Private forum website

[danmurf]

Hi everyone

I'm currently exploring vBulletin as a possible solution to setting up a private company forum and I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice.

I would like the entire forum to be private and only for registered members (company employees). So far, the best way I can see of achieving this would be to set all forum permissions to registered members only. If I was to do this, I would like the category/forum structure and details to be hidden from guest users and a welcome page to be displayed explaining that the forum is private.

If anyone could offer any thoughts on this or share any experiences with setting up a private online forum with vBulletin it would be much appreciated. I haven't had a chance to play with the demo yet but I'm hoping to over the next few days, so a few pointers around this issue would be much appreciated.

Many thanks
Dan

[Steve Machol]

You would just moderate all new user registrations and not allow Guests to view the forums.

[danmurf]

You would just moderate all new user registrations and not allow Guests to view the forums.

Thanks for the swift response. If I was to do this would it be possible to show a guest welcome page rather than a forum/category list, which the user wouldn't be able to view anyway?

[Steve Machol]

Yes you could set it up that way with the vB permissions system.

[danmurf]

Yes you could set it up that way with the vB permissions system.

What I'm looking at doing is something like you have on the demo site. When I access the demo site as a guest I can no longer see the forum list as I disabled the permissions as you suggested (thank you). However, I can see see the "What's going on" block, which I would like to remove - is this possible?. Also, on the demo site, there is a FAQ block at the top of the page which is only visible to unregistered / guest users. I would like something like this on our private forum which explains that the site is private. How can I add this?

Many thanks for your help
Dan

[Ingenious]

Yes I think you can remove the what's going on, at least in 3.8 there is an option to remove the who's on-line for any usergroup. As for messages to specific usergroups or in forums, you have lots of ways to do this, either use the forum description to tell users, or a sticky post, or use the forum's announcements and notices system. Announcements appear at the top of a forum and are set per forum. Notices are more configurable, you can set them for a particular forum AND other conditions like member of a specific usergroup etc.

[vivamexico55]

What I'm looking at doing is something like you have on the demo site. When I access the demo site as a guest I can no longer see the forum list as I disabled the permissions as you suggested (thank you). However, I can see see the "What's going on" block, which I would like to remove - is this possible?. Also, on the demo site, there is a FAQ block at the top of the page which is only visible to unregistered / guest users. I would like something like this on our private forum which explains that the site is private. How can I add this?

Many thanks for your help
Dan

This is all doable through templates, it's not a big deal. Maybe a few days of customizations while you learn the system, or if you're experienced with HTML and PHP it's going to be a couple of hours work. You can customize a lot of stuff on vbulletin 3.8 , I'm sure it will be the same with 4.0

[maximutt]

What I'm looking at doing is something like you have on the demo site. When I access the demo site as a guest I can no longer see the forum list as I disabled the permissions as you suggested (thank you). However, I can see see the "What's going on" block, which I would like to remove - is this possible?. Also, on the demo site, there is a FAQ block at the top of the page which is only visible to unregistered / guest users. I would like something like this on our private forum which explains that the site is private. How can I add this?

Many thanks for your help
Dan

All you have to do is add a conditional above the What's Going On code in FORUMHOME and then insert your FAQ block into a Notice.

[danmurf]

Thank you everyone for getting back, this is has been really helpful. I've been learning how the styles work so the next thing I'll look at will be the template system and the conditional statements as mentioned above.

Dan

[147]

You would just moderate all new user registrations and not allow Guests to view the forums.

Hi Steve, I did this on my test VB4 and it is also blocking unregistered users from viewing the Front Page also. This would seem a silly move as it blocks the whole site from being viewed. Have I done something wrong ??

[Steve Machol]

Then you will have to set the appropriate usergroup permissions for each forum.