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A complete ASP.NET Help Desk & Knowledge Management Solution

InstantForum.NET is a robust, feature packed, high performance ASP.NET & SQL Server discussion forum designed to allow you to quickly & easily create, customize & maintain online communities or offer internal collaboration within your company.

InstantForum.NET offers unparalleled control over your community, our comprehensive administrator control panel allows you to easily manage every aspect of your community.

Automated moderation options & AJAX enabled bulk moderation tools ensure your moderators can quickly & easily manage large communities.

  • Build online communities to discuss your products, services or interests
  • Let your users interact often generating fresh ideas or identifying common issues
  • Encourage peer-to-peer support allowing your users to help one-another
  • Gather valuable user feedback & prioritize ideas through forum polls
  • Support your users sharing solutions to common problems within your forum
Role-based permissions allow administrators to control which forums are visible based on the roles associated with users. Our innovative permission sets feature provides unparalleled configurative control over the features & posting options available within visible forums.

InstantForum.NEt makes it easy for developers to provide a seamless single sign-on experience between your existing ASP.NET based forms authentication web site and InstantForum.NET.

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Create skins to match the look & feel of your company web site. ASP.NET master pages allow you to quickly wrap designs around your forum.


Our mature public .NET API allows developers to extend & add unique functionality to suite any specific business requirements you may have.


Our poweful plug-in architecture allows developers to extend InstantForum.NET without modifying the core code ensuing you can easily upgrade. .


Our off-the-selve self-hosted licenses start from $199 per URL. We can also expertly host & manage your help desk from $19.99 USD per month.
Feature Highlights

Lighting Quick User Interface = Great User Experience

InstantForum.NET 2010 includes many improvements around the user interface to make it easier & more responsive for your users to b participate or just browse within your community. Several key areas within 2010 have been updated to use our new JSON based web services API to quickly update only areas of the page that need refreshing. Key UI elements are now built up dynamically on the client side (via JavaScript) with the server simply responsible for returning the data needed to populate the controls.
Comprehensive Admin Control Panel

As an administrator within InstantForum.NET you can manage every aspect of your community using the secure Admin Only Control Panel. From here you can create & manage your forums, set-up moderators and manage your members, groups & permissions. As an administrqator you can also use the bulk message feature to send bulk private messages or emails to your community members.
Improved AJAX enabled Moderation Tools

With the 2010 release we've now updated all moderation options (approving, moving, pinning topics etc) to take advantage of AJAx allowing your forum moderators to now much more quickly manage the forums on a day to day basis. Moderators can also easily update topic titles directly from within a forum index without having to go into each topic and edit individually.
OpenID Authentication (Optional)

Make it easier for your users to get started within your community. Visitors can login using an existing Google, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL or OpenId account. You can of course also still create user accounts directly within the forum and again we've made improvements for 2010 to simplify the registration process reducing this now to a single page with only four required fields.

Light weight cross browser, WYSIWYG Editor

The WYSIWYG editor used when posting within InstantForum.NET has been re-written from the ground-up for 2010 to offer improved performance and a much more consistant cross browser posting experience. The new editor now also makes it very easy to embed YouTube videos directly into forum posts. The editor will also downgrade to a standard text field if JavaScript is completely disabled in the browser.
Simple, 2 click banning process

With InstantForum.NET 2010 administrators & moderators can now ban troublesome members or anonymous posters directly from the forum front-end. We've added a simple banning menu to make it a 2 click process to ban members & delete spammers or abusive members. Banning members will ensure there IP address is banned preventing them from creating a new account.
Single Sign On / ASP.NET forms authentication

If you own an existing web site using ASP.NET forms authentication InstantForum.NET 2010 makes it very easy to provide a single sign on experience between your existing web site and your fresh installation of InstantForum.NET 2010. We offer an easy to use API and working integration examples. For further information please read our integration documentation.
Search Engine Friendly

Whilst providing a dynamic AJAX driven user interface you can of course be confident InstantForum.NET 2010 will still be indexed by all popular search engines. We use a simple URL structure (no query strings) to ensure bots can easily spider content. Topic and forum titles are always used as the title for the page to further improve SEO.
Customizable Themes & Unique Skins

InstantForum.NET offers support for multiple skins. Each skin can have a unique layout or visual style. A designer friendly, CSS based approach for layout & styling within skins. Developers can easily wrap existing web site designs around InstantForum.NET using standard ASP.NET master pages.
Tagging System

