Illustration by Greg Storey
Issue: Confusing process to add a new user
Running a network with thousands of legal bloggers across hundreds of different firms and companies isn’t an easy task. One of the hardest parts is managing all the user accounts of each author while avoiding accidental misattribution. Sometimes, there are multiple users on a given platform with the same first and last name and very similar usernames.
This is one of the most common issues our success team is contacted about. At LexBlog, we aim to be the kind of company that doesn’t let a problem fester.
So, how can we prevent a blog manager at Firm A from accidentally adding a user from Firm B with a similar name to their blog and misattributing a post to them? Up until now, our solution for this problem has been less than ideal. When someone wanted to add a new user to their site, they first had to know if the user already existed on our network. This is not easy information to figure out if you don’t know it already.
If the user does exist, they have to be a user on one of the same sites as the individual trying to add them, or the adding individual will receive an error message and not be able to proceed. This will prevent someone adding a user from a totally different firm to their site, but in the event that it is the correct person—just not on any of the same sites—the whole process stops in its tracks.
Since we are always trying to streamline our backend experience, we are pleased to announce an entirely redesigned “Add a User” experience that should make adding a new user to a site and ready to blog a much less confusing process.
Solution: Multi-step form
Now, when you are adding a user, the only thing you need to get started is their email address.
Once you submit the email, we’ll check our database to determine if a user with that address already exists on our network. If they don’t, you will see a form to add all of their information and get them set up with an account. It will even suggest an available username for you based on their email address.
If the user does exist on the network already, they no longer need to be on one of the same sites as you in order to be added on to the current one. This problem has been solved by allowing you to send an invitation to the new user and have them join your sit. Now, if there are no memberships shared between you and the new user, you can still add them to your site, they just have to accept the invitation before they are added.
By requiring the invited user to accept the invitation themselves, we avoid the possibility of a user accidentally being added to a blog that they did not intend to join and potentially having a post misattributed to them.
This new process is live on our platform now, and we would appreciate any feedback our users have on the process! Feel free to email us or create a support ticket if there are any issues or things that you think could be improved in the future for this process.
