Envolve Chat Integration Module
 

About the Envolve Chat Plugin
This module will connect your vBulletin forum to Envolve chat. Envolve is a chat toolbar similar to Facebook's chat bar that allows your users to have group and one-on-one chats with each other while browsing your forums.

This mod requires an API key from Envolve in order to function. Visit http://www.envolve.com to get one. A free version is available that provides a full feature set for up to 25 concurrent users. Higher numbers of chatters require a paid account.

This mod integrates your forum's account system with Envolve so that when users are logged into your vBulletin site it also logs them into the chat. In addition, it integrates your profile pictures / avatars and profile information. With the 2.0 release of the mod, other users can now view your profile information and get a link to your profile simply by placing their mouse over your name.

The Envolve chat system is a rich solution for community chat. Some of its features include group chat (both public and private), one-on-one chat, the ability to pop chats out into their own windows, moderation controls (boot / block / ban / timed ban), chat message translation, resizable chat windows, chat sharing, and drag-and-drop chat invitations. As a hosted solution, all chat traffic is handled by Envolve's servers and will not place any additional load on your server.

Installation:
Detailed installation instructions can be found here:
https://www.envolve.com/docs/vbulletin-chat-plugin.html. They are also provided in the Readme.txt file.
You can see and try out the chat at http://www.envolve.com.

This version of the mod will work for both vBulletin 4.x and vBulletin 3.8.x.

Screenshots:
Here the "People List" can be seen open in the lower right hand corner of the page. This shows all users who are currently viewing the forum. This site owner has chosen to only allow logged-in users to chat.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

Here a public group chat has been opened, and the user has moused-over another user to see his profile information.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

Here a user is creating a new group chat that will be shown to the other users on the site. He has also "popped-out" the "General" chat into its own window.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/

I signed up to take a look around and have a question:

Q: Nothing is free, so when you offer a "free" use what are YOU getting out of it?


Q: What do you mean BY "We reserve the right to display this public information to other people, save it, index it, share it, etc."

Just WHO are you sharing this data with?


Q: And this "We reserve the right to use private chat transcripts, private messages, and other usage data anonymously for statistics, user experience improvements, marketing, etc.

^ I suppose THAT answers the "free" question.

You mentioned phpBB but this is vbulletin

"This module will connect your vBulletin forum to Envolve chat. This mod allows Envolve to securely use the usernames of your phpBB users"

Hornstar: Thanks for catching this. Fixed. That's what I get for writing two plugins at the same time : )

Swollen Cranium - happy to answer any questions! We're trying to start a business, so the goal is to have people upgrade to our paid products. The free version is our way of letting people try it out on their communities and see if it's a fit. It's also free advertising for us, since we have a "powered by Envolve" message in several places on the chat. Having a free dumbed-down version is pretty common these days for SaaS companies.

In regards to the privacy policy, the *public* chats are intended to be made searchable by the general public at some point (just like most vBulletin forums can be indexed by Google). So who are we going to be sharing this data with? Potentially everyone! Currently that data is only being provided to site owners, however. If you notice, when you create a new chat it says "This is a Public Chat". We're trying to be clear about what we are doing here.

The private chat transcripts will never be shared with anyone but the people you invite to them. We may use statistical data from them in the future to improve our product, or potentially to customize the experience for you (Gmail does a similar sort of thing). Currently we aren't doing any of this.

Andrew is there a demo running anywhere we can look at?

The info page has the script at the bottom, similar to Facebook style and or Cometchat although I see some key differences.

http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vbull...at-plugin.html

Although I would update the first post to reflect the version members here are actually receiving i.e.

Free = Restricted to 25 simultaneous chatters.
Free = No single login although it's noted above?
Free = No skinning although it's noted above?
Everything else = you must have an upgraded version/account.

This way it's not umm "False Advertising" as some would call it :D.

Thanks Superman for answering that questions! As he mentioned you can see the chat running on the instructions page at http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vbull...at-plugin.html

I've updated the listing to describe what is available for free and what requires a paid account. I mentioned that the plugin allows single sign-on, since you can install the free version without a plugin at all by just cutting and pasting some code... so the plugin is specifically for those users that want to use the single sign-on features. Hopefully that's a little more clear in the posting now.

andrew,

I was looking at your site...

This appears to be really tiny chat...is this how it would
look on a VB forum?

Thanks

Click on "Settings" in the sidebar on the left. Then click "Options".

Im about to uninstall this - i see nothing that says "options"
I see nothing about getting an "API" key.

uninstalled

OneHost: The chat windows are resizeable (just drag to resize in the upper left corner). You can also pop the chats out into a separate window if you want them even bigger.

You can get an API Key at www.envolve.com. Just click the big green "Try it for free". It should be pretty straightforward. The "Settings" tab is in your vBulletin Admin Control Panel. It should be the top button on the sidebar on the left. The "Options" button will appear directly below that when you click on Settings. Here's what it looks like:
http://www.envolve.com/plugins/vBulletin/pic2.png

Hope that helps!

