# Set up a community or ideas board

> Choose who can post, reply and vote, and define the stages of your roadmap.

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

| Preset | Who can post | Replies | Votes | Vote style | Layout | Default order |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Articles | Your team | Off | Team and portal visitors | Helpful or not | Docs | Manual order |
| News | Your team | Off | Off | — | Timeline | Newest first |
| Discussions | Team and portal visitors | Team and portal visitors | Team and portal visitors | Upvotes | Forum | Latest activity |
| Questions | Team and portal visitors | Team and portal visitors | Team and portal visitors | Upvotes | Forum | Latest activity |
| Ideas | Team and portal visitors | Team and portal visitors | Team and portal visitors | Upvotes | Board | Most votes |

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

## The settings

| Setting | Options |
| --- | --- |
| **Who can post** | **Your team**, or **Team and portal visitors** |
| **Review new posts** | Posts from portal visitors wait until your team publishes them. Needs **Who can post** set to **Team and portal visitors**. |
| **Replies** | **Off**, **Your team only**, or **Team and portal visitors** |
| **Accepted answer** | The person who posted can mark one reply as the answer. Needs **Replies** on. |
| **Votes** | **Off**, **Your team only**, or **Team and portal visitors** |
| **Vote style** | **Helpful or not**, **Upvotes**, **Faces (3 levels)** or **Stars (1–5)**. Needs **Votes** on. |
| **Default order** | **Manual order**, **Newest first**, **Latest activity** or **Most votes** |
| **Layout** | **Docs**, **Cards**, **Timeline**, **Forum** or **Board** |

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](https://support.help.ai/portals/follow-posts-and-email-updates). To keep a board tidy, see [Merge duplicates and announce shipped ideas](https://support.help.ai/portals/merge-duplicates-and-announce-shipped-ideas).

<Tip>
Turn on **Review new posts** for a new community until you know what it attracts. Waiting posts appear in **Content** → **Moderation**.
</Tip>