Table of Contents
Introduction to the Community Forum
How does our community differ from other community products out there (like Circle, Skool or Mighty Networks)?
While our forum module has a very close featureset to other products, we do a number of things differently.
Fine-grained permission controls on groups and spaces, to segment and control who has access to what parts of your forum, based on things like course enrollment and student tags.
Space syncing with course discussion – the perfect way to bring comment activity from inside your course into your forum - AS FORUM POSTS. On other platforms, content exists only in one place, which "traps" comments not inside the forum in a "silo". With us, you can include those comments and discussions INTO your main forum, so students browsing your forum will see discussions happening inside the course's content discussions. Which increases engagement on your content for all participants.
Multiple images in each post: most platforums allow just one image or animated GIF per post. We allow unlimited images, so users can fully express themselves.
How to Access the Forum
You can find the link to the Forum in your account sidebar. This will take you right into the Forum as an administrator, and will give you certain administrator-level tools that normal users don't see.
Using the Community Forum
Your Community Forum is divided into Groups, Spaces and Posts
First step is to create a Group by clicking the plus sign:
You'll see options to create your Group Name, Accent Color, and select who should be able to view this group (everyone, only students in a particular course, or only students with a particular Tag).
You'll also have an option whether or not to make the Members List public. (Note that if you choose to make it public, students can still choose whether or not they want to be shown in this list).
Once you've created a Group, you'll see it on the left sidebar
Click to create a new Space within the Group
Next, in the right sidebar that pops out, enter a name for your new Space
Choose whether this will be a regular space or if you want to use Space Syncing. Most of the time you'll be creating a normal Space (the top choice):
Space Syncing gives you the choice to:
Mirror no course content – this creates a regular forum space
Mirror discussion from all trainings – this places ALL course discussion into a single space. (Use this if your course has less than 10 trainings in total)
Mirror discussion from a specific module – this allows you to create a separate space for each module in your course. So, if your course has 5 modules, you can have 1 space for each module
Mirror selected training(s) – this allows you to choose which training discussion to mirror. (Handy if you want to create curated spaces with specific training content)
Mirror specific page(s) discussion – allows you to bring in discussions happening on custom pages in your course
After you've made your choice, click the Create Space button and you'll see your Space on the left sidebar inside your Group. Click to view Posts, Members, or Search within that Space!
How to Create a New Post in the Forum
Once you've created a Group and created a Space inside that Group, you can now add a post.
Click on the arrow to open up the Group and show the Spaces that you've created
Click on the Space where you want to create a post
Click to create your first post
Write your post. You can include emojis, attach files, upload images, and add animated GIFs!
How to Delete Posts from the Forum
Click on the "space" where the post is located
Click the menu in the top right hand corner of the post, and select "Delete"
How Your Students Can Access the Forum
For your students to be able to access the Forum, you'll need to first add it to your Navigation Bar. Here's how to do that.
Once you've set up a tab on your Nav Bar, then your students can click to access the Forum
How to Mention Someone in the Forum
You can "mention" a student in a post or reply to a post, using the @ symbol to pull up their name and tag them. Here's how to do it
This is helpful for drawing specific students' attention to a conversation, when needed!
Based on the students' notification settings, they can receive a notification either inside the app or by email (or both).
Pinning Posts in the Forum
As the admin, you can pin important posts to the top of your forum.
Students can also pin posts.
If the ADMIN pins a post, it will go to the top of the page.
If STUDENT pins a post, it will go in the "Pinned Posts" section in the upper right hand corner
How to Schedule a Post in the Forum
Need to schedule a post in advance? Easy to do!
Create a post, and select the calendar icon in the lower right hand corner.
Select your upcoming time and date to publish the post.
How to Add Moderators to a Forum Group
In the Forum, Edit your Group by clicking on the menu here:
In the popup modal on the right hand side of your screen, select "Options" and Click on "Moderators"
Begin typing to select the name of the student who you want to add as a moderator. (Any student present on the site may be assigned as a moderator).
Moderators can manage space settings, edit/ remove posts and comments, and pin/ unpin posts.