To help improve post discoverability you can now add tags to all posts within InstantForum.NET. Users can navigate tags either as a list of most popular or as a tag cloud in alphabetical order. You can also use the forum search to search for posts with a specific tag. If your search term matches any of the tags associated with posts those posts will be ranked above others as it's likely posted tagged with your search term are most relevant.
Follow friends within your community

You can now follow individual members within your community. This will notify you via email if your friends post within the forum. We display the number of followers you have on your profile page & the most followed members on your members page. Hopefully this will encourage members within your community to fight for the top spot.
Share with Facebook & Twitter

You can now easily share any post within the forum on either Facebook or Twitter with just a single click. You'll find two small buttons below each post whih allow you to tweet or add the post to Facebook.

Full-Text, Quick Search

InstantForum.NET 2010 offers support for SQL Server full-text search to ensure your search always remains quick regardless of the size of your community. This also allows us to sort your search results by the relevancy of the search terms within topics. All our search queries & database indexes have been highly optimized to ensure the fastest possible search regardless of the amount of data in your system.
Scale to meet the demands of yourcommunity

InstantForum.NET 2010 follows several best practices to improve support for load-balanced environments. We store any required session data within the SQL Server database avoiding the ASP.NET session object to minimize load-balancing overhead.
Comprehensive .NET managed API

We've improved many areas of our code API to make it more intuitive for developers to navigate around our namespaces and take advantage of our API from within existing projects. Developers leveraging our API from an existing project will find create, update, delete & select methods to work with all objects within InstantForum.NET.
New Web Services API

Our new web services API makes it very easy for developers to add a simple web reference to an existing project to query data held within InstantForum.NET. Results for all web services are provided in both JSON & XML format allowing developers to work with results both server & client side. We provice client-side proxy classes developers can use to easily work with JSON data returned via the forum web services.
Pushing the envelope of performance

Every aspect of InstantForum.NET has been written with performance & scalability in mind. All server side & client side code is highly optimized to ensure a minimal server foot print and light-weght responsive page load times for clients. A well designed database schema & well written stored procedures ensure indexes on columns are leveraged for optimal query performance. Data is cached i momory and only requested again from the database if the data changes.
Extensible / Plug-In Framework

InstantForum.NET provide a plug-in framework allowing developers add additional functionality without modifying the core product code. This allows you to keep your InstantForum.NET installation right up to date without worrying about losing your medications. For example if you wanted to capture unique data during the forum registration process you can use our custom registration form plug-in to capture this data. When we release an update to the core product your plug-in will continue to work and you won't need to re-apply any changes to the forum files.
Search Engine Ready

InstantForum.NET is optimized to ensure your community can easily be indexed by all major search engines. URLs are human-friendly, descriptive and keyword-rich increasing the rank within search engines.



InstantForum.NET produces light-weight, strict XHTML 1.1 & CSS 2.0 W3C validated mark-up. InstantKB.NET has been tested on all major browsers to offer complete cross-browser support.

Browser Icons

Visual Studio.NET Compatible

InstantKB.NET 2010 will work great with either the latest Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio.NET 2008. Express editions & LightSwitch are also supported.     Developers can modify or customize InstantKB.NET from within there favourite development environment.

Vidual Studio.NET Icons
Active Directory Support

You can integrate InstantForum.NET into your existing active directory authentication system to provide a seamless authentication experience inside or outside your corporate firewall. To learn more about our active directory module please click here
Whats New

To learn more about what's new with our latest InstantForum.NET 2010 release please click here.
All Features

Ease of Use

  • Familiar InstallShield Installation Wizard
  • Eloquent Intuitive Design
  • Comprehensive Web Based Administration

High Performance

  • Designed from the ground-up for massive performance & scalability
  • Customizable data caching (greatly reducing database trips)
  • SQL Server parameterized stored procedures, Well designed tables, optimized indexes & fk constraints
  • Strongly typed data objects & custom data collections (No heavy, slow System.Data.DataSet)
  • Benchmarked paging algorithm supporting hundreds of thousands of pages & millions of records
  • Email queuing system, emails are queued and polled in the background at set intervals
  • Unique page compression feature (smaller pages, saves overall bandwidth)
  • ASP.NET Viewstate is disabled for 99.9% of pages (smaller pages, less serialization)
  • 100% compiled, managed .NET assemblies (No COM or other dependences)

Highly Scalable

  • Unique SQL Server based state management (no dependency on the session or application objects)
  • Well defined architecture (separate presentation, application & data layers)
  • Takes advantage of data caching to minimize database requests

