Knowledge Base

Manage Community Settings

  • Updated

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This article...

  • Explains how to access a community's Settings page to manage its configuration.
  • Describes how to set a community's join and view permissions.
  • Outlines moderation options for user-generated content.
  • Discusses controls for enabling or disabling community features, such as discussions, libraries, and events.
  • Explains how to add, remove, and manage tags for organizing and identifying community content.

NOTE: This article is specific to HL-managed communities; it does not pertain to AMS-managed communities in which an integrated AMS/CRM database is the authoritative database. To learn about this distinction, see Understand How Communities Are Managed.

Each community has a dedicated Settings page on which you can manage various aspects of the community, such as:

  • the View and Join permissions,
  • whether and when content is moderated,
  • which features are available to which users, and
  • the Tags that are available for community content.

Access a community's Settings

As indicated by the legend at the top of this article, a community's settings can be managed by Super Admins and Community Admins.

  1. Navigate to the community's Home page.
  2. Click the Settings button.
  3. Under Administration, click Settings.

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The Edit Community Settings page displays. It lists the community's available settings and their current configuration.

NOTE: The settings that are available can vary from one community to another based on the Community Type.

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The table in the next section describes each setting.

Community Settings described

Setting Description
Name The community's name, which displays on the community's Home page and the All Communities page.
Type Use this dropdown to change the community's Community Type, which determines a few default settings and which features are available in the Features area (more on Features below).
Description Enter a community description, purpose, or mission statement.

This information displays on the All Communities page, and is generally used to give users information about the community so they can decide whether they want to join.

Topic Community Toggle to Yes or No to set whether this community is a Topic Community.

Topic Communities are special communities where all content, upon creation, must be flagged with unique Topic Tags (created by Super Admins). This ensures all content belongs to organizational-approved categories, which, in turn, makes all Topic Community content easily searchable and consumable by users interested in specific topics.

This option is only available if a Topic Community has been set up on your site. See Topic Communities to learn more.

Who can join? Sets the community's join permissions:
  • Invitation Only - Users can only join this community by invitation from an Admin (or other member if community members are allowed to invite).
  • [site] Members - Only users belonging to Security Groups with Member rights can join this community. Those with Member permissions can also join communities set to Authenticated.
  • Authenticated - Any logged in user can join this community. An authenticated user may or may not have Member status.
  • Request to Join - To join this type of community, users must manually submit a request. A Community Admin or Super Admin can then either approve or reject these requests. Requests are managed per community, and placed in a queue for easy management.

    See Request to Join Communities to learn more.

NOTE: Communities a user can view but not join are indicated with a locked icon.

Who can view? Sets the community's view permissions on the All Communities page, allowing you to hide specific communities from specific groups of users:

NOTE: This setting does NOT control who can view a community's content, just its visibility on the All Communities page.

  • Invitation Only - Users can only view this community by invitation from an Admin (or other member if community members are allowed to invite).
  • [site] Members - Only users belonging to Security Groups with Member rights can view this community. Those with Member permissions can also join communities set to Authenticated.
  • Authenticated - Any logged in user can view this community. An authenticated user may or may not have Member status.
  • Public - Both users with a login AND without a login to your site can view this community.
Moderation Setting These options let you control whether user-created content (discussion posts, blog posts, ideation posts, and library entries) has to be approved before being available in the community.
  • No Moderation - New user-created content does not require admin approval; it is immediately available in the community.
  • Self Moderation - New user-created content does not require admin approval; it is immediately available in the community. However, all users who have access to the content can send it to moderation using the Mark As Inappropriate option on the post or file page (Ideation posts excepted). The user will be prompted to give a reason for marking the content as inappropriate. At this point, the content is removed and a Community or Super Admin must i) approve the moderation request to keep the content in moderation or ii) reject the request to add the content back to the community.
  • Full Moderation - ALL new user-created content is queued in moderation and requires admin approval before being available in the community.

NOTE: A community discussion's Moderation setting is automatically applied to its associated library. For example, if set to Full Moderation, all uploaded files must be approved before they're available.

NOTE: See Manage a Community's Moderation Queue to learn more.

Member invitations If enabled, members of this community can invite others to join by selecting Invite Others to Join from the Settings menu on the community's Home page.
Features Check the boxes to control which features are available in the community.

NOTE: The available features are determined by the Community Type selected above (in the Type field). For example, if the Community Type does not allow Discussions and Microsites, these features won't display. See Manage Community Types to learn more.

  • Website - Controls whether this community has its own Microsite. If enabled, the community has its own standalone website apart from your main site, giving admins more flexibility in its layout and design. See the Microsites section of the knowledge base to learn about Microsites and how to create them.
  • Discussion - Controls whether this community has a Discussion.
  • Library - Controls whether this community has a Resource Library.
  • Ideation - Controls whether this community has community-specific Ideation.
  • Who can create events? - Controls whether only admins or admins AND community members can create events for this community.

NOTE: Depending on the community's content and which other optional modules your organization licenses, you may see other features listed here (e.g., Blog, Announcements, Workspace, and Volunteer Opportunities).

NOTE: If the community has any of these features, you can remove them by clicking their Delete button. Keep in mind doing so removes all of their associated content.

Formal Tags Tags that have been added to the community are listed here. You can add tags and you can click an X button to remove a tag.

Tags that are applied appear on the All Communities page, and users can click them to view any content in the community with that tag. Tags are an excellent way to organize community content and make it easy to find.

If you've made any updates, click:

  • Save and Invite Members to save your changes and invite people to join the community.
  • Save to save your changes.
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