In this article, we'll take a high-level look at the various addons Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) offers.
Before we begin...
- Many of these addons are restricted by plan level. If you're uncertain whether your plan includes a specific addon or feature, contact your CSM or Vanilla Support.
- To have an addon enabled that does not appear on the Dashboard > Settings > Addons page, contact your CSM or Vanilla Support.
- Always test new addons and features on your staging site prior to enabling them on production.
Where to view/manage your addons
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Addons.
Advanced Editor 🚧
This addon is in Maintenance as Rich Editor is the latest, recommended editor.
Enables editing of posts in several formats, including WYSIWYG, simple HTML, Markdown, and BBCode. This editor is primarily used by legacy customers; we recommend using our Rich Editor instead.
Akismet
Adds Akismet spam filtering to all posts by unverified users and applicant registrations.
All Viewed
Allows users to mark ALL discussions within a Category as read.
In Vanilla, new content in a Category is indicated with bold title text, making it easier for users to visually understand what's new. Enabling this addon allows users to quickly mark all content in a Category as viewed so they can more easily keep track of new content.
API v1 🚧
This addon is in Maintenance as API v2 is the recommended version.
Provides simple access_token API access to the community.
📝 NOTE: This addon was formally called Simple API.
Author Selector
Allows admins and moderators to change the author of a discussion, question, poll, or idea.
Auto Signout Timer
Automatically signs users out if they've been inactive for a period of time. Once enabled, click the settings icon to set the number of minutes that must lapse before users are automatically signed out.
This feature is mostly used as an extra security precaution.
Auto-Role By Email
Add users with a confirmed email address to roles, based on their email domain.
Avatar Pool
Create a limited stock of default avatars that members can choose between.
Badges
Give badges to your users to reward them for contributing to your community.
Badgify Comments
Assign a custom badge to a specific discussion; each user who comments in that discussion will automatically receive the badge.
Bulk User Import
Enables admins to bulk-add and bulk-edit users via CSV files.
When bulk-adding users, you can send invites or directly add them.
Bump
By default, discussions are only brought to the top of a Category if someone comments on them. This addon adds the Bump option to a discussion's (...) menu, allowing admins to push (or bump) a discussion to the top of a Category without making a comment.
This is a great way to bump questions that don't have answers or once again highlight certain discussions that may have become buried in a Category.
Civil Tongue Ex
A swear word filter for your community, helping to make it a "cleaner," more civil environment for everyone.
Cleanspeak
Cleanspeak subscribers can connect their Vanilla community to their Cleanspeak API to monitor new posts and edits for harmful, lewd, or problematic content. When posts violate your Cleanspeak moderation rules, they will be sent to the Vanilla Moderation Queue for human-review before they can be published.
This addon is available upon request, and requires a Cleanspeak subscription and credentials.
Gravatar
Implements Gravatar avatars for all users who have not uploaded a custom profile picture and icon.
Hero Image 🚧
This addon is in Maintenance as you can now add a hero image through our Theme Editor or Layout Editor.
Adds a hero image upload per category. The image is accessible through the Smarty tag {hero_image_url}. Supports a default image and inheritance from parents.
Hosted Tours
Provides new admins with a quick tour of the Vanilla product upon their first login.
Ideation
Enables users to to upvote and optionally downvote discussions in an Idea category.
Ignore
Allows users to ignore others, filtering their comments out of discussions.
Keyword Blocker
Allows you to define words that will cause an entire discussion post to be sent to the moderation queue for review.
Knowledge
A community-centered knowledge base that helps your customers with self-service and tribal knowledge.
Link Types
When enabled, the Link Types addon automatically opens links that are not on the same domain as your Higher Logic Vanilla community (i.e., external URLs) in a new browser tab.
Multilingual
Allows users to select their preferred language via a link in the footer, and administrators may embed their community in different languages in different places. This addon only translates Vanilla community elements, not user-generated content.
OAuth2 SSO
Connect to an authentication provider to allow users to log in to your Vanilla community via SSO.
Online
Tracks who is online, providing a full list of users in the side panel. You can place this addon on any page across your community (or all pages).
OpenID
Allows users to sign in with OpenID. This addon must be enabled before using the Google Sign In and Steam Connect plugins.
Pockets
Allows administrators to add areas (i.e., pockets) to their community where they can insert custom HTML, CSS, or JavaScript into their theme. This powerful tool that makes Vanilla flexible for ad placement, Google Analytics, and other small customizations.
Polls
Allow users to poll the community for their opinion or thoughts on topics of interest.
