You can now link community members out to an external URL to access content from a website, existing database, etc. using External Content. You can also control whether external content appears in your community’s main content list while still allowing members to find it through search.
Create a piece of external link content
Sign into your dashboard.
Navigate to Content, and External Content. Select the ‘+ New External Content’ button in the upper right and enter all the necessary information like Title, External Link, Summary, and Visibility in Content List.
The external link should be the URL you want to direct the member to when they click on the piece of content in the community.
You can limit access to certain Spaces, and tag or group them with other content pieces in Collections.
You can also control whether the external content appears in the main content list. Each community has a default setting for external content visibility in the content list, and each external content item can either follow that default, always show in the content list, or always hide from the content list.
Select 'Submit' to save your work, and Publish the piece of content to have it go live in your community
External content visibility controls
You can control whether external content appears in your community’s main content list in two places:
Default Visibility in Content List
At the community level, admins can choose whether external content is shown in the content list by default. This setting controls the default behavior for new and existing external content that follows the community setting.
Visibility in Content List
Each external content item also has its own visibility setting. You can choose to follow the community default, always show the content in the content list, or always hide it from the content list.
Hiding external content from the content list only affects where it appears in list-based content views, such as the main content list, content list components, the content sidebar, and tag-filtered content lists. It does not remove the content from search results, direct links, featured content, or collections.
Note: If you plan to sync external content through an integration such as Zendesk or Intercom, make sure your community’s default visibility setting is configured before you set up the integration. Otherwise, each synced content item would need to be updated individually if you want a different visibility setting.
External Content in your Community
Members can access external content from the Content tab when it is shown in the content list. When they click the title or graphic poster, they are taken directly to the URL you specified. External content hidden from the content list can still be accessed through search, featured content, collections, or a direct link.
