How to make sign-up invitation only?

Question

Using Meteor accounts (and accounts-ui) is there an easy way to make new user sign-ups invitation only? For example by providing an invitation link or an invitation code.

The only thing related I could find in the Meteor documentation is Meteor.sendEnrollmentEmail but it doesn't solve my problem.

Answer 1

You can do this with the built in package, but I found it alot easier and powerful to roll a simple implementation.

You'll need to:

• Create a collection, eg UserInvitations to contain the invites to become a user.
• Create UI for making UserInvitations / insert some using meteor mongo

• Using iron-router or similar create a route, eg:

  Router.map ->
    @route 'register',
      path: '/register/:invitationId'
      template: 'userRegistration'
      data: ->
        return {
          invitationId: @params.invitationId
        }
      onBeforeAction: ->
        if Meteor.userId()?
          Router.go('home')
        return
  

• When the form in userRegistration is submitted - call

  Accounts.createUser({invitationId: Template.instance().data.invitationId /*,.. other fields */})
  

• On the server, make an Accounts.onCreateUser hook to pass through the invitationId from options to the user

  Accounts.onCreateUser(function(options, user){
    user.invitationId = options.invitationId
    return user;
  });
  

• Also, on the server make an Accounts.validateNewUser hook to check the invitationId and mark the invitation as used

  Accounts.validateNewUser(function(user){
    check(user.invitationId, String);
    // validate invitation
    invitation = UserInvitations.findOne({_id: user.invitationId, used: false});
    if (!invitation){
      throw new Meteor.Error(403, "Please provide a valid invitation");
    }
    // prevent the token being re-used.
    UserInvitations.update({_id: user.invitationId, used: false}, {$set: {used: true}});
  
    return true
  });
  

Now, only users that have a valid unused invitationId can register.

EDIT: Oct 2014 - Updated to use meteor 0.9.x API's