What sort of usage will this cause on the server using the free system?

It's a completely hosted chat solution, so it will have no impact on your server at all. All traffic is routed through the Envolve servers. This is true of all the version, including the free and paid versions.

Cheers Andrew for the Quick reply!

if a user log in my forum they able to see other friend online or not?

Of course! You should give it a try! I think you'll really like it. I'm new to the vBulletin community, but we've been working on this chat for more than a year-and-a-half. I think we've got something pretty slick here! If you want to play with it it's running live on our website.

@rajubd - We don't have a "friends list" at the moment. We actually show all the users who are active in chat to everyone. So yes they'll be able to see their friends, but they won't see only their friends. We've built this with a special focus on group conversations (though it does private 1-on-1 chats well too).

It is exactly what I was looking for, but unfortunately it hosted in your site .

So there was a long discussion thread here about other chat systems such as Comet Chat, Arrow Chat, and some others that you can install yourself. https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=176924

The Envolve chat is hosted because we can provide better service for large sites this way (apache + php doesn't do real-time stuff very well), and because this way we can update everyone immediately when we fix bugs / add features / etc. Did you try it out? Any feedback other than the hosting issue? Why is us hosting the service a negative for you?

This is really unclear...I see nothing that is even similar to "my sites"
I am unable to find the API key....

There is no "My Sites" on the entire screen....

First, Get Your Envolve API Key
1. Log in to your Envolve account

2. Click the "My Sites" tab at the top of the screen and select your site.

3. Open the "Setup" tab on the left. Copy the code in the "Your API Key" box.

found it, was not exactly named "my sites" you should fix it to be less confusing...

===========

I have a question, if i get the paid, will the powered by be removed? and will there
be any indication that any members can tell this would be a host chat? I think it
is great ressource saver, but I can not have members thinking that I am cheap
and can not host my own scripts...so there can be no links or anything pointing
back to your site.

suggestion: I can resize like you said, but I am unable to move the chat box
just anywhere, like out of my way...it would be nice to be able to move
it around anywhere then goes back into place if i choose to minimize.
I may want it bigger and some place else on the screen, not just stuck
in one place, big or small...

You should also take some after thought from flash chat...you have no color,
no font sizes, no faces, almost nothing expect for plain joe chat...or
am I missing something here? hopefully I am not seeing the good
stuff because I am using the free version....?

Thanks

To get your API key you can log into your account here:
http://www.envolve.com/admin/

"My Sites" is a tab in the upper right hand corner after you log in. If you haven't already registered your site you will need to do so in order to get an API key. You can do that here:
http://www.envolve.com/sign-up-and-price

We know branding is important to any serious site. We call our unbranded versions "White Label". If you get any Premium or larger package there will be no indication that you are using a hosted service. Your users won't know the difference, and they won't see our brand.

You actually can move the windows around. You can pop them out into a separate window and then put them wherever you like. Just click the little arrow button in the upper right corner of the chat box.

In regards to the reduced feature set as compared to some other chat services... we do have skinning options and analytics available with paid accounts. We don't currently do emoticons or colored text, however. We've been trying to keep everything super-simple. We figured people who wanted the those features would just use the forum threads. Are these features important to you? Which ones are the most important?

I really suggest you just give it a try and see what you think. Install is super simple, and the system will make a whole lot more sense after you've played with it for a bit.

Hope that helps! Cheers.

I am afraid your branding is a little steep for me, no need to pay that much
when I do not have bbut a few users, and I feel if I buy anything, then
I owe you nothing...I buy to many mods where coders think I still owe
them something, even after I have bought it...its why I have uninstalled
most of my mods....if you had white label for the smallest account
I would signup right now, if not, no worries...I do not loose
sleep at night over mods that I decide not to go with....

Ok. Understood. You might still want to give the free version a try. The "powered by Envolve" stuff is pretty small.

This chat is working really well on our Forums. We were with another chat - which in some ways is more sophisticated but this one is so visible (yet really unobtrusive) down at the bottom of the page - and its been used much more....The ability to easily spin off private chats is really nice as well. Install took 10 minutes... We like it!

Has anyone tried this in vBulletin 3.8.x? I tried to give this a shot myself, but it seems that the chat did not appear at all.

Thanks for the note. I'll take a look at using the plugin for vBulletin 3.8 and see what's going wrong. Stay tuned.

Installed on a basic package. I thought I was getting the first 15 days free but seem to have been charged straight off.

Intallation was easy and it seems to be working straight away. For some reason my Mods show as Admin as do I but the other Admin shows as a normal member. The pop a chat out to a new window does not work for me either but does for some users. I am using IE as a browser.

Are you using multiple usergroups for your admins/mods? I think this script can be improved if there were a setting for "Chat Admin" usergroups -- might be something to consider, Andrew. Thanks!

Another thing. On an iPad this does not stay at e bottom of the screen. It appears at the bottom of the page as when it loads but when you scroll down it moves up and out the top of the screen with the rest of the content.

