to invite. Only the group creator shall have that power.

Post edited by: nzimas, at: 2009/12/15 18:24