While Discussions are a great place to begin a conversation with fellow members, they also give you an opportunity to share your knowledge, and provide helpful advice. What's more, you can participate both online and via email.
Post a message online
To post a message online, navigate to a community and:
NOTE: You must be a member of a community to post to it, unless it's a public community.
- Click the Discussion tab.
- Click Post New Message.
NOTE: By default, most community Home pages include some type of discussion widget typically allowing you to post, as shown below:
- On the resulting page, write and format your message using the available options.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| To | The community you're posting to will already be selected here, but if you'd like to post to a different Discussion, you can select any communities you belong to from this menu. |
| Cross Post To | You can simultaneously post your message to threads in two communities (the selected Discussion thread and a thread in another community that you belong to).
NOTE: This creates two distinct and independent threads; updates to one thread do not affect or appear in the other thread. NOTE: Community admins can create a case to request that this feature be enabled/disabled for the account. The setting is account-wide and cannot be adjusted per community or per post. NOTE: You cannot cross-post to a Topic Community because of the requirement to have Topic Tags on every post in a Topic Community, and these tags will not apply to other, non-Topic Communities. |
| From | Indicates the owner of the thread; your name is automatically selected and cannot be changed. |
| Post message anonymously | If Anonymous Posting is enabled for the community's Discussion, you can check the box to post your message without any identifying information about you being included. |
| Subject | Provide a clear subject so users know what your message is about. |
| Automatically insert content preview for links | If you paste a link to a web page in the editor, the system attempts to capture a relevant image and promotional text for that web page. This is then used by the editor to create a preview for the content in your message. If you don't want to use this feature, you have two options:
|
| Message | Write your message here, along with any formatting, images, videos.
TIP: See Content Editor to learn more about its features. |
| Signature | This field displays your default signature, which will be added to the bottom of your message. Click Edit Your Default Signature to edit your signature prior to posting. |
| Attachments | If you'd like to include attachments with your message, click Attach and browse for your file(s) via the available options.
NOTE: Files attached via this method are automatically added to the community's Resource Library. |
- When finished, you have a few options:
- Click Send to post your message. Any community members who subscribe to receive digests and/or real-time emails will also receive your message via email.
NOTE: If the community's Discussion is moderated, an administrator will need to approve your message before it posts.
- Click Schedule to schedule your post to release at a future date and time.
- Click Save as Draft to save your post as a draft you can finish later. As an additional safety net, your work is also automatically saved as a draft any time you're idle for 10 seconds.
See Schedule & Draft to learn more about scheduling and drafting messages.
Post a message via email
If you're subscribed to a community's Discussion, you'll receive email notifications about new posts per your subscription type (e.g., Real Time, Daily Digest). It's from these emails, like the one below, that you can participate in a variety of ways.
NOTE: The default subscription email template configuration is shown and discussed below, so the available buttons and links in your emails may be different. Super Admins can update these templates on the Admin > Communities > Digest Configuration > Discussion Template page. See Manage Your Digest Email Templates for more information.
- These options allow you to reply via your email client without going online. You can either post a new, standalone message to the Discussion OR send a reply to the entire Discussion group. As long as the system recognizes your email address as belonging to a Higher Logic account, your message will post.
- Clicking these options takes you to the Discussion to reply online. You can reply to either the message's author directly OR the entire Discussion group.
See Manage Your Community Notifications to learn more about Discussion subscriptions and how to manage them.
Real-time participation emails
If you're opted-in to real-time participation emails, you'll be notified via email when someone:
- replies to one of your discussion posts
- leaves a comment on one of your blog articles, library uploads, or ideation submissions.
These participation emails ensure you're immediately aware of the latest developments related to the content you've contributed.
See Real-time Participation Emails to learn more about this feature, including how to manually follow content and unsubscribe from participation emails.
Edit a message you've posted
Whether you've posted your own message or replied to someone's, you're free to edit your messages at any time. To do so, navigate to one of your messages and select Edit from the menu on the right.
You can also access all of your Discussion posts (and all your other contributions) right from your profile. Just click My Contributions > List of Contributions.
Reply to a message
If you read a thread and want to contribute to the conversation, there are two ways to do so:
1 - Reply to the entire Discussion
Click Reply to post your response inline to the entire discussion group. This will likely be your default response method much of the time to ensure the entire community can view it and engage with you.
When replying this way, you'll use the Basic editor, with a limited set of options. Click the ellipsis (...) icon to expand the Basic Plus editor with additional formatting options (shown below).
2 - Reply only to poster
Select Reply Privately from the menu to respond only to the post's author. This is a great way to keep your response hidden from the rest of the community and only reply to the author of the post.
NOTE: You can't reply privately if the author posted anonymously.
TIP: When replying to a message via either of these methods, click the Original Message button to view the original message and all associated replies in the thread. This is helpful when replying to long or complicated messages that you want to reference as you draft your reply, and when a thread contains numerous posts.
Recommend a post
If you come across a post that you think is of particular value, you can recommend it so that other members can easily see what content (posts and/or replies) warrants a look.
NOTE: Super Admins manage this option for their Communities, so if it doesn't display, it might have been disabled.
The Recommend button displays with the content, which makes it easy to recommend and to see what's been recommended.
NOTE: "Recommend" is the default label for this button, but it is customizable, so it might have a different label in your Community.
- Click the "Recommend" button to recommend a post or its reply. The adjacent recommend count increases by 1.
- Click the recommend count (if 1 or greater) to display a pop up and see who has recommended the content.
NOTE: The pop up is an optional feature and might be disabled in your Community.
Mark a post as the Best Answer
When someone starts a thread asking a question, there's generally a reply that offers the best answer. If the Best Answer feature is enabled for your community, Super Admins, Community Admins, and the thread's original poster can mark a reply in a discussion as the Best Answer by selecting Make Best Answer from a post's menu.
NOTE: You can clear a best answer post at any time by selecting Clear Best Answer from the menu. Only one post can be flagged as the Best Answer at a time.
The post is then visually highlighted to indicate this, ensuring other users know.
In addition, threads with a reply marked as the Best Answer include a Jump To Best Answer link at the top right, making it easy for users to quickly see the best content.
NOTE: This feature is disabled by default, and must be enabled by a Super Admin on a community by community basis. If you don't see this option in your community discussion, please contact your Super Admin representative.
See the Make Best Answer section of the Post Management article to learn how to enable this feature.