Few questions before commiting to vBulletin

[User34]

Hello,

At a small business I work for we use an internal forum that has some shortcomings so we are contemplating an idea of changing to another forum software. Please help me determine whether the latest vBulletin version includes:

- Permanent subscription to a topic regardless of the fact whether a user visits forum or not. Users (employees) must continuously receive email notifications about new posts even if they don't visit the forum. On the current forum users only receive one email notification to a topic they're subscribed to and then no more emails until they re-visit the forum/topic.

- Can Admin manage topic subscriptions for users? Can he subscribe users to certain topics?

- Can users be prevented to unsubscribe from topics?

- Can contact information fields in user profiles be removed? Owners don't want users to see each other's contacts such as email addresses, Facebook contacts, etc.

Like I said, it's a small business forum set up for internal communication and owners require more control over how employees receive information.

Thanks for helping!

[BirdOPrey5]

Hello-

By default none of the subscription features you request are available in the software- at best these changes would require custom coding.

Contact info can be hidden (made private) or removed however.

If you would like to try a demo- http://www.vbulletin.com/en/vb5-trial/

[User34]

Can these subscription features be ordered directly from vBulletin? I can't code myself.

Also, is there a MOD available to advertise reputation more prominently in addition to the orange bar under the name? I'd like to see the number of times a user has been thanked/liked.

Thanks.

[donald1234]

There is a sister site www.vbulletin.org that deals with modifications, coding requests and plugins both your requests should be doable over there, although it has to be said that at the present moment there are a lot more mods and plugins for vb4 than vb5, both (either) are available with vb5 license..

[User34]

In the enterprise environment we need some additional tools to make communication more efficient. The feature to force topic subscriptions upon employees or "push notifications" via email if you like would be very well received.

About the reputation, I've just noticed a perfect example of what I'm missing. Looking at you two - Donald and Joe - there is nothing that distinguishes you apart to a customer that seeks support/advice. Both of you have the same number of little orange squares under your name which indicates that you are both experienced but doesn't tell me anything what sets you apart. Maybe one of you has been thanked/liked 10x more than the other hence is more credible in some people's eyes but there's no way for them to know that. That's why I would welcome some additional info about the number of thanks/likes.

Thank you both.

[donald1234]

You get an orange bar each time someone likes your comment or advice. The main difference between JoeD and I is that JoeD is support staff and I am just a customer with (in my case) several VB licenses, so you are getting the official Vb line from Joe and an end users opinion from me.

[BirdOPrey5]

Can these subscription features be ordered directly from vBulletin? I can't code myself.

Also, is there a MOD available to advertise reputation more prominently in addition to the orange bar under the name? I'd like to see the number of times a user has been thanked/liked.

Thanks.

You cannot order custom coding from us, we do not provide that service. As Donald said the best place to find custom coding help is vBulletin.org. You can also see what modifications are available- offhand I am not aware of any that will make reputation more prominent but displaying the number associated with the reputation level should be just a minor template edit.

[User34]

I'd like to clear something up about permanent subscriptions I wrote about above. I just visited a vBulletin forum (notebookreview.com) and in the "thread tools" there's an option to subscribe to a thread via "instant/daily/weekly email notifications". I'm going to try how this works of course but I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth:

- Is this custom coding that they've done or is this built-in in a stock vBulletin forum?
- If I subscribe to a thread with instant email notifications for example, am I going to continue receiving emails about each new post even if I don't visit the forum for couple of weeks? That would be great.

Many thanks.

[BirdOPrey5]

I'd like to clear something up about permanent subscriptions I wrote about above. I just visited a vBulletin forum (notebookreview.com) and in the "thread tools" there's an option to subscribe to a thread via "instant/daily/weekly email notifications". I'm going to try how this works of course but I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth:

- Is this custom coding that they've done or is this built-in in a stock vBulletin forum?
- If I subscribe to a thread with instant email notifications for example, am I going to continue receiving emails about each new post even if I don't visit the forum for couple of weeks? That would be great.

Many thanks.

Thread Subscriptions / Notifications are a built in feature.

When you have instant notification enabled you only get an email about the first unread post. You will not get additional emails until you view the thread again, at which point all posts in it will be marked as read and you'll get an email about the next unread post. This is designed to keep users from getting dozens, even hundreds of emails from busy threads.

[User34]

Ok, thanks. I will have to ask for custom coding then on sister forum to enable emails even if employees don't visit the forum between posts.