Invite System

The invite system lets registered users invite friends to join your site. When an invited person registers, both the inviter and (optionally) the new user can be awarded points. This creates a referral loop that encourages users to grow your community.

How It Works

  1. A logged-in user opens their Account page and clicks the Invite tab.
  2. They enter one or more email addresses and select an invitation template.
  3. UserPoints sends a personalised invitation email containing a registration link with the user's unique referral ID embedded.
  4. When the recipient clicks the link and completes registration, the referral is recorded.
  5. The referring user earns points according to the up_newregistered rule (or whichever rule is configured for referral registrations).

Referral IDs

Every user has a unique referral ID used to attribute registrations. The format is set in Configuration → Profile → Referral ID Type:

  • Randomized — a unique alphanumeric string (e.g. a3f7k2). Recommended when you do not want to expose usernames in URLs.
  • Username — the user's Joomla login name. Easier for users to share but exposes the username publicly.

You can optionally add a text prefix to referral IDs for self-registered and referral-registered users via the Prefix settings in Configuration.

Invitation Templates

Templates control the subject and body of invitation emails. Go to Components → UserPoints → Invitation Templates to manage them.

Creating a Template

Click New and fill in:

Field Description
Name Internal label shown to users in the template selector.
Subject The email subject line.
Body The email body. Supports HTML. Use the placeholders below to personalise the message.
Format Plain text or HTML.
BCC Admin Send a copy of every invitation email to the site administrator.
Published Whether users can select this template.

Email Placeholders

The following placeholders can be placed anywhere in the Body:

Placeholder Replaced with
{name} The invitee's name (if known) or their email address.
{custom} A custom message entered by the user when sending the invite (if the invite form includes a custom message field).
{link} The personalised registration link containing the inviter's referral ID. Include this placeholder to position the link within your body text; if omitted the link is not included in the email.

Create at least one published template before expecting the invite tab to work.

Letting Users Choose a Template

If you have multiple published templates (for example, a formal and an informal variant), users will see a dropdown to select one when sending an invite. If only one template is published, it is used automatically.

Invite Sending Limits

To prevent abuse, the invite tab enforces:

  • A daily limit on the number of invitations a single user can send (configured in the invitation code).
  • A delay between successive invitations from the same user.
  • Captcha validation (if a Joomla captcha plugin is published) to prevent automated submissions.

If a user exceeds their daily limit or submits too quickly, the invite form returns an error and no email is sent.

Awarding Points for Referrals

Points for successful referrals are configured through the rules system. The relevant rules are:

Rule When it fires
up_newregistered When a new user registers via a referral link. Awards points to the referrer.

Additionally, any rule can grant a referral bonus to the referring user via the Allow Referral and Percentage fields (see Points Rules). For example, if the login rule has a 10% referral bonus, the user's referrer earns 10% of the login points every time the referred user logs in.

Tracking Referrals

In the Users List

The admin Users list shows each user's referral ID and the referral ID of the person who referred them (if any). This lets you trace the referral chain.

In the Activity Log

Every invitation-related point award appears in the Activities log with the up_newregistered rule. Filter by this rule to see all referral registrations.

In the Users View

The frontend Users view (if Allow User Lists is enabled in Configuration) can show a leaderboard of the most active referrers, powered by the mod_userpoints_mostreferralusers module.