Private Discussions
Allows administrators to display a restricted version of discussions with a 'call to action' requesting that they register (or sign in if already registered). Admins can also limit how much of a discussion displays and set whether embedded images and videos display.
Profile Extender
Allows administrators to create new fields for users to add to their profiles (like status, location, or gamer tags).
Q&A
Allows users to designate a discussion post as a Question, and officially accept one or more of the comments as the answer.
Ranks
Enables ranks to be assigned to a user to grant or remove certain privileges across your community.
📝 NOTE: A rank is not the same as Roles & Permissions, which govern content access, moderation abilities, and administrator access.
Reactions
Adds one-click reaction options to discussions and comments, allowing users to indicate an emotional (e.g., “Awesome!”) or empirical (e.g., “Agree” or “Vote Down”) response without typing a comment. This introduces feedback that is otherwise missing from a community when members don’t have anything to add to a discussion via a comment.
reCAPTCHA Support
Adds an anti-bot captcha as part of the new user registration process.
Reporting
Reporting is a way for members to bring moderators’ attention to content that they believe is inappropriate. Report is an option under Flag in the Reactions available under each post.
Resolved Discussions v2
Allows staff users to mark discussions as "resolved." The resolved status is shared among all staff users (i.e., if one staff user marks a discussion as resolved or comments on it, it will appear as resolved for all staff users).
Rich Editor
The latest WYSIWYG editor for Vanilla. Easy to use, with support for rich content embedding. Also supports a more minimal text mode, Markdown, and BBCode.
Role Titles
Enables the display of all of a user’s roles on any content they contribute. If the author has multiple roles assigned, all roles will be shown, unless the role is set to “Private.” Additionally, this addon adds role-specific CSS classes to their comments for theming.
Salesforce
Allow staff users to create leads and cases from discussions and comments.
Salesforce OAuth2 SSO
Allow users to sign in to your Vanilla community using their Salesforce credentials.
SAML SSO
Allows Vanilla to SSO to SAML 2.0 compliant identity providers.
ShareThis 🛑
This addon has been deprecated as of February 2022.
Adds ShareThis () buttons below discussions.
Signatures
Enables users to create custom signatures that display after their comments.
Sitemaps
Creates an XML sitemap based on .
Split / Merge
Allows moderators with discussion edit permissions to split and merge discussions.
Spoof
Administrators can "spoof" (i.e., impersonate) other users, meaning they temporarily sign in as that user. This is a helpful tool to troubleshoot issues someone may be experiencing.
Steam Connect
Allows users to sign in to your site using their Steam account.
📝 NOTE: This requires the OpenID plugin to be enabled first.
Stop Auto Draft
🛑 This addon was deprecated in February, 2023.
- It has been replaced with a configurable Rule on the Dashboard > Settings > Forum > Posting page. Toggle this Rule ON/OFF to control whether drafts are auto-saved in your community.
- Refer to the article below to learn more.
Stop Forum Spam
Is your Vanilla community experiencing issues with spam? This integrates the spammer blacklist from stopforumspam.com to mitigate the issue.
Subcommunities
A subcommunity is one method of dividing a community into multiple "mini communities" (often by language or product). Subcommunities are a great way to manage a community in multiple languages on the same instance.
Troll Management
A "troll" is a user who spends their time intentionally starting fights within a community, upsetting other users, posting off-topic comments, etc.
This addon allows you to mark users as trolls, making it so that only they can see their comments and discussions. This typically results in them no longer posting or leaving the community altogether.
Twitter Social Connect
Allows users to sign in to your site using their Twitter account.
Vanilla Analytics
Track important trends in your community and chart them in a customizable dashboard.
Vanilla jsConnect
Enables custom single sign-on (SSO) solutions that can be same-domain or cross-domain.
Vanillicon
Vanillicon is one of five options for user Avatars. These are fun default user icons (avatars) from vanillicon.com.
Vanilla Pop 🚧
This addon is in Maintenance.
Vanilla Pop allows you to interact with your community through email.
With Vanilla Pop you can:
- Reply to an emailed discussion on the community or through email.
- Have conversations through email, but keep a record in Vanilla.
Walk Through
Allows other plugins to display custom tours to administrators.
Warnings & Notes
Allows moderators to warn users and add private notes to their profiles. This addon is used to help moderate activity across your community.
Zendesk
Allows you to:
- Link your Zendesk account to your Vanilla user profile.
- Submit users’ discussions and comments as tickets to your hosted Zendesk.
Higher Logic Product Life Cycle
