Inviting Members to Communities

Inviting members to join communities acts as both:

• An easy way to inform members of the communities in your site and encourage them to join
• An engagement touchpoint that automatically associates members with others who share their interests

You can invite members who are already site members, as well as those who have yet to join your site. Members are able to be invited to multiple communities.

There are three ways to invite members to your communities:

1. Inviting members directly from the community in your site
2. Bulk invite members to communities through the Data Tools function
3. Dynamic Landing Page 

Below we walk you through the two ways to invite members into the communities on your site.

Inviting members directly from the community

1. Once you are inside the community, navigate to the Members tab and click the + icon in the top right corner. 
2. Begin to type the name of the person you wish to invite and then select them from the drop-down menu, or paste in a string of emails separated by a comma and hit Tab. 
3. In the Message box, you have the option to send a personalized message to the members you wish to invite (Ensure "Automatically send email invitations to new members" is checked if you wish to send a message).
4. Automatically send email invitations checkbox: This option allows you to choose whether or not to send an email letting members know they have been invited.
   
   • If you leave the box checked, invited members will receive an email communication including the optional personalized message.
   • If you uncheck the box, no communication will be sent informing members of their invitation.
5. Click "Invite Members". These members will now appear in the member directory within the community, under "Invited".

Tip: Have a comma separated list of onboarded student email addresses that you want to invite? Copy and paste your list (up to 250 at a time) into the email field and press "Tab" on your keyboard to add these students in bulk. 

Additional Notes:

• Only "Automatically send email invitations" to members that are already Active. For members who are still pre-verified, either invite through the community without sending an automatic notification, or import invites via Data Tools.
• Whether or not you send an invitation to your members, they will see they have been invited on their home screen under Recommended Communities.

Automated Invitation Email Example:

For more about inviting members to your site, read Inviting New Members.

Inviting Members to Communities via Data Tools:

Wisr allows Admins to invite members to communities in bulk through the Data Tools functionality. This method for inviting members DOES NOT send an email communication to the member, but they will see the invitation in their Recommended Communities section on the home screen when they log in.

Step 1: Creating your file

File format: .csv;
Column Requirements:
Column 1: Wisr Community ID

• The Wisr Community ID can be found in the Communities section of the Admin site. There should only be one Community ID per cell, so if a user should be pre-invited to more than 1 community, they will need a separate row for each community they need to be invited to.

Column 2: One of the following ID’s:

• Unique ID (Recommended Best Practice)
• Wisr Pre-verification ID
• Wisr Profile ID

Step 2: Uploading the File

Once your file is prepared and ready for upload, go to the Data Tools section of the Wisr Admin Panel. Click New Job and select “Invite Members to Community.” Select the CSV file from your local network and click the green Next button. 

Step 3: Mapping Fields

Key Field: This is the field Wisr will use to identify which users to invite to communities. Choose the selected ID option that will be used for matching. Example: If your file contains a Unique ID, select Unique ID for both the Column and the Wisr Field drop down.  

Field Mapping: Given the Key Field has already identified the ID for matching, the other 2 ID’s can be ignored. Community ID should be mapped to Community ID (integer) as shown in the screenshot below.

Step 4: Review

Review the file name, number of records in the file, and the mapped fields. If you would like to start over and edit the upload settings, mappings, or naming conventions, select Cancel. Otherwise, click Start to begin the data job. 

Step 5: Data Job Information and Status

The job log at the bottom of the page reveals the number of members pre-invited to a community and any rows that were skipped. Any Unique ID’s not found in your site that were included in the file will be skipped.

Dynamic Landing Pages

Dynamic Landing Pages (DLP) allow members to get into your Network faster using a simplified sign-up process. Each community now has its own custom landing page URL that you can drive existing and prospective members to. Driving members to this specific URL makes it so that only email verification is required to sign-in or sign-up if they are not already a member. 

We introduced Dynamic Landing Pages during Wisr's enhancements webinar.