Community Forums

The Community Forum provides an area for users to engage in conversation with one another, share files, and subscribe to their favorite topics. Topics are organized into forum categories, and multiple forums can exist, with the ability to be moderated by an admin.

Configuring the community forum

1. Go to Community > Community Forums.
2. Select Categories to add a new category. Categories can hold an unlimited number of forums and keep your forum list organized as it grows—for example, Annual Conference, Website Feedback, or Resources. Some clients start with one category to house all of their forums.
3. Select the New plus sign, give the category a name, then select Save.
4. Assign permissions to your categories by selecting the Permissions icon. Select the appropriate boxes to give groups permission to access forums within each category, then select Save.

   

5. With your categories in place, create forums within them—forums are the place for member discussion and file sharing. Select the New plus sign, then configure the settings in the Basic box:
   • Forum: The name of the forum.
   • Description: A short description of the forum's purpose.
   • Category: The category for the new forum.
   • Published: Set the forum to published to show it in the forum list.

   

6. Add the Advanced Settings:
   • Moderated: If set to Yes, the forum can be assigned one or more moderators who help keep it appropriate and on topic. Each moderator is listed at the bottom of the forum page.
   • Review: If set to Yes, forum topics and posts must be approved by a moderator before they display. This goes one level beyond notify—the moderator can deny posts that are inappropriate or off topic.
   • Notify of New Topics: If set to Yes, members with access to the forum are notified each time a new topic is posted. Instead of relying on users to log in on their own, an email goes out automatically with the forum name, the content of the post, and a link to log in.
   • Auto Subscribe to New Topics: If set to Yes, members with access are notified each time a new topic is posted or a comment is made on an existing post.
   Note: We advise against using Auto Subscribe to New Topics. It's the highest level of forum involvement, and many users prefer to log in to their profile and set their own notify and subscribe settings.

   

7. Set the forum permissions. Permissions are broken down by group, so different groups can have different access to a specific forum—a group can have the ability to read a forum but not reply. Depending on your association, it might be appropriate to give the public read access but reserve replying as a member benefit. Here's an example of how forum permissions might be assigned:

   

8. If your forum is set to Moderated, assign a moderator by selecting the Moderator icon, then select the moderators you want to add.

   

9. View or update Global Configuration if applicable. The Basic Settings tab sets the overall configuration for your community forum: give the board a title (like Community Forum or Bulletin Board), set the message that appears if you take the forum offline, configure whether the forum is searchable through Site Search, and select whether the last post or the first post appears at the top.

   

   Under Advanced Settings, configure Email Subscriptions (users can subscribe by email to individual forum topics), decide whether users can favorite a topic, and toggle Karma, which lets forum users vote a post up or down. Toggle the Board Summary page, which shows summary information like the number of topics and posts in each forum, and create a list of bad words to filter out of the forum.

   

Adding a community forum menu item

Once the forum is configured, give groups access by adding the forum as a menu item on your MC Professional site.

1. Go to Website > Menu Items and select the menu you want to add the menu item to.
2. Select the New plus sign.
3. Under Select Menu Item type, select Community Forum > View Forum List.

   

4. Give the menu item a name (for example, Community Forum), generate the alias by pressing the Tab key, then select the menu item under which the community forum should appear. If the forum should have a menu item of its own, select Top. Select Save.

   

5. Assign the menu item permissions by selecting the permissions lock at the top of the Menu Manager page. Select the groups who should be able to view this menu item. If the public shouldn't access any forums, leave the Public box clear. Select Save.

   

Member view

From the member perspective, the community forum is an area to bring up new topics or reply to existing ones. Forum categories display on the main forum page, with the forums related to each category inside. Within each forum, members post, view, and reply to topics. For example: forum category Events, forum 2015 Annual Conference, topics Conference Luncheon and Places to Stay.

Within a particular topic, users can reply to the topic, subscribe to it, or mark it as a favorite.

• Replying adds a new response to the topic list. Replies can include file attachments—useful for meeting minutes or conference notes.
• Subscribing means that anytime a user replies to the post, subscribers receive an email with a link to the forum post. Users can view their My Subscribes list and unsubscribe from any topics no longer relevant to them.
• Favoriting adds the topic to the user's My Favorites list, available anytime under My Posts—a running list of topics to revisit later. Unlike subscribing, favoriting doesn't send emails, so it's a less intrusive way to stay up to date.