Set up a community or ideas board

Each collection has its own rules for posting, replying and voting. Presets set sensible defaults, and you can change any setting later: open Content → Collections, select the collection and find Behaviour.

What each preset sets#

Questions also turns on Accepted answer, and Ideas comes with stages.

The settings#

A setting that depends on another is greyed out while that one is off, and keeps its value for when you turn it back on.

Answers and official responses#

• Replies from your team carry an Official response badge.
• With Accepted answer on, the person who posted sees Mark as answer under each reply, and Unmark answer to undo it. The accepted answer moves to the top with an Accepted answer badge.
• Your team can mark an answer too, from the item's Discussion card in Content.

Reply as your team#

Open an item in Content → Items. The Discussion card under its form shows every reply. Write in Reply as your team and select Reply. The card tells you how many followers get an email. You can also Hide, Show or delete replies there.

Stages for an ideas board#

The Ideas preset starts with four stages: Under review, Planned, In progress and Done. Under Stages, select Add stage for more. You can have up to 20, each with:

• A Name, such as Planned.
• A Reference key. Leave it blank to use the name. Items store the key, so changing it later removes the stage from items already at it.
• A Color: Grey, Blue, Amber, Green or Red.
• An optional Roadmap line of up to 120 characters, shown under the stage's column on the roadmap, such as Next three months.

Move an idea to another stage#

There are two ways, and only one tells people:

• Announce it: open the idea in Content. In its Discussion card, choose Move to a stage under Stage, add a note if you like, and select Reply and move to that stage. The update shows in the idea's thread on the portal, and its followers get an email.
• Change it quietly: pick a new Stage in the idea's form and select Save changes. Nobody gets an email.

On the portal#

A board with stages has a List view, where visitors filter by stage, and a Roadmap view with one column per stage, plus Not yet sorted for ideas without a stage.

While someone writes a new idea, the portal shows similar ideas, so they can vote for one instead of posting it again.

Decide who takes part#

Who may post, reply and vote also depends on the portal's access. In the portal's Settings → Access, Who can take part is either Anyone, without signing in, or Signed-in members, who sign in with their email first. New portals start with Signed-in members.

Signed-in members who post, reply or vote follow that item and hear about changes by email. See Follow posts and email updates. To keep a board tidy, see Merge duplicates and announce shipped ideas.