Using this feature, a customer who has just registered for a webinar or live event can invite up to five colleagues at a time to register for the same event. This means that any customer can recommend others for your event, new sources for future business.

TABLE OF CONTENT:

Administrative Set up

To enable the option to send an invitation to register for the site, go to Administration>>> Site administration>>> Plugins>>> Local plugins>>> Refined Settings:

Scroll down to Share with a Friend feature, and enable the setting (check the box).

Click on Save changes.

Creating the Invitation Reminder

You need a special reminder to send to the new potential customers of your event. To create it, go to the Refined Tools block>>> Browse Reminders:

Click on Add Reminder. When the reminder screen appears, give it a unique Message ID, such as Colleague Invitation. Select the language and for a subject line, use something like Referral to Register [[name]], where [[name]] pulls the name of the event from the Connect Activity:

In the body of the reminder, put all the exciting information you think may attract potential customers to your event, including branding, bios and what the event will include.

Somewhere in the body of the reminder, you must include the following information:

The bracketed tags refer to the following:

• [[firstname]] – the recipient of the email, one of the five people invited by a colleague
• [[refername]] – the name of the colleague who invited the recipient
• [[invitenote]] – the personal message that the inviter added to the invitation
• [[name]] – the name of the event.

You also must include a Register Now link or button. The URL hidden in the link or button must include the following code:

<p<a href="http://LMSURL.com/[[invitelink]]"> ___________</a ></p>

Click on Save changes before leaving the page. Once the reminder is selected inside the course settings (next section), the tags will pull the relevant course and customer information into the received email.

Course Set Up

Go to Administration>>> Course administration>>> Edit settings. Scroll down to the Appearance section of the course settings page:

Using the drop-down menu, select the previously created invitation reminder message.

Click on save changes before leaving the course settings page.

Create the Invite a Colleague block

Next, you want to create a block that will allow registered customers to invite their colleagues. The registered customers will see the course and the block immediately after registering themselves.

Inside the course, turn editing on. Scroll down to Add a block and select HTML:

Inside the block, click on the edit icon and select Configure an HTML block.

In the edit HTML block page, give the block the title that you want customers to see, something like INVITE YOUR COLLEAGUES TO JOIN THIS WEBINAR! If you wish to restrict the role(s) that are able to see the block, enter those roles, separated by commas and no spaces. Inside the block, you want to add an enticing image or a message or both, providing access to the invitation form. The image and link must contain the following code:

<a href="http://LMSURL.com/local/webinars/sharing.php?id=XXXX">_____________</a>

Before leaving the page, select where the block appears then click on Save changes. You will see the new invitation block on your course page:

When a customer clicks on the image or link, they will see a sharing form:

When they have entered all the names and personal notes, they click on Send invitations at the bottom of the page and will see a message that an email has been sent to the people they wish to invite. When they click on the continue button, they return to the course and can invite more people.

The colleagues invited receive the invitation to register email:

When the colleague clicks on the Register Now option, they are redirected to the site registration form:

If you have entered an interesting description and images in your course description, that will display on this registration page, too.

If you have set a course welcome message, the new registrant will receive that upon registration.

When the colleague receives the reminder for the webinar, they do not have to log in to attend.  They can log in to the LMS if your site has simplified login enabled (using email address only to log in). Otherwise they must create an account.