Not tried but I guess you will get the same issue on an iPhone.

@Kaelon - Thanks for the suggestion! Right now we're setting all Moderators and Admins as chat admins. I've heard similar feedback from other people that a separate "chat admins" group would be desirable. I'll look into doing that.

@MagiKelly - Your signup came through as an upgrade rather than as a new customer which is why it charged you. I refunded that and gave you the 15 day trial. Also - could you shoot me an email so we can get that popout issue resolved? I'm not aware of any problems with popouts in IE. What version are you running? Perhaps you have a popup blocker running?

I just bought the Pro version of this app and I'm really impressed. Here's what I've done with it:

Customized the skin to match my forums theme and it blends in really nice.
Integrated it with my forum so users sign into chat automatically.
I got rid of the public chat option.

And now I have my own Facebook style chat on my forum :)

I've had this installed for a few days now so here are my thoughts.

I have the paid version so can have up to 25 people logged in at a time. For the money is is not enough. I have a fairly small forum but still the chat is full even when no one is actually chatting. Either the number of logged in members needs to be increased (probably doubled to 50) or there needs to be an admin option to have the chat turned off as the default for members so that only members who actually want to chat will turn it on and not fill up the available spaces. Another option would be to allow up to 25 people actually in the chat and chatting not just logged in automatically. Once 25 people are in general chat or private chats it could give a full notice.

I do not want to sound too negative as the the mod itself is very good it is just priced too high. To upgrade another level to get 75 members logged in would be a cost that I could get hosting for and probably more than VBulletin costs me for a year. In fact it is already probably close to that cost and this is for only one or two people to actually be chatting. The chat being full is very misleading as it is only an indication of how busy the forum is with members not how busy the chat is.

Thanks for the feedback MagiKelly! Are you displaying the chat to everyone or just to logged-in users or admins? Would it be helpful if we provided more granular controls over got to see the chat and who didn't?

I have the chat set to be only visible to logged in members. My forum has a little over 8000 members but probably only about 1200 active members (members logged in in a month). The norm would be for between 20 to 70 ish members logged in depending on time of day, however, I will be amazed if I ever have even as many as 10 in total in active chats at ny time. Generally there will be no one chatting with only a few people using it each day, that is why I would not consider an upgraded account.

Even in the short time I have had this runnig I have had the situation where 25 members have been allocated to chat but none want to and another member wants to chat but can't as they are getting the full message. This is really annoying to have a full message when in truth no one is actually using the option.

Being able to restrict it to fewer groups would not really be of any use to me as the people who use the chat are going to be few but spread over the range of groups. The changes that would work for me are having the chat set to off as default with the people willing to chat switchg it on.

The other option is for the limit to be set for the people actually in chat. So all members show up as available but once a set number are in chat rooms no one can enter an existing room or create a new chat. With this set up I would still pay the same money as I do now for a much lesser total, say 10 users active as a maximum.

Thanks for the thorough feedback @MagiKelly!

so nice thank you very much

Great add-on. Still havent decided on whether or not to move to the paid version. Few questions for you:

1. Don't see a way to turn this ON/OFF from the admincp. Coming in the future?
2. Is it possible to force individuals to SIGN IN either as a guest or through FB/TWITTER etc before the chat window becomes active? I have noticed that users will have a GUEST WILL or GUEST NINA etc etc. Does this rectify itself in the paid version via single sign on?
3. I have noticed that the previous chats window on the far left will show old chats that are no longer active even if the chat window is closed out. Is that controlled on your server and does it eventually time out and disappear?

Thanks in advance...so far, I like it..

Dprice - Thanks for getting in touch! Let me answer your questions:

1) We don't have an enable / disable checkbox from the admincp at the moment. You can restrict who it gets displayed to though (admins, logged-in users, or everyone) using a dropdown in the Envolve Chat settings. An enable / disable feature could be added in the future though if it would be helpful.

2) Yes! We allow you to display the chat to everyone but require users to login to actually participate. We even allow you to set a "grace period" for guest users so they can start chatting a little bit before signing in. We can then direct those users to *your* sign-in page so that they can register for a new account. This way we can help you get more registered users. We also provide single sign-on so that the chat automatically picks up your vBulletin usernames and your users don't have to sign in seperately. Both of these features require a paid account.

3) That list shows chats that you have closed that are still "active" on the site. These chats will time out eventually, or if you are an admin (and logged into envolve as such... again, you'll need single sign on to do this automatically) then you'll have the option of removing the chat entirely when you close it. It will then not be shown publicly anymore.

You might want to poke around our admin panel to see all the options. www.envolve.com/admin (click on "My Sites" to edit your site's options)
There's also a dropdown in the vBulletin options (where you entered the API key) where you can select who to display the chat to.

Hope that helps!

Installed and 5 stars!
Really nice customer service aswell :)
Thanks Andrew!

Just a quick question, when I try to upload a file there is a popup opened and your toolbar hide the buttons "insert inline" and "close" :(

Thanks again!