In this article, you'll learn how to hide and delete communities.

Hide a Community

There may be certain use-cases where you want to hide a community. This is accomplished by changing the community's Community Type to a "hidden" Community Type.

If you're hiding a database-managed community:

Your Higher Logic site should include a few hidden Community Types, by default, so let's begin by making sure this is the case.

1. Click Admin in the Webmaster Links menu.
2. Click Admin.

3. Select Community Types from the Communities menu.

From the menu, you should see a number of hidden Community Types, which should already be configured as database-managed Community Types.

To check this, select the Type you want to use for your hidden database communities and make sure the Managed within the Backend System option is selected. Then, scroll down to Display Options and make sure Show communities of this type in the Community List is toggled OFF. Go ahead and toggle OFF the Permissions settings as well.

At this point, change the Community Type of the community you want to hide to your chosen Type in your backend database.

NOTE: Any community content will still appear in search results even after the community is hidden. So, you need to decide whether you want to preserve the content or delete it.

1. If you want to preserve the content, contact your Support representative and they'll help you archive it or move it to another community.
2. If you don't need the content, simply delete it.

If you're hiding a Higher Logic-managed community:

1. Click Admin in the Webmaster Links menu.
2. Click Admin.

3. Select Community Types from the Communities menu.

Even though your site may have a few default hidden Community Types, they're likely configured as database-managed Community Types. Because of this, the best thing to do is create a new Community Type specifically for hiding Higher Logic-managed communities. So, click Add new community type.

Now, just make sure:

• The Managed within Connected Community option is selected,
• you give the new Type an appropriate name (e.g., Hidden Higher Logic Community),
• and you toggle the Display Options to OFF (specifically Show communities of this type in the Community List). Go ahead and toggle OFF the Permissions settings as well.

Now that you've created your hidden Community Type, you're ready to hide the community:

1. From the community's Home page, click Settings.
2. Click Settings in the resulting menu.

3. Because community content (e.g., Discussion or Library content, etc.) will still appear in search results after the community is hidden, you need to decide whether you want to preserve the content or simply delete it:

1. If you want to preserve this content, contact your Support representative and they'll help you archive it or move it to another community.
2. If you don't need the content, simply click the Delete buttons next to each product to remove it.

4. Now, all you need to do is change the Community Type to your hidden one, so select it from the Type menu.
5. Lastly, click Save.

Delete a Community

If hiding a community is not sufficient, you can also delete it to remove it altogether.

NOTE: You can't delete database-managed communities from the Higher Logic platform. These steps explain how to delete a Higher Logic-managed community.

1. From the community's Home page, click Settings.
2. Click Settings in the resulting menu.

3. All of a community's content must be deleted before you can delete the community.

NOTE: If you want to preserve any of the community's content, contact your Support representative for assistance (or they'll help you move it to another community). Then, click the red Delete buttons next to each community product to remove the content.

4. After the community's content has been preserved and/or deleted, click the red Delete button at the bottom of the page to delete the community. Any current members will lose their membership and the community will no longer appear on the All Communities list or from a member's My Communities page.