Well Designed

  • Object Orientated Architecture
  • Implements many best practices (singleton objects, data factory, facade objects, custom data collections)
  • Over 40 standard server controls (TextBox, DataGrid, Repeater etc) have custom implementations
  • Over 70 custom server controls (PanelBar, SimpleMenu, WYSIWYG, BreadCrumb, etc) can be reused
  • Takes advantage of the InstantASP.Common base library and shared InstantASP authentication model
  • Enhanced error handling, choose if you want to receive an email for errors or simply log exceptions
  • URL Rewriting ensures forum addresses are search engine friendly and easier to remember & type

Standards Compliant

  • Strict XHTML 1.1 W3C validated semantic markup
  • CSS 2.1 W3C validated style sheets
  • Web 2.0 fluid CSS based layout - no nested tables, screen reader friendly
  • Confirms to W3C web accessability guidelines 1.0

Cross Browser Compatible

  • Tested with Internet Explorer 6+, FireFox 2+, Opera 9+
  • There are known layout issues with IE8 beta & Safari 3.1 which are working to address

Developer Friendly

  • Integrates with Microsoft® Visual Studio.NET 2003 (or above)
  • Intuitive API with intellisense support within Microsoft® Visual Studio.NET
  • Fully commented, clean structured code with class reference documentation
  • Unique naming convention used for database stored procedures & tables.
  • Follows many familiar Microsoft patterns and practices examples
  • Full product source code provided with Developer Licenses

Multi-Lingual

  • Localize every aspect of the forum (UI, Email Templates, Dictionary)
  • Drag & Drop Language Packs (automatically detected, no configuration required)

Security & Roles

  • Role based permissions provide control over which forums, topics & events are visible
  • Unique overrideable "Permission Sets" provide comprehensive control over available features
  • Protection on all user input from malicious code (injection attacks, cross-site scripting)
  • Ban abusive, problem members or limit their permissions within the forum
  • Ban problem IP addresses from any further new registrations or login attempts

Permission Sets

  • Unique Permission Sets feature offers unrivaled control over board permissions & features
  • Over 120 configurable permission set options
  • Permission sets can be associated to any member group or overridden when associated to a specific member
  • Permission sets can be assigned to member groups within a forum, controlling what a group can access within a specific forum

Skinning & Template Driven

  • Portable skinning model
  • Each skin can have a completely unique layout and visual appearance
  • Drag and Drop Skins (automatically detected, no configuration required)
  • Easily create & edit skins within the admin area
  • Assign skins & wrappers globally or to specific forums
  • Unique EmotIcon & MessageIcon collections can be associated with each skin
  • Wrappers can be used to easily wrap header and footer HTML around any skin
  • Takes advantage of standard ASP.NET 2.0 master pages.

Forum Features

  • Unlimited number of forums, sub-forums, groups, events, posts & polls
  • Only forums associated with the visitors current member groups will be accessible
  • RSS feeds available for all forums
  • Redirect Forums for linking to external information
  • Subscribe to forums and receive email notifications of new posts
  • Track read forums and topics within the database
  • Optional admin defined forum notes, for providing information within forums
  • Each forum can be customized using a unique skin or wrapper
  • Support for Closed forums (no new posts)
  • Auto-complete username textbox making it very easy to send private messages
  • Define default sort preferences and display options for each forum
  • Optionally exclude forums from searches
  • Recent and popular posts options within main navigation
  • Easily sort forums or groups within the admin area
  • Easily propagate member group, skin or wrapper changes to all child forums
  • Each member group can have a unique permission set within any specific forum

Topic Features

  • Flat and threaded topic views
  • Rate topics within forums
  • RSS feeds available for all topics within each forum
  • Printer friendly versions of topics
  • Support for nested quoted replies
  • Posts can be reported to the forum admin or any available forum moderators
  • Members can edit or delete existing posts based on admin defined permissions
  • Subscribe to topics and receive email notifications of new replies
  • Email topics to other forum members or external email addresses
  • Message icons can be associated with posts

Poll Features

  • Single or multiple choice polls
  • Administrators or moderators can easily close polls
  • Graphical view of poll results with total vote count

Post Features

  • Familiar Word® like, WYSIWYG editor or standard IFCode editor (based on browser or permission settings)
  • Multi-lingual spell checker with ability to preview post before submitting
  • Upload images from you hard-drive directly into posts using the WYSIWYG editor
  • Multiple attachments supported per post, configurable attachment types and upload permissions
  • Expand or collapse posting area when working with posts, have this remembered for next time
  • Admin defined permissions control what members can post, ie IFCode, Images, HTML, JavaScript, EmotIcons & more...

