Ok, so here is the problem:

Invisionboard has a promotion option that will allow automatic promotion to a group if you have a specific number of posts. The module of course has this as well. However, it doesn't update the XOOPS users group, only the IB users group. Any idea of how to make it do both?

Well, XOOPS has almost the same feature right? So use the same counts on both systems? So that both get updated at the same time.

Yes the counts can be set to match.

In my setup all user account details are done through IPB. I did overwrite the XOOPS userinfo.php, edituser.php and user.php files, with the files supplied with the module so now there is "No rest of Xoops" as far as user details and promotions are concerned. When user's click on any "Username" Link throughout the system they are taken to the users IPB account details. An advantage of this is you can set up custom user fields through IPB.

I took out the "Edit Account" link in user menu, so when users click on "View Account" they are taken to the ipb account details and can edit there account there, they never see the XOOPS account form.

I can also rename groups to match the XOOPS groups, ie. "Webmaster" etc. IPB totally handles the promotions etc. One way to go anyway..

Edit: as a matter of interest, I set up a group called "Webmasters" in ipb, and added a user to that group in ipb. The user appeared in the "Webmaster" list in the "site info" block in Xoops.

well after staring at it for a while, the problem seems to be that both systems have groups. When the promotion part comes around to promote a person due to a specific number of posts, it updates them according to the invision group table, not the XOOPS group table

something tells me this isn't going to be a problem easily solved