You can invite people to register on your platform via email, either individually or via a bulk import of email addresses. Once you've sent out the invitation(s), invitees will receive an email with a link to the platform, which they can then use to complete their registration.
To send invitations, go to the 'Users' section in the Admin panel, and click 'Invite users'.
There, you have two options:
1. To manually enter email addresses:
Add one or various email address(es), with each email address separated by a comma (",")
Next, you can configure the invitation options. This allows you to specify if, upon accepting their invitation, the invitee should automatically receive admin or project management rights or be added to a user group. Finally, you can also add a personal message to the invitation.
You can now also invite people to the platform and automatically add them to a manual group if you have their email addresses and if someone is already registered on the platform they don't receive the invitation but they are added to the group automatically.
2. To import a list of email addresses
Download the Excel template, which includes the following columns:
email: enter the email addresses of the invitees in this column. Use one row per email address.
first_name: enter the first name of the invitee.
last_name: enter the last name of the invitee.
language: enter the language for the invitation sent to the invitee, for instance "en" or "nl-BE". You can find the right "language code" in the url in the navigation bar of your platform.
groups: enter the manual or smart group where the invitee should be added upon accepting the invitation.
admin: indicate whether the invitee, upon accepting the invitation, should automatically receive admin rights for the platform by entering "TRUE" or "FALSE".
(Note that only the email column is mandatory, the others are optional)
When someone accepts their invitation, these attributes will automatically be added to their user profile. For instance, once they've registered, the invitee will automatically be added to a group called "Neighborhood A" if "Neighborhood A" was added to their groups column.
Formatting your Excel sheet:
To ensure you don't receive errors when uploading your email addresses, make sure that:
There aren't any duplicates in the list
All email addresses are valid (no spaces or hyperlinks)
Note: when you define the invitation options (such as language, admin rights,...) in the Excel file you upload, they will replace the options you may also have indicated in the admin panel (see image below point 1). So the Excel file overrules the invitation options selected on the platform.
Important: If you invite someone via email, they will need to use the link in the invitation to register on the platform, and it means they can no longer register directly via the platform. This helps to safeguard the accounts, for instance, by ensuring someone doesn't sign up using a different invitee's email address and gain access to the platform as an administrator.
If a person cannot find their invitation, there are two options to help this person out.
Send them their unique 'token' from the invite.
Delete their invitation.
In this support article you read all about sending unique tokens or deleting invitations so an invite can be accepted without the invitation email.
Receiving the invitation
After you've successfully sent out the invitations, invitees will receive an email stating that they have been invited to the platform. They will be asked to fill out their profile (name, last name and password), and as a next step, they'll gain full access to the platform.
The platform will automatically send a reminder to the invitee if the invitation hasn't been accepted within 3 days.
Good to know:
Invitations expire after 30 days. After this period, you can still resend them.
You cannot automatically delete old invitations in batch.
Therefore, if you want to send out a new batch of invitations with potential duplicates, you’ll need to individually delete old invitations before you issue a new one to the same person.
invitees automatically skip the 'e-mail confirmation' step in the registration process, as their e-mail address is already known.
Do you want to use 'Invitations' to create unique (registration) codes?
Please find more info in this article.
Do you have further questions or need support? Don't hesitate to get in touch via support@citizenlab.co!