Do you need a Forum?

Hello,

According to what I read in the forums here, I understood that 90%+ of clients are using WHMCS for hosting services. I'm wondering if hosting providers need a forum in their site. To be honest, if I had a hosting services site, I should never used a forum. Not only because needs time for moderation, but because I can't find a reason why to use it. Forums are for people sharing shame interests and not for clients in a hosting site.

From the other hand, having long experiance with forums, I found a lot of threads asking for integration with WHMCS. And I'm talking for all brands (vBulletin, xenForo, IPB, WBB).

What's your opinion? Do you need a forum? I seen that there is forum module here but seems that is unsupported. They don't reply even to pre-sales questions.

Thank you for your time

Chris

We would like one if honest, we use a mybb at the moment but its been locked down and inactive for a while. One integrated to WHMCS would be good if it took the client login details for their client area so they didn`t need to register etc.

Have started working on it based on my Forum included in my Dating (PHP) script. First version should not has all those "toys" that some users like, but it should be robost with the "must have" features to count it as a good forum.

For example:

• Forums
  
  • Which Usergroup(s) can post
    
  • Which Usergroup(s) can read (Private Forums)
    
  • Use of Prefixes with option to set prefix mandatory. Also you can set which usegroup can use each one. As a simple example in a bug report a Member can select "Reported" but not "Confirmed" a choice that a Moderator can use.
    
  • Forum Image
    

   

  [*]Threads

  • Thread Rating
    
  • Post Likes
    

   

  [*]Usergoups Permissions (Unlimited Usergroups)

  • Can View
    
  • Can Post
    
  • Can Edit
    
  • Edit time limit
    
  • Can Reply
    
  • Can Quote
    
  • Can Delete
    
  • Delete time limit
    
  • Can Rate
    
  • Can have Signature
    

   

  [*]Others

  • Report Posts
    
  • Report Users
    
  • Block Users
    
  • Ban Users (Currently permanently)
    
  • Advanced Search (see screenshot)
    
  • Quick Links (see screenshot)
    
  • Move Threads from Forum to Forum
    
  • Unlimited depth of Forums
    
  • Online Users
    
  • Nice modal User profile
    
  • Social Share
    

   

Depending on the popularity (if) of the module I can easily add in the next version:

• Follow Forums
  
• Follow Threads
  
• Follow Users
  
• Infractions
  
• Temporary user Banning
  
• .... and whatever other good idea clients will suggest
  

Chris

A screenshot from forum form to understand that it does not lacks of features. Except the images, there is a font-icon for forum listing. Also see the list of Thread prefixes. You can even re-arrange the display order of them per forum.

In addition to Thread Prefixes, maybe do you also need Extra Fields? Here they're, included

Being a WHMCS module doesn't means that it must lacks of features. And one of the most important features for a forum is an anti-spam system.

There are 2 types to protect you from spam (as possible being):

1. I've split the standard "Members" usegroup that exists in all forums in 2 groups:
   


1. Members
   
2. Trusted Members:
   

 

[*]In General Settings there are 2 options which are working in conjuction each other and determine when a Member can be trust:

1. After xxx days of his registration date
   
2. After xxx posts
   

 

Having 2 usegroups you can set different permissions. The most important setting for anti-spam is Moderate posts. I suggest you to enable them for normal Members. There are 3 possible options:

 

1. "0" means never moderate posts
   
2. Any number except "0" and "999" means moderate them for xxx days
   
3. "999" means moderate them for ever.
   

 

I believe that for first release these features are enought to protect your forum from spammers. One of the system usergoups are "Spammer". This is different that Banned group that's why the usertitle is still "Member". When you think that someone maybe is a spammer, or acts like spammer, you can add him to this usergroup. What this usergroup has special? .... Just fun. There is a delay timer which delays actions for xxx seconds. The user on this group still can post or still can do other actions but page refresh is delay so soon he'll leaves your site

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Forgot to say that as an additional anti-spam control, I'm putting in moderation (bypassing usergroup permissions) posts that:

1. The elapsed time between entering the form and submitting the form is very short
   
2. The elapsed time between 2 posts is very short. But in this case only the new post is going under moderation.
   

looking forward to seeing more keep up the great updates Chris.

looking forward to seeing more keep up the great updates Chris.

The final product should be a real forum script. Simple because I need it for my own site.

I also have in plans (but don't know if it will be in the first release) to use hooks so assign WHMCS products to usergroups. eg if a user buys "A" product to be upgrade to usegroup "Product A". If his order expires he'll auto downgrage to Members usergroup. It's an easy task, already have it in my eCommerce for vBulletin, but don't know how easy should be using whmcs hooks.

With Members section, admin area finished. As you can see in the screenshop I added a "Search Members" button which toggles a search form with the most important criteria.

After this, I do believe that the full module should be ready by Wednesday night.

Front-end always gets me more time as I'm giving attention to design. Here is a screenshot of forumlist.

Even if I don't think that Private Messges is a must in Hosting Forums, as I've the code ready in one of my vBulletin addons, I decided to add it. And don't think that is a simple one to one PM system. Read on the features:

1. Multisuer convertations (like xenForo)
   
2. Max participants depending on usergroup permissions
   
3. Participants depending on usergroup permissions but also depending on settings of convertation starter, can add more members to convertation
   
4. Depending on your role in the conversation you can:
   
   • Unsubscribe
     
   • Close it
     
   • Re-Open it
     

[*]Search as you type user selection

[*]PM notifications for:

• New conversation that you've selected to participate
  
• New Reply
  
• On Closing conversation
  
• On Re-Opening conversation
  

[*]Maximum concurent active conversations depening on usergroup permissions

[*]Maximum participants in conversation depending on usergroup permissions

The only that I've doubts if I'll add or not are email notifications. I'll try to see how WHMCS internal emailing works otherwise I need to add my own functions.

Here are some screenshots from the vBulletin version.

looking good, i dont think we would use a message system, far easier to have people just post public.

I watch with interest )

i dont think we would use a message system

I do agree even if I don't know what type of site are you operating. But let's face the true. Unless real communities, to have a messaging system in any other site is "dangerous". Is the easy way for your competitors to be in private contact with your clients. Even in my case, I don't plan to use it. That's why should be a global setting for turning it on or off. The only good solution should be if you've a team in your site to allow messages between them, but again there are so many other solutions to do it.

It gots me 2 full days to finish the profile popup but I believe that finally it became better of most big names in forums. Some explanations:

1. Header banner is controlling by usergroup permissions. If a user does not has permission to show header banner, or he don't uploads any, then your banner appears. If you want to set as permantent your header just set to all usergroups "No" as permission.
   
2. Follow user and Block user are Ajax toggle function. eg Click Block and everything is done without page refresh. A short notification that user blocked appears and button changes to "Unblokc". Same for Follow/Unfollow.
   
3. All other options have their own tab as you can see in the screenshop. Forms are posting with Ajax and a notification appears on that tab.