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Today, we are releasing Sociable v3.0.0. This is a major update for Joomla communities. It helps you onboard users faster with invitations and automatic profile assignment. You can manage activity and reports more easily. It also increases engagement with badges, points, gamification, and referrals.

If you already use Sociable, this update helps you launch faster. It enables you to manage with more confidence. You can convert activity into long-term retention.

What’s New in This Release

1) Smarter Onboarding with Invitations + Profile Assignment

Onboarding is now much more flexible and role-aware.

• Invitations: Invite users directly from the admin and track the invitation lifecycle.
• Profile Assignment Rules: Automatically assign profile types during registration based on your rules.
• Registration-aware behavior: Invitations are available only when Joomla user registration is enabled, with clear in-app messaging when disabled.
• Invitation email templates: Invitation emails now use the same template mechanism as the rest of Sociable email delivery.

This means you can onboard teachers, students, and staff from day one. Partners or members can also be placed into the right profile path with less manual cleanup after signup.

2) Stronger Community Operations

This release improves day-to-day moderation and review workflows.

• Activities moderation reliability: Approval flows are more consistent and aligned with moderation status updates.
• Reports and moderation visibility: Better clarity for admin teams handling user-generated content.
• Avatar URL consistency in admin: Activities, gamification, and related admin views now resolve avatar URLs consistently for reliable display.

For teams moderating active communities, these changes reduce friction and improve confidence in admin actions.

3) Expanded Engagement Engine

Sociable now provides a tighter loop between participation and recognition.

• Badges & Points: Reward contribution with visible progress.
• Gamification: Encourage repeat engagement through rankings and incentives.
• Referrals: Turn existing members into growth channels.

Together, these features help convert passive audiences into active, returning participants.

4) Better Admin Control Surface

The admin panel now reflects a broader and more complete product surface, including:

• Dashboard
• Users
• Profile Types
• Profile Fields
• Groups
• Activities
• Reports
• Badges & Points
• Gamification
• Referrals
• Invitations
• Themes
• Email Templates
• Settings

This structure gives community managers one organized place to configure identity, engagement, growth, communication, and moderation.

Why This Release Matters

Most social platforms struggle not because they lack features, but because workflows are disconnected. This release closes several of those gaps:

• from invite to registration to correct profile assignment,
• from activity approval to accurate moderation state,
• from participation to recognition and retention.

For Joomla site owners, this translates into faster launches, lower admin overhead, and stronger long-term community health.

Technical Foundation (Still Joomla-First)

Sociable continues to build on a modern, maintainable stack:

• Joomla 5/6 compatibility
• PHP 8.2+
• React 19 + TypeScript admin/site app architecture
• API-first service model
• ACL-aware integration with Joomla conventions

The result is a platform that can scale with your product roadmap without forcing a rewrite later.

Recommended Upgrade Checklist

After upgrading, we recommend this quick pass in admin:

1. Verify Joomla user registration setting (required for Invitations).
2. Configure Profile Types and Profile Assignment Rules.
3. Review Invitation email templates and branding tokens.
4. Validate Activities moderation workflow with a test approval.
5. Enable/adjust Badges, Points, and Gamification values.
6. Check Referrals and reporting dashboards.

Final Thoughts

This release makes Sociable feel less like a feature bundle and more like a complete community operations platform for Joomla. If you are focused on onboarding quality, pay attention. Moderation clarity is also important. This update is the most significant for sustained engagement.