Search Features

  • Optional SQL Server Full-Text Search (both FreeTextTable & ContainsTable are supported)
  • Boolean or natural language searches with inflectional (drive = drove) and relevance ranking
  • Keyword highlighting, Highly optimized TSQL & full-text search queries
  • Ability for admin to define ignored search terms and maximum search string length
  • Limit the number of possible search results for each member group or a specific member
  • Search flood control for each member group or a specific member
  • Display search results as topics or posts

>Calendar Features

  • Single Day, Ranged and Recurring Events
  • Monthly and Weekly calendar views
  • Define colors for events on the calendar to easily identify important events
  • Ability to control show or hide events for certain member groups
  • Optionally birthdays displayed on calendar
  • RSS feed of all latest events posted to the Calendar

Member Features

  • Comprehensive dedicated control panel for each member
  • Assign members a primary group and multiple secondary groups (controlling which content is visible)
  • Assign a dedicated permission set to any member to override any other permission set
  • Define permission sets for member groups or a specific member (controlling which features are available)
  • Members activity displayed throughout forum (optional anonymous login feature for members)
  • Easily configure which member group new members or member awaiting activation should be placed into
  • Ability to define custom member level tags and / or images for each member group or a specific member
  • Easily activate any members awaiting approval within the admin area
  • Members can customize board language, skin, time zone, daylight saving time & many other options
  • Personal Avatar, Signature & Profile Photograph
  • Fully searchable, sort-able members list with ability to restrict access
  • Who's On list displays anonymous and registered visitors with current board activity

Private Message Features

  • Private messaging with attachments between members
  • RSS feed for each private message folder showing latest posts
  • Send private messages to multiple recipients
  • Organize and store private messages within custom folders
  • Buddy and ignore list for private messages
  • Private message storage limit defined within permission sets
  • Ability to limit access to private message features or option to completely disable

Login / Registration Features

  • Easily configure registration mode (Automated, Confirmation Email or Admin Approval)
  • Configure default member groups for new members or member awaiting activation
  • Optional COPPA support during registration
  • Optional Terms & Conditions during registration
  • Username or email-address can be specified as primary login detail
  • Implements ASP.NET forms authentication with encrypted authentication ticket
  • Well designed, documented reusable authentication model

Moderation Features

  • Support for moderated or un-moderated forums
  • Assign members as moderators to specific forums
  • Comprehensive control over features available to moderators within each forum
  • Inline post approval for moderators (see how a post relates within the thread)
  • Inline Ajax based topic editing within forum indexes, no need for post backs
  • Easily bulk Move posts from one forum to another
  • Easily bulk open / close topics within a forum
  • Easily bulk pin / unpin topics within a forum
  • Easily bulk delete topics & posts within a forum
  • Moderators can optionally close Polls
  • Easily enforce or bypass moderation for any member group or specific member
  • Edits are optionally tracked & logged
  • Optional email confirmations during moderation process

Administration Features

  • Comprehensive control over every aspect of the forum (over 600 admin options)
  • Manage Forums, Categories, Members, Groups, Application Settings, Skins, Attachments & much more
  • Bulk email or private message forum members, refine mailing list with various search filters
  • Edit over 20 optimization options to further enhance performance for very active boards
  • Scheduled Tasks allow custom server-side code to run at scheduled intervals (automatically prune messages etc)
  • Easily recount topics, posts, forum, members or private messages if you manually import or change any data
  • Ability to execute TSQL statements against the database or shrink the transaction log & indexes if required
  • Preview & delete emails sent from the board waiting within the email queue
  • General diagnostics information & database table statistics

Licensing & Support Features

Try our online InstantForum.NET Demo...

To access the admin control panels please login using the account details below. Once logged in a small "Admin CP" or "Staff CP" link will be available in the top right corner.

Email: admin@admin.com
Password: admin

Purchase InstantForum.NET

You can purchase & download InstantForum.NET securely via our web site.

Self Hosted Licenses

Our self-hosted / on-premise licenses from $199 USD ideal if you would like to host InstantForum.NET on your own servers. To order our self hosted licenses please use the link below…

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Hosted / SAS Licenses

We also offer a fully managed / software as a service model with pricing starting from $19.99 per month. We'll maintain and ensure your InstantForum.NET installing is always optimized & unto date with the latest bug & security updates.

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