If you want to send an mass email to ask users to join a community and respond to a particular thread, it works great so long as the user isn’t existing. If they’re existing, they get an error that says:
Sorry! This invitation is intended for new users, who do not already have an existing account.
This is not helpful. If they’re an existing user, it should add them to any groups indicated by the link and redirect them to the topic specified.
I know @tobiaseigen has worked on this before and might have suggestions. Also, you’re sure this reflects invites sent on the current, released version of Discourse?
This does sound like the current functioning of the invite system. As the error says, it is not intended for interacting with existing users - only new users. If you want to add existing members to a group, you want to do that via the groups page or their user admin page.
What is your process exactly and why are you sending invites to existing users? Is this a problem that actually affects your users or just something you noticed when you yourself clicked on your own invitation link to test it out?
It’s true that this is not the friendliest, most inviting response. @dan what do you think? Can we just send existing users to a specified topic and add them to any groups? I can imagine this being a handy way to reach both existing users and new users at the same time to announce a new topic or start a new group.
If not, we can just change this message to make it clear and to offer a pathway instead of a deadend, e.g. by contacting site staff.
The use case is that I want to send a mass email for a specific event that people have signed up for. In that email, I want to invite people to respond to a particular thread in our community.
The problem is that I have to figure out in advance who is already part of the community and who is not because the link only works for the latter group (the former group gets the error message).
I understand this isn’t your intent for the invite system, but I think it’s unnecessarily limited. If they’re already in the community, add them to the new groups as specified in the invite (if needed) and just direct them to the thread. I don’t see any reason they need to get an error message.
Is this a public topic, or a topic behind category security? If it is a public topic, why not mail people a link to the topic?
That’s what I ended up having to do, but (a) it doesn’t then encourage users to register (which I want) and (b) it doesn’t allow me to add them to a group.
There is automatic encouragement of users to register if they browse the site for a while, e.g.
This is built in and happens automatically.
If you need people to be a member of a group to see the topic due to category / group permissions, that’s a different issue of course.
That only works if they come back. I am intentionally forcing them to register so they get alerted.
Plus it doesn’t solve my grouping issue. And everyone keeps just ignoring my actual suggestion that there’s no reason this link cycle shouldn’t just work for existing users.
Right, we’re just not generally fans of forcing users to do things 
That said, I completely agree the error message could be better – and if the group is required to see the topic, the merging of functionality for existing users can make sense.
Obviously they aren’t actually being forced to do it. If they don’t want to join, fine, but I’m losing people because they visit once and don’t sign up and never get notifications. And these aren’t random people; they’ve signed up for an event that specifically includes using our community for engagement. I’m trying to help them by getting them to sign up the first time using this process.
But the bottom line: the current flow does not work for existing users at all and I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t. Sure, you guys could change the error message, but that negates the whole point of having a link that can not only encourage signups, add them to a group, and send them to a specific topic (functionality you created) when it just … breaks in the middle of that process if you happen to be someone already in the system.
Ah, I see, that was important context I was missing from the original request. So you have a giant list of emails, but you don’t know which of those emails already has an account?
That makes sense, we’ll see if we can improve the invite system to better handle this case.
It seems to me that if a line in the CSV file matches an existing account, they should also get a notification email and directed to the provided topic (if specified), as well as have that existing account added to any groups specified.
Indeed! I highlighted this issue last year soon after the new invite system was rolled out:
I’d love to see it addressed as it is a major hiccough in the quest to bring people into our communities.
Vielen Dank @Monte_Kalisch @nathank @downey! Erstaunlich zu wissen, dass diese Idee nicht nur existierte, bis Community-Mitglieder sie teilten, vielen Dank! Und danke an das Discourse-Team für die Unterstützung. Ich hoffe, diese spezielle Funktion wird mit den neuen Änderungen am Einladungssystem nicht zurückgenommen 
.
@tobiaseigen, das ist genau das, womit wir uns jetzt mit der Seite für Einladungslinks auseinandersetzen, die keinen Anmeldebutton in der oberen Kopfzeile für bestehende Benutzer hat. Es verwirrt bestehende Benutzer, ein Formular zum ‘Registrieren’ zu sehen, anstatt eine Option ‘Wenn Sie bereits ein Konto haben, melden Sie sich bitte an’ 
(No 'sign in' option in the accept invitation page, only the signup form is shown - #12 by gassim).
Ja, eine Korrektur ist unterwegs, ich glaube, um einen winzigen ‘Anmelden’-Text am unteren Rand der Seite hinzuzufügen, aber es wird für bestehende Benutzer nicht klar sein (besonders wenn sie überhaupt “neu” sind (d. h. bereits registriert, aber mit der Plattform nicht vertraut) oder wenn sie nicht sehr technikaffin sind). Die erwartete Reaktion ist, dass bestehende Benutzer denken werden, der Einladungslink sei nur für “neue Benutzer” zur Registrierung, oder sie werden auf das Homepage-Logo klicken, anstatt auf den winzigen ‘Anmelden’-Text am Ende der Seite. Das Problem ist, dass, wenn sie die winzige Anmeldeoption am Ende des ‘Registrierungs’-Formulars nicht sehen, sie nicht zum beabsichtigten Thema weitergeleitet werden.
Ich denke, das Ausblenden des Anmeldebuttons wird für bestehende Benutzer nicht hilfreich sein. Ich glaube auch nicht, dass neue Benutzer den ‘Anmelden’-Button am oberen Rand der Seite anstelle eines ‘Registrieren’-Formulars in Betracht ziehen werden.
Dies wurde sortiert – Personen werden jetzt nahtlos zu Gruppen hinzugefügt, unabhängig davon, ob sie bereits Benutzer sind oder nicht.
Was bleibt, ist die Unfähigkeit, vertrauenswürdigen Personen die Umgehung des Genehmigungsprozesses zu ermöglichen. Es ist derzeit alles oder nichts:
