Happy Holidays!  

We've just rolled out a major new update for Hoop.la that includes the following new features:

1. Member Deactivation and Account Deletion

We now allow members to deactivate and/or delete their own accounts. This is an important new feature, given the new GDPR rules that are going into effect next spring.

You can allow your community members to deactivate or delete their own accounts, giving your users a lot more control of their data.  Note that these options are not enabled by default. You will need to enable the options in your Member Settings.

Once enabled, your members will see new options on their "Update Profile" pages that allow them to deactivate or delete their own accounts.  

When members deactivate, they will no longer have an active profile on your site (though their accounts will not be deleted).  All posts made by such users will no longer be linked to their accounts.  Only the deactivated member can reactivate his/her own account; admins can not do it on their behalf.

If a member deletes their own account, it works exactly the same as if you, as an admin, had deleted their account. The account will be permanently deleted and all posts by the user will remain but will be credited to a guest/anonymous account.

Admins can also be notified about member-initiated deactivations and deletions, via the new "Member Deactivates/Deletes Account" notification option.

You will need to decide if you want to support these new member options, but we highly recommend it, in light of the upcoming GDPR regulations in Europe.

2. Deactivated Members Queue

If you allow member deactivation, you will notice that there is a new "Deactivated Members" area in the Manage Members section of your Admin Control Panel.  This allows you to see a list of all currently deactivated accounts (and you can delete any of those accounts, if you like, via this control panel, as well).  Note that deactivated members are not included in your regular Manage Members control panel, because they are technically not members while they are deactivated and thus you cannot involve them in the kinds of actions available in that control panel.

3. Member Reactivation

A member who deactivates can reactivate his/her account anytime by simply signing back into your site. After signing in, the user will be asked if they wish to reactivate their account, before proceeding. As stated before, only the deactivated user can reactivate; admins have no way of doing this for them.

4. Improved Posting Experience on Mobile Devices

The posting option was somewhat buried when using Hoop.la on a mobile device. We improved this by adding a posting icon (a plus sign) that displays in the lower right corner whenever a user is viewing in a mobile browser (or more accurately, in any scenario where the small-grid version of the application is applied).

This way, the posting button is always very visible, though it is hidden while you scroll.

5. Circles Are More Visible

Previously, only admins could see which circles a member belonged to, when viewing a user's profile page.  We've changed that so that any user can see the circles someone belongs to, though if the circle is only visible to Super Admins only, it will only be displayed to Super Admins.  This is an important improvement, because circles are much more flexible than they used to be. 

6. New Recipe Triggers for Member Deactivates/Reactivates

Now that users can deactivate their accounts, we added new recipe triggers for this action so that admins can automate actions each time this occurs.  For instance, you may want to add a note to a user's profile each time they deactivate (and reactivate), or remove them from certain circles, or send an email to encourage them to reconsider he action.

7. Member Preference To Suppress the Display Of Signatures on Comments/Replies

Users can now suppress the display of all signatures in comments/replies via their own Personal Settings.

Note this option will only be displayed for users if you are permitting signatures to be displayed in comments/replies (via your Admin Control Panel's Display Settings).

8. Support for Emojis

Graemlins (emoticons) now support emojis (in addition to regular images). 

As usual, there were numerous other minor changes and bug fixes in this update.  If you have questions or issues, please reach out to us on our support site:

https://hey.crowdstack.com/support

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season!