Owners and admins add people to an organisation by inviting them by email. The invite carries a link that is valid for 7 days. Someone without an HCode account creates one from the link; someone with an account signs in and joins.
Send an invite
- Go to Members in the sidebar.
- Click Invite member.
- Enter the person's Email address and pick a Role: Admin, Member or Viewer. See Roles and permissions.
- Click Send invite.
HCode emails the invite with the subject "You've been invited to (organisation name) on hcode" and lists it under Invitations as pending. If the email could not be sent, HCode says "Invite created. Copy the link below." and you can share the link yourself with Copy link.
An invite can't make someone the owner. The owner is the HostAfrica client panel account that pays for the organisation; see The owner.
Seats
Your plan sets how many team members the organisation can have, and every pending invite counts as a seat until it is accepted, revoked or expires. When all seats are taken, HCode says "Team member limit reached. Upgrade to invite more members." Revoke an unused invite or remove a member to free a seat, or see Plans and billing.
Manage pending invites
Each pending invite under Invitations has three controls:
- Copy link copies the invite link to share another way.
- Resend emails the same link again. It does not extend the 7 days.
- Revoke cancels the invite; the link stops working.
To give a pending invite a fresh 7 days or change its role, invite the same address again with Invite member. HCode updates the existing invite and sends it again.
Accepted, revoked and expired invites move to Past invitations.
Sending limits
To stop invites being used to send unwanted email, HCode limits how often they go out. Every send counts, whether from Send invite, Resend or inviting the same address again.
| Limit | Value | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Time between sends of one invite | 5 minutes | "Please wait (seconds)s before sending this invite again." |
| Sends per invite | 5 | "This invite has been sent the maximum number of times. Revoke it and invite again if needed." |
| Invites one address can receive | 5 a day | "This address has received too many invites today. Try again tomorrow." |
| Sends per organisation | 20 an hour | "Too many invites sent from this organisation in the last hour. Try again later." |
| Sends per person | 50 a day | "You have sent too many invites today. Try again tomorrow." |
Accept an invite
The person you invite opens the link from the email, or the one you shared. What happens next depends on whether they already have an HCode account.
Without an HCode account
- The link opens Create an account, with the invited email address filled in and fixed.
- Enter a Name, a Password of at least 8 characters and Confirm password.
- Click sign up.
- Sign in with that email and password. They are already a member of your organisation.
The account is always for the address the invite was sent to; an invite can't be used to sign up a different address.
With an HCode account
- On Create an account, choose the sign in link at the bottom of the form.
- Sign in with the email address the invite was sent to.
HCode adds them to the organisation and opens it. They should sign in within an hour of opening the link, or open it again.
If they are already signed in, the link opens a page titled "Join (organisation name)" that shows which account they are signed in as. Clicking Join (organisation name) adds them and opens the organisation; Not now leaves without joining. Opening the link on its own doesn't add them to anything.
An invite is only accepted by an account with the invited email address. Signed in with a different address, the page says "This invitation was sent to a different email address. Sign out, then open the link again and sign in with the address it was sent to."
When the link doesn't work
- "This invitation link is invalid or has expired. Ask the person who invited you to send a new one." means the invite was revoked, already used or older than 7 days.
- "Your invite has expired or is no longer valid. Ask your team for a new one. If you already have an hcode account, sign in instead." appears on Create an account when the invite stopped being valid while the form was open, or the address already has an account.
- "(organisation name) has no free seats. Ask the person who invited you to free one up or upgrade the plan." on Create an account, or "This team has no free seats. Ask the person who invited you to free a seat or upgrade their plan." when joining with an existing account, means every seat is taken.