Friday, October 19, 2018 #62770 Tyler K. Flexible platform that allowed us to quickly get a customized Community up and running Pros: Vanilla has allowed us to customize almost every aspect of the Community experience: content organization, moderation, additions of new spaces when the need arises, gamification - all of these components can be built out and tweaked by a team without coding experience. The ability for our developers to own and push changes to the code allows the next level of customization we needed to get our community off the ground. Cons: The analytics is one place that is lacking a bit. Their advanced analytics dashboard gives insights into some useful metrics but doesn't allow any form of filtering (except for the date) or examining side by side comparisons of different user groups / content sets. The analytics API gives a bit more useful information but it still takes a bit of work to really answer some of the more complicated aspects of the value the community is providing to the organization. Did you find this review helpful?
Friday, October 19, 2018 #62771 Tyler K. Flexible platform that allowed us to quickly get a customized Community up and running Pros: Vanilla has allowed us to customize almost every aspect of the Community experience: content organization, moderation, additions of new spaces when the need arises, gamification - all of these components can be built out and tweaked by a team without coding experience. The ability for our developers to own and push changes to the code allows the next level of customization we needed to get our community off the ground. Cons: The analytics is one place that is lacking a bit. Their advanced analytics dashboard gives insights into some useful metrics but doesn't allow any form of filtering (except for the date) or examining side by side comparisons of different user groups / content sets. The analytics API gives a bit more useful information but it still takes a bit of work to really answer some of the more complicated aspects of the value the community is providing to the organization. Did you find this review helpful?
Friday, June 8, 2018 #62767 Sarah G We have had a great experience so far with Vanilla. The customer service particularly is exceptional Pros: Moving to Vanilla was a great decision for us as we were provided with many more features, customization areas, and settings than we had with our previous forum software. We have been able to implement our own themes, enable plugins, add moderation rules and permissions and also apply stronger security than we had previously. The migration process with Vanilla was very smooth and we have had contacts within Vanilla to ask questions throughout the process. Once we had migrated, it was relatively simple to get everything set up as most of the data which was set up on our staging site, was transferred over to the live site. The users love our new forum, preferring the different options available to them such as private messaging, reporting posts and being able to edit their posts in more detail than before. Did you find this review helpful?
Friday, June 1, 2018 #62774 Erin H We've been using Vanilla Forums software since 2014 and have been extremely pleased and impressed. Pros: Vanilla Forums software is very user friendly for forum members and administrators. Our community has grown considerably since we adopted this software because it fosters a fantastic online environment. We love the functionality. Our forum is at the heart of our business and we wouldn't trust it to just anyone. Vanilla Forums' customer support is responsive and reliable. You'll love Vanilla Forums! Cons: There isn't anything that we don't like about this software. We love that Vanilla Forums continues to add new functionality and raises the bar each time. Did you find this review helpful?
Friday, June 1, 2018 #62769 Paul C. Vanilla is an excellent, easy to use but versatile forum software system Pros: Vanilla software is incredibly easy to use but with lots of customisation available. It also features a variety of handy plugins to expand your forum capability further including the 'Mark as Troll' plugin which is hands down the best feature of any forum I have used. Managing categories and forum groups is a straightforward task and the features can easily be explained to new staff members so they can get up and running with the software without any lengthy training period. Cons: The only flaw I have experienced with Vanilla is in countering spam farms (Not bots). There is no option to enforce a captcha for posts which would help in some circumstances. However, Vanilla makes cleaning up spam very quick and easy and you can use user roles and forum settings to limit the impact spam can have on the forums, switching it from a problem to a mild inconvenience. Did you find this review helpful?
Friday, April 20, 2018 #62768 Sue C. Vanilla has been great from initial setup/launch to daily use & support. We're very happy Pros: Vanilla is easy to use and navigate, and the tools/options/add-ons are explained thoroughly in the dashboard. This was very helpful to me, especially in the beginning when I was fairly new to forum software. When we were just getting started, having several design options/layouts to choose from helped us get the look we wanted. The webinars I've watched were very helpful, and I've downloaded and read just about every eBook Vanilla has published (from their resources) to get advice and roadmaps for different aspects of managing a forum. Technical support has been outstanding throughout. Whenever we have an issue large or small, I can always count on a quick response and a solution or at least an explanation. Did you find this review helpful?
Thursday, April 19, 2018 #62772 Jorge M Vanilla has satisfied all of our Community Forum needs for over 5 years and has yet to disappoint. Pros: The simplicity of the overall functionality, as it is clear on how to navigate and manage all aspects of the software. I began managing our company's Community Forum without prior knowledge or experience. The ease that comes with Vanilla, has allowed me to gain the confidence in my ability to learn, grow, and excel as a Community Manager. Cons: I believe that Vanilla can become even better if they improve their analytics system which at times does not reflect accurate data and appears to be buggy. Although, to be fair this feature is relatively new on their end so I'm sure this will become up to their overall standard of providing flawless service. Overall: Experience in managing a Community with thousands of users and creating an engaging ecosystem for our customers to call home. Did you find this review helpful?
Friday, December 11, 2015 #62773 Jacob C Good forum software with great customer service Comments: I'm a moderator on a community that switched to Vanilla three years ago from a heavily hacked-together vBulletin. I was initially ambivalent about the switch - even though our old software had become hopelessly inadequate to our needs, it was super-tailored to the needs of our community - but Vanilla won me over, primarily on the strength of their support staff, who are not only pleasant and helpful, but are engaged in the community in a real way. As participants in our forum, they've come to know our needs as well as we do, and not only have all our old favorite features come back in newer, spiffier implementations, in a couple instances they have added entirely new features that addressed needs I didn't even know I had but now couldn't live without. Did you find